Special Collections
Around the World and Across Time
This article was originally published in the November 2002 issue of CLASnotes.
Leonardo Villalom studies new acquisitions to the Africana collection.
Would you like to go back in time and see what Florida looked like in the days of pirates? Or meet a great writer from history and find out what inspired her? Though the university does not own a time machine, the Smathers Library does have a place where you can explore distant times and places—the Department of Special and Area Studies Collections.
Possibly one of UF's best kept secrets, special collections is open for all to enjoy. You can flip through Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' original manuscript of The Yearling or examine a Spanish map of Florida dating back to 1562. The special collections are used most often by CLAS professors and students. "The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is our core constituency," says Carl Van Ness, university archivist and associate chair of special collections. "We are really here, it seems, to serve your college."
On any given week day, you will find students and professors pouring over boxes of manuscripts and volumes of aged texts from any of the department's ten collections.
The Africana collection was developed to support the Center for African Studies. It contains more than 130,000 books, as well as a large collection of periodicals, audio and video recordings, newspapers, microfilm, maps, manuscripts and documents. On a recent trip to the library, Leonardo Villalón, director of the Center for African Studies, was pleased to discover a collection of photos taken by former UF biologist Lewis Berner while stationed in Africa during World War II. Villalón, who joined the faculty this summer, looks forward to researching in special collections. "Among the many things that were attractive about UF to me when moving here was the superb library collection and the great Africana librarians we have," Villalón says. "The Africana collection just this semester has gotten a couple of very nice additions, so the Africana library is certainly a draw."
The Asian collection was established in conjunction with the recent reopening of the Center for Asian Studies and is currently in the development stage. New holdings are being acquired and the focus is on building a strong Chinese and Japanese collection. "A carefully planned and sustained development and expansion of the collection is critical if the rapidly growing teaching and research needs of both the faculty and students in Asian Studies are to be met," says Michael Tsin, director of the Center for Asian Studies. So far, the library has obtained microforms, a strong book collection of pre-modern literature, a complete set of books on Buddhism and the three major sets of Chinese works.
The Belknap Collection for the Performing Arts includes more than 60,000 playbills, programs, posters, photographs, costume and stage designs, theatrical scrapbooks, sheet music, advertising circulars, clippings, recordings and scripts.
History graduate student Amanda Harbert is using the Belknap collection's vast holdings on 1930s dancer Ted Shawn to write her master's thesis. "He's the father of modern dance, and he started the all-male dance movement," Harbert says. "He came up against a lot of prejudice and had to make dance very masculine. I'm studying the way he constructed masculinity through dance." Harbert got the idea for her thesis from the curator of the Belknap collection, Jim Liversidge. "I knew there were a lot of printed materials here related to popular culture and performing arts, so I had him take me through the collection, and that's when he told me about Ted Shawn."
The holdings on Shawn include performance programs, photographs and every book he wrote on dancing. "There's really nothing like it anywhere, except maybe the New York Public Library," says Harbert. "We have a really good collection here."
The Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature contains about 90,000 volumes of British and American children's literature from the 1700s to the present. "We have an accurate representation of what children have actually read over the years," says Van Ness. "People in the English department use this collection often."
The Baldwin collection contains rows and rows of colorful children's books including first editions of Hans Christian Anderson novels, Golden Books and over 300 editions of Robinson Crusoe published from 1719 through the 1980s.
The Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica was created to support the teaching and research missions of the Center for Jewish Studies. The collection contains more than 70,000 volumes of Hebrew and Yiddish linguistics and literature, social and political history, Palestinography and modern Israel, Zionism, Hebrew Scriptures, Judaism and rabbinics, and reference tools.
"The Price library is the foundation of the Center for Jewish Studies," says Kenneth Wald, director of the center. "It provides the raw material for the work of our students and faculty. I consider it a treasure. Last year, a job candidate whom we were interviewing told me he found things in the Price collection that he had seen before only in the Zionist archives in Jerusalem or major international libraries around the world."
The Latin American collection is among the largest and most distinguished collections of its kind in the US, consisting of more than 325,000 books and 50,000 microforms. "This collection is excellent in its quantity and quality and recognition nationwide," says Robert Shaddy, chair of the Department of Special and Area Studies Collections.
The P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History is one of the library's most popular collections. "Sixty percent of the people who walk through our door are here to see this collection," says Van Ness. Holdings include manuscripts, books, newspaper articles and a comprehensive collection of Florida maps dating back to the 1500s. Kevin McCarthy, an English professor, uses the collection often for his research on Florida history, on which he has written 19 books. He is currently co-authoring a book with Van Ness on the history of UF, in honor of the university's 150th anniversary in 2003, using old university records, archives of the Independent Florida Alligator and yearbooks to gather information. "It's the best collection in the state," McCarthy says.
The University Archives is the official custodian of UF's historically significant public records and includes files on university individuals, organizations and departments. It also contains UF yearbooks, newspapers, publications, photographs and artifacts.
The Manuscripts collection holds books and documents in their original hand or typewritten state before publication. It also consists of letters, diaries and journals never meant for publication. The collection includes the bulk of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' documents, which she willed to the university and which were passed on to the library after her death. The original manuscripts of Cross Creek and The Yearling are in the collection, full of edits scribbled in the margins, including a last minute change of the title from The Fluttermill to The Yearling. The Manuscripts collection also possesses documents of Zora Neale Hurston, including her correspondence and an original manuscript of Seraph of the Suwannee.
The Rare Book collection is the largest in the state. It holds an eclectic mix of books on theology, art, religious literature, Elizabethan drama, natural history and more. One of the jewels of the collection is a first edition of Moby Dick.
All of the collections are available for public use and can be found in the Special Collections Research Room, located on the second floor of Smathers Library East. The hours of operation are Monday-Friday, 9 am-6 pm until December 20. Each collection can be accessed through the university online catalog WebLuis. Visit http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec for more information or to access the catalog system.
As the new director of the Department of Special and Area Studies Collections, Robert Shaddy is still exploring what the unit has obtained throughout the years. "Just from being here a few weeks, I'm amazed at the breadth and scope of the collection," he says. "It is an awesome responsibility to build these collections. The things we do now will have an impact on the culture of future."
The Howe Society
The Department of Special and Area Studies Collections receives support from the Howe Society, a group of faculty, students and community members. To raise public awareness of the department, the society hosts lectures and receptions and collects funds to acquire new holdings for the library. For more information on how to get involved, call 392-9075, ext. 200.
Credits
Writer
Buffy Lockette
Photo
Jane Dominguez
