Earlier this week Miami University hired football coach Chuck Martin to become the newest member of the Miami coaching fraternity also known as the Cradle of Coaches. On behalf of Miami university Libraries and the Walter Havighurst Special Collections we’d like to welcome Coach Martin to Miami.

Coach Martin got his start in coaching at Mankato State University, now called Minnesota State University Mankato, as a graduate assistant under head coach Dan Runkle. From there he became the linebacker coach at Wittenberg for head coach Doug Neibuhr. After a few years Neibuhr left Wittenberg for a position at Martin’s alma mater, Millikin University, and Martin followed him, this time in the role of defensive coordinator. After two years at Millikin, Martin joined Rick Rasnick’s staff at Eastern Michigan University as the linebacker coach.

In 2000, Martin accepted the defensive coordinator position at Grand Valley State University (GVSU), under head coach Brian Kelly. In four seasons as defensive coordinator GVSU they won three conference championships and two national championships. When Brian Kelly left for Central Michigan University in 2004, Martin was named head coach. In six seasons as the head coach for GVSU, Martin led them to five conference championships and two national championships. During this time he amassed a record of 74-7 (91.4%).

Growing up Martin was a huge Notre Dame fan, and in 2010 he left GVSU to become an assistant at Notre Dame under Brian Kelly. While at Notre Dame he eventually moved into the offensive coordinator position, and helped lead the Fighting Irish to a national championship game appearance in 2012. Now he is the head coach at Miami University, looking to turn around a program that has only won eight games in the last three seasons.

Martin is looking to carry on the legacy of the great Miami coaches who came before him. Coaches likes Sid Gillman, Woody Hayes, Ara Parseghian, John Pont, Bo Schembechler, Bill Mallory, Randy Walker, and Terry Hoeppner, to name a few. The Walter Havighurst Special Collections here at Miami University has lots of great items from these coaches, ranging from playbooks, correspondences, programs, videos, speeches and more. Currently items from this great collection are on display, so come in and take a look at them before the exhibit closes on December 13, 2013.

Johnathan Cooper
Visiting Librarian

Volumes from the Erodelphian Society Collection awaiting custom phase boxes

Previously on this blog I’ve talked about encapsulation as one example of a preservation measure used to ensure continued access to the materials in Special Collections. In this post, I am going to address another enclosure method used to protect special collections’ materials – boxes. As you can see from the above photo, books can have damaged spines, detached boards or covers, and even damaged text blocks with loose pages. Often, a box is the easiest and most cost effective way to stabilize books suffering this type of damage. Not only does the box keep all the loose pieces together, but it also protects the book from further damage while being stored and/or handled.

Cloth four flap phase box, the most common type of box we make in the lab

There are many variations of boxes used for books, including phase boxes and clamshell boxes. There are several vendors that offer these boxes for purchase in standard sizes, however it is best to have a box that fits the book exactly. If a box is too big, the book can easily slide around, causing damage and unnecessary wear and tear. A box that is too tight around the book can also cause damage to the item. Because of this, many vendors also offer custom sized boxes made to order, to better fit the intended book. However, ordering custom size boxes can get very expensive, especially if one has many volumes that need to be boxed.

An example of a clamshell box. Clamshells are a bit more time consuming to produce, so they are usually only made in special cases

Our solution at Miami University Libraries is to custom make our own phase and clamshell boxes in house. We make several variations of boxes, depending on factors such as the weight, thickness, condition, and value of the item to be boxed. Most of the boxes produced by the preservation lab are made by our excellent student workers. At the moment we have two ongoing enclosure projects in the works. One student is finishing up boxing volumes from the Western College Memorial Archives. Once the volumes are boxed, they will be returned to the archives, where they will be cataloged and reshelved.

An example of a folder stock four flap box. These boxes are usually made for thinner materials such as pamphlets.

Our other enclosure project is the Erodelphian Society Collection and the Union Literary Society Collection. Both of these collections were once the working libraries of two of Miami’s three literary societies. For the project, we are systematically going through the collection and pulling volumes that need the extra protection of a box. Our student worker then dusts each item and creates a box for it. The boxed items are then returned to the shelves, where they await cataloging.

Ashley Jones
Preservation Librarian

In response to a reference question last week I found myself searching through various department files, reading articles about the history and background of the Walter Havighurst Special Collections. I found the answer to my question in an article from the 1986 summer issue of the Miamian. The article was fascinating and would be a great source for a blog post someday, but something else in the article intrigued me. At the end was a list of the “Collections in the Walter Havighurst Library.” One of the collections was the Cather Collection. As I read this I realized that of all the many collections that make up our Special Collections I had never explored the “Cather Collection” and knew nothing about it.

