Congrats & Bye, Kathleen!

Congratulations to Kathleen McSweeney, one our long-standing and dedicated library assistants, who graduated from UCLA with her MLIS degree in June!

Kathleen came to the Clark with experience working at the Palomar College Library and in Resource Sharing (ILL) at CSU, San Marcos. Here at the Clark, Kathleen was most passionate about our Edgar Allen Poe collections and became our expert rare book processor, working tirelessly on our collection of books and journals published by the Sette of Odd Volumes book club. She also focused on providing better access to our materials, updating the Oscar Wilde card catalog to better reflect the online finding aid, saving both researchers and staff time and effort in locating material. Kathleen provided top-notch reference for all of our scholars and helped train new library assistants in the ways (and secrets!) of the Clark. With her keen eye and dedicated attitude, she served as an excellent appraisal assistant and knew the entire Clark collection inside and out. Kathleen proved invaluable as our go-to birthday card designer and always worked hard to make sure our reading room had enough coverage, often volunteering to switch her schedule and always being the first one here in the morning. In her studies, Kathleen focused on improving access to collections for the disabled, and she will contribute immensely to the library world. We’ll miss seeing her bright and early every morning and can’t wait to see where she settles!

Good-bye and Good Luck!

On Wednesday, June 12, 2013, our interns were invited to participate in the quarterly CFPRT presentations on campus. The Center for Primary Research and Training is a program in the Young Research Library that introduces graduate students to the world of archival processing. The other five presenters were PhD candidates in disciplines that ranged from English to Ethnomusicology to Medical Anthropology. We might be a little prejudiced, but we think that they both gave the doctoral students a run for their money.

Daniella Aquino has spent her time at the Clark digging into the Hannah More material. The individual manuscripts have been cataloged separately, as have the broadsides from the Cheap Repository Tracts. In the next few weeks, collection-level records will be available for the printed pamphlets. Gloria Gonzalez has processed the Richard Popkin papers and a finding aid will be available on the Online Archive of California in the couple of weeks. Popkin’s library of antiquarian books is being cataloged and many records are already available through the UCLA Library catalog.

In addition to the presentation, both Daniella and Gloria curated an exhibition of the materials which will be on view at the Clark Library throughout the summer. Please contact us for an appointment to see these interesting exhibitions.

All good things must come to an end, and unfortunately, we will be saying adieu to our interns at the end of June. On behalf of everyone at the Clark Library, we wish them all the best in their future endeavors. We know that they will both make significant impacts in the library world — whether they pursue rare book cataloging, archival processing, curating, public service, digital initiatives, or continuing scholarship. The knowledge and hands-on experience they’ve developed over the past 30 weeks should give them a competitive edge as they pursue their careers. We thank them for their hard work, professionalism, and good cheer!

New Acquisitions: The Grand Tour of Louis-Benjamin Fleuriau de Bellevue, 1788-1791

From Head Librarian Gerald Cloud

The collection is elegantly housed in custom slipcases

Fresh off the boat from the continent is this fabulous collection of eighteenth century science, travel, and culture, comprising twenty manuscript notebooks and journals of more than 1,150 pages describing Louis-Benjamin Fleuriau de Bellevue’s Grand Tour of France and Italy, 1788-1791. Fleuriau de Bellevue was a mineralogist and geologist whose collections formed part of the foundation for the Museum of Natural History at La Rochelle. The unpublished notebooks are illustrated with numerous sketches and drawings, and include valuable mineralogical observations as well as remarks on churches, architecture, art, social customs, inns, and other travelers’ information. In addition to Italy Fleuriau’s travels took him to and Malta, Switzerland and the Tirol, a portion of which was in the company of the famous French geologist Deodat de Dolomieu, after whom the Dolomites were named.

The Roman notebooks

The Roman notebooks

 

 

The notebooks are well preserved and will serve a wide variety of researchers and scholars interested in 18th century travel, science, culture and more. The collection is currently being cataloged and will be available to scholars soon…

A drawing of a port in the Mediterranean from notebook number 5

Save the Date for the Clark’s Summer Exhibition Event!

The staff of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library is pleased to invite you to an exhibition opening and talk on Tuesday, July 2nd.  For An Exhibition in Six Courses: Testing Recipes from the Clark’s Manuscript Collection, Visual Resources Specialist Jennifer Bastian has curated a selection of manuscripts and books relating to 17th and 18th Century cookery.  She has tested several recipes in her home kitchen and will be discussing the process and its results with attendees.  Clark scholar and UCLA Phd candidate Alex Eric Hernandez, who spearheaded the brewing of an authentic Nottingham Ale especially for this event, will also be on hand to add to the discussion.

The library will be open for viewing of the exhibition from 4-7pm, and a short talk in the Outdoor Reading Room will begin at 5pm.  During the reception, Jennifer and Alex will serve guests some of their Nottingham Ale.

The exhibition will be on view from June 30 until the end of September.

Hannah More at the Clark

If you missed the flash exhibition on campus, here’s a second chance to see:

The Life & Times of Hannah More: Author, Reformist & Philanthropist

Curated by Daniella Aquino

at The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

On view (by appointment only!) during summer 2013

From the curator:

Over the past year, I have worked with both the manuscript and print materials from the Clark Library’s Hannah More Collection. During the first half of my internship, I created a finding aid for the manuscript materials, which included letters to and from Hannah More, letters from her contemporaries, diaries, portraits, and various other visual materials. The collection was relatively small, so I described the materials at the item level. I became familiar with every item in the collection, and I enjoyed the research involved in the process.  These materials gave me an inside perspective of Hannah More’s life. She is often remembered as a strict moral reformist, but her letters and diaries reveal her friendly and witty nature. She was wildly popular in her time, and was always surrounded by friends. She moved in the most prominent intellectual circles, and her strong friendships played important roles in her life.

For my final project, I designed an exhibit to showcase some of the most personal and interesting pieces in the collection. More is recognized for her literary contributions, but I wanted to convey the personal side of her experiences. For example, the display includes a first edition of Sir Eldred of the Bower, one of More’s early works. The book was dedicated to her dear friend, the famous actor David Garrick.  Alongside the book is a manuscript poem written by Garrick. The poem was written in praise of Sir Eldred, and reveals the great friendship shared by Garrick and More. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with this collection, and I encourage users to view the exhibit and learn more about this extraordinary and prolific woman.

For more information, I highly recommend Women, Morality & Advice Literature: Manuscripts and Rare Printed Works of Hannah More (1745-1833) and her Circle from the Clark Library, Los Angeles, edited by Professor Patricia Demers, Professor Anne Mellor, and Janice Devereux, 2005. This book has been extremely useful throughout my research, and is referenced extensively in the finding aid and catalog records for the collection.