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History of the Book in the American Literature Classroom: On the Fly and on the Cheap

from Part II - Creating and Using Resources

Jean Lee Cole
Affiliation:
Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland
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Summary

I had always dreamed of teaching at a small liberal arts college. But when my dream came true, I suddenly realized something was missing: the wealth of archival and special collections materials that had surrounded me at the huge public university where I had done my graduate work. My research had become increasingly dependent on these materials, and I also (unsurprisingly) wanted to bring them into my teaching. But I discovered to my chagrin that my library did not have a special collections department, it did not have any archives, nor did it have a librarian who knew anything about rare books and manuscripts. It had a rare books room – but no one seemed to know where it was. When I finally found a librarian who had the key to the room, I discovered the reason for this ignorance. A room was all it was – a small room containing a few stacks of old books that had belonged to previous administrators, resident Jesuits, and alumni, and moldering cardboard boxes filled with textual detritus in varying stages of decay. Nothing in the room had ever been catalogued, and at first glance, little appeared to be usable. There certainly was nothing like what had graced the special collections at my graduate-school alma mater: three copies of shakespeare's First Folio and thirty-six copies of the first edition of James Joyce's Ulysses (of the 1000 printed). Even if there had been, there would have been no way for my students to actually look at them, as there was no way to check out the books or even a desk at which to read them.

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Publisher: Pickering & Chatto
First published in: 2014

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