From Willa Cather: A Pictorial Memoir

The description of the Cather Collection in the Miamian article states:  “This collection includes most of the books written by Willa Cather (1876-1947) and periodical issues containing her writings. Among the books are first editions and signed copies. Cather’s One of Ours, a World War I story, won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.”

Willa Cather was an early 20th century poet, short story writer, novelist and essayist. Her early novels were successful and well received. Their setting was the heartland of America, and the subject was endurance in the face of hardship. Joseph Epstein calls her “the best novelist of the 20th century” in his recent review of the The Selected Letters of Willa Cather.

From 1918 edition of My Antonia

As I looked through the Cather books I found several signed copies. One early edition of My Ántonia was not only signed by Cather but had her photograph attached as well. We have an advance copy of Sapphira and the Slave Girl in its dust jacket.

Sapphira and the Slave Girl

We also have an Armed Services Edition of O Pioneers. It appears that we have all of Cather’s novels and most of her collections of poetry, short stories and essays. There are also biographies and critical studies in this collection. We have a few works by other authors that include introductions, or contributions, by Cather. A key word search of the catalog for Willa Cather returns a list of sixty-seven books held in Special Collections.

I discovered a folder in our department files devoted to Cather that includes a rather large collection of the newsletter, Willa Cather Pioneer Memorial. The newsletter is devoted “To perpetuate an interest throughout the world in the work of Willa Cather.” We have most of the issues from 1963 through 1976, with a few scattered issues prior to 1963.

Finally, I would like to mention a beautiful portfolio titled Willa Cather’s Red Cloud. This is a collection of photographs by Gabriel North Seymour paired with passages from Willa Cather’s books. Red Cloud is a small town in Nebraska where the Cather family moved when Willa was around eleven years old. Though she only lived in Red Cloud seven years this small prairie town and its people made a strong impression on her and became the characters and setting of many of her early short stories and novels. The accompanying prospectus reads: “The portfolio captures the moods and the places which stirred the early pioneer-farmers who tried to tame this wild prairie country, scenes which Cather herself described in many of her novels and stories … The portfolio text is a sampler of Willa Cather at her best describing the people and places she had grown to love in her own private life.”

Willa Cather’s Attic Room from Willa Cather’s Red Cloud

Willa Cather’s Attic Room from Willa Cather’s Red Cloud

I invite you to explore our Willa Cather Collection in the Walter Havighurst Special Collections.

Jim Bricker

Senior Library Technician
brickeje@MiamiOH.edu

For a variety of reasons, for the last several years there have been few programs or events sponsored by Special Collections to engage with the public, share and promote our collections, and perhaps most importantly, thank the many generous individuals who support our acquisitions and operations.

This October, with the strong support of Interim Dean and University Librarian Jerome Conley, we celebrated our wonderful collections with three great events. Jacky Johnson, Western College Archivist, coordinated and hosted a visit by the incoming president of the Society of American Archivists (and Miami alumna) Danna Bell. Danna, who currently works at the Library of Congress, met with a variety of groups on campus and in the Libraries and gave an inspiring talk to library staff.

Exhibit Curator John Cooper giving a tour of the exhibit.

On Homecoming Saturday the staff of the Havighurst Special Collections hosted a reception honoring our Fall exhibit featuring the Cradle of Coaches Archive. A small but fascinated audience heard from one of the creators of the Archive, current Alumni Affairs Board President Nick Selvaggio, who spoke for himself and co-creator Steve Stout about their hopes and dreams in donating the collection to Miami. Then attendees, who included donor Mrs. John (Sandy) Pont, her son, and grandson, enjoyed a guided tour of the exhibit led by exhibit curator Johnathan Cooper and saw an extended exhibit of additional materials along with film footage of some Cradle members in action.

Rick Ludwin (left) chatting with Senior Library Technician Jim Bricker (right) after his talk

Finally, Miami alumnus and former NBC vice president Rick Ludwin inaugurated our new Annual Special Collections Lecture Series with a fabulous presentation about his student days hosting Miami’s Studio 14, under the mentorship of Professor Emeritus Bill Utter. Bill and David Beller, former student director of Studio 14, also spoke, and Rick provided a great compilation of film clips from the Studio 14 tapes he has generously digitized and donated as part of the Rick Ludwin Collection. We had a standing room only crowd and wonderful feedback from the audience. I am grateful to our speakers who were so generous with their time, to our guests for their enthusiastic response, and to the library staff who worked very hard to make the events so successful.

(Both of these last two events demonstrated the remarkable breadth and scope of our Special Collections. While we certainly have the historical and literary collections you’d expect, we have much more as well!)

Catching up after Rick Ludwin’s talk

If you missed any of these great events, don’t despair! We are beginning to plan for our Spring exhibit reception – date to be determined – and for the Second Annual Lecture next fall. We intend that both will be regular events for a long time to come. Look for more information as our plans develop. I hope you’ll join us for these and other enjoyable events hosted by the Archives, Special Collections and the Miami University Libraries.

Elizabeth Brice
Assistant Dean for Technical Services and
Head, Special Collections & Archives

I am pleased to announce our latest online collection: the Bowden Postcard Collection Online!

The collection is named for Clyde Bowden, a retired librarian and Miami alumnus (’52), to whom we owe our incredible postcard collection. In 1986, the Special Collections library here at Miami was contacted by Bowden, who was a librarian in Cincinnati and formerly an employee under Walter Havighurst, our library’s namesake. He told the library of his friend and fellow Miami alumnus Charles Shields, who like Bowden was an avid postcard enthusiast but had tragically fallen ill. With Bowden’s help, Shields donated his collection to the library for future enthusiasts and researchers. Fifteen years later, in 2001, Bowden contacted the library again, this time offering to donate his own collection. Together, the two donations combine to a staggering 480,000 postcards, spanning the entire 20th century and the entire globe.

The ongoing digitization project is currently placing a special focus on Ohio-based cards – although all 50 states of America are already represented in the online collection. Each postcard online consists of two or more images, depicting the front and back of the card. Many cards are without printed or posted dates, and so with each postcard’s record is an estimated period of origin. These date ranges are reused with permission from the North Carolina Postcards Collection at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

I have been greatly helped along the way by the work of Miami students Wendy Nguyen, Ariel Shirley, and Meghan Pratschler, who have been responsible for scanning the postcards and creating their accompanying records. Wendy is continuing to work on new postcards and the collection will be updated on a weekly basis with new items. It is my intent that the Bowden collection will someday prove to be a valuable source of data for a variety of digital humanities projects, drawing not only from the content of the cards themselves but the rich geographic and postal history they reveal.

I invite you all to explore the collection and hope that you enjoy this fascinating story of 20th century America.

Marcus Ladd
Special Collections Librarian/Postcard Czar

Charlotte, Queen Consort of Great Britain, later the United Kingdom and Hanover (1744-1818) by Allan Ramsay

Many librarians, archivists, and academics who work with rare books and manuscripts may publicly critcize the portrayal of their professions in films like The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure, but secretly many dream about solving ancient mysteries or uncovering shocking secrets.  Though very few in the profession are lucky enough to discover something so earth-shattering that it can challenge centuries of belief or accepted fact, many of us who work with special collections materials solve little mysteries and uncover fascinating stories from the past on a regular basis. Every rare book on the shelf in a special collections or archives has the potential to lead its reader down a path of discovery, whether it’s through the study of its text, its production, or its provenance.  Provenance in the book world is simply the record of a book’s previous ownership.  Discovering who owned a book and documenting how it may have traveled over space and time to end up on the shelf of a rare book and special collections library can be one of the most rewarding, entertaining, and even sometimes thrilling aspects of the work we do. Just ask my colleague Masha Stepanova who wrote about an exciting find in our de Saint-Rat Collection last week in her blog post. The following is a brief story of how a shelf reading project in our department led to the re-discovery of another item in our collections with an impressive provenance…

Translations from the German in Prose and Verse, trans. by Ellis Cornelia Knight, 1812

As part of an ongoing shelf reading project, our student workers, supervised by my colleague Jim Bricker, are barcoding our book collections.  In order to apply a unique barcode to an item, the catalog record must be edited. Meghan Pratschler, one of our undergraduate student workers, discovered that one of the books on her project truck had a call number but not a catalog record, so the book ended up on my desk.  Nothing about this volume seemed noteworthy at first and the title Translations from the German in Prose and Verse, though descriptive, was not very catchy.  It looked to be a typical early nineteenth century volume of religious poetry, but when I went to find a catalog record for the title in OCLC/WorldCat, I noticed right away that only 30 copies were printed.  So it was definitely a limited edition and only 13 other libraries in North America and England reported owning a copy today.  The next thing I noticed was the unusual imprint, “Printed by E. Harding, Frogmore Lodge, Windsor 1812”, so I thought perhaps this was an early private press title of some kind based in someone’s residence.

Dedication page

The printed dedication page reads: “The gift of the Queen to her beloved daughters Charlotte Aug: Matilda. Augusta Sophia. Elizabeth. Mary. and Sophia. and with Her Majesty’s permission dedicated to their Royal Highnesses by the translator Ellis Cornelia Knight.” Realizing the connection between the English royal family and Windsor, the location in the imprint, I became even more curious about this slim volume.

Portrait of Ellis Cornelia Knight by Angelica Kauffman

Upon further searching, I found out more about the book and its origins.  The translator of the text, Ellis Cornelia Knight (1757-1837), was an accomplished writer who was a companion to both Queen Charlotte (1744-1818), wife of King George III, and later her daughter, Princess Charlotte Augusta.

Frogmore House, ca. 1819

Frogmore House today

The book was produced at a private press overseen closely by Knight and Harding, a job printer in Windsor, especially for the Queen’s daughters. The quality of the printing is not particularly fine, but the volume does include a pleasant engraving of Frogmore Lodge.  Frogmore Lodge, better known as Frogmore House, was a seventeenth century country estate near Windsor Castle. Queen Charlotte and her daughters used the estate as a country retreat, similar to Charlotte’s contemporary Marie Antoinette’s Estate at Versailles.  Just the fact that a truly “rare” book commissioned by Queen Charlotte, with a text translated by her companion from the original German, and printed at her country home ended up on the shelf at a university library in Oxford, Ohio made this a fun find. I shared what I had discovered about the volume with Meghan, the student worker who originally “found” the book on the shelf, and the rest of the staff in Special Collections.  And here’s where the provenance comes in…

“Ldy. R.” stamped in gilt on front cover of Miami’s copy

The only truly distinguishing characteristic of Miami’s copy was the original mottled calf binding with “Ldy. R.” stamped in gilt on the front cover.  Who was the mysterious Lady R?  Everyone in the department was curious.  Since none of Charlotte’s daughters, for whom the book was printed as a gift, had names which began with the letter “R” (and they would be styled “Princess” or “H.R.H.” most likely anyway), I immediately thought that Lady R. was probably a member of the royal household, such as a Lady of the Bedchamber, commonly referred to as a lady-in-waiting.  A quick search didn’t provide any immediate leads and I set the book aside in my office to return to when I had a free moment.  However, Meghan, our student worker, beat me to it! She located an official listing of the Queen’s Household which included an entry for Cornelia Jacoba Waldegrave, Lady Radstock, who was one of the Women of the Bedchamber from 1799-1818.  There were no other clear candidates for Lady R. in Queen Charlotte’s inner circle and the date, 1812, also lined up.  While we cannot definitively know whether Cornelia is in fact our Lady R., it seems highly likely.

David George van Lennep and Family by Antoine de Favray, circa 1771

So who was Lady Radstock? Cornelia Jacoba van Lennep (1763-1839) was born in Turkey to a wealthy Dutch merchant family.  She married William Waldegrave, first Baron Radstock (1753-1825), a distinguished Admiral in the Royal Navy and a Governor of New Foundland, in 1785. Though the historical record seems to contain very little about Lady Radstock, beyond her family’s genealogy, there is a portrait of her family in the collections of the Rijksmuseum, the Dutch national museum, in Amsterdam.  The painting by Antoine de Favray from about 1771 depicts Cornelia, at approximately eight years old, in a blue dress seated on the floor. It’s pretty amazing to think that that little girl born faraway and long ago in the Ottoman Empire, who married a Canadian governor and naval hero and became a lady-in-waiting to the Queen of England, once held this book in her hands, a “gift of the Queen.”  Unfortunately, there are no other marks of ownership on this presentation copy and it is virtually impossible to trace the book’s provenance after it was in the possession of Lady Radstock.  Perhaps we can, instead, indulge ourselves and imagine that this book’s journey to the shelves of Miami’s Special Collections was just as fascinating as its origins.

In the meantime, we’ve already had an undergraduate student stop by our reading room to see this recently discovered treasure (she’d heard about it from John Bickers, another of our stellar student workers in Special Collections) and that same student is now exploring other books in our collection  as the basis for a possible capstone project!

Kimberly Tully
Special Collections Librarian