Anecdotes and other notes from the U-M Special Collections Research Center.
Beyond the Reading Room
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With thanks to the Digital Library Production Service (DLPS), we are happy to announce the launch of a new online collection. John James Audubon's The Birds of America was the founding purchase of the University Library in 1839 and as U-M celebrates its bicentennial, the Special Collections Library and the William L. Clements' Library have jointly purchased Audubon’s The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America. All of Audubon’s mammals and a selection of the birds are now available online.
What kind of research can you do in Special Collections? Many people may think that using the materials here is only for “serious” scholars who are conducting historical research into specific topics, but the space is open to everyone (and anyone - that means you!) who wants to get their hands on primary sources. Browse some featured items here and ponder what kinds of research questions one could come up with...
Spring has sprung and it's time to celebrate the season of new growth with poetry!
The Special Collections Library will host a reception to celebrate a new exhibit, "Through the Magnifying Glass: A Short History of the Microscope." Please join the exhibit curators, Pablo Alvarez and Gregg Sobocinski, to chat about this exciting display. There will be coffee and other refreshments. Date: April 24 (Friday) 3:00 pm -5:00 pm. Place: Seventh floor of the Hatcher Library.
On August 26 2014, led by Dr. Stefano Mengozzi, a group of six singers recorded a selection of Gregorian chant music at the St. Thomas Apostle Catholic Church in Ann Arbor. They sang from a fifteenth-century Antiphonary from the Special Collections Library, an extraordinary manuscript copied in Venice and richly illuminated by the Italian miniaturist, Benedetