[Scriptoris] rare books

[Lisa Baumer]

Something nobody else has bothered to mention.  The one thing I remember
from my one and only foray into the special collections room at A&M was the
temperature.  These rooms are usually strictly climate controlled and tend
to be COLD.  If you go visit one bring a light sweater, even in August.

Elene

----- Original Message -----
From: "Diane Rudin" <serena1570 at yahoo.com>
To: <scriptoris at ansteorra.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2003 6:51 PM
Subject: Re: [Scriptoris] rare books


--
[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]

I know I probably don't have to say this, but I will anyway, because I know
too many librarians and museum collections managers with horror stories.

Please, please don't go to a special collection expecting to be able to
browse.  Don't write a letter or make a phone call asking to look at
anything other than a single specific item or two.  Take the time to find
out what items they have in their collection before contacting them.  Most
places have excellent websites now.  Also, use good sense.

For instance, Southern Methodist University's collection of rare books of
interest to us (medieval/Renaissance) is all religious in nature.  The
University of North Texas built its reputation as a music school; their rare
books of interest are going to be music books.  I don't know if they have
any missals or graduals there; I'll have to ask my brother-in-law.  The rare
book room at UT-Southwest Medical Center Library contains rare medical
texts.  UT has more money and rich alumni than anyone, and the Harry Ransom
Humanities Research Center there has a better selection of original
manuscripts than you'll find anywhere else in the state.  HL Ari can attest
from personal experience that their hours are erratic, at best, and
certainly not what they claim their hours are.  On the other hand, when last
I checked, which was admittedly several years ago, Rice University in
Houston had no handcrafted original manuscripts from before 1600 A.D. at
all.  None.  They did have a nice big single page framed and hanging on the
wall; from what I can remember, it's Italian, late 14th century.  But that
was it, and they were rather confused that I wanted to examine it up close.

Nothing drives museum collections managers crazier than getting letters
saying, in these *exact* words, "I want to look at your medieval
manuscripts".  I'm not making this up.  Janet Arnold, in her excellent
*Handbook of Costume* (a primer on how to do costume research, not a "who
wore what when" book), discussed what makes a good letter to a museum, and
bad letters, using real examples.  (IMHO, this book should be required
reading for the SCA.  Too bad it's *very* out of print.  Try Interlibrary
Loan.  That's how I first read it.)  A good letter asks a very specific
question.  For instance, in our scribal parlance, "I have been studying the
techniques of the mid-fifteenth-century Florentine illuminators of books of
hours, and would appreciate the opportunity to examine the V------- Hours in
your collection."  "I have been studying the secretary hands used by
thirteenth-century students in their production of Bibles, and would
appreciate the opportunity to examine one of those thirteenth-century
'student Bibles' in your collection."

The bottom line?  Research your research sources before you go visiting
them.  It will save them, and you, a lot of wasted, frustrated time.

--Serena, the voice of "been there, done that"



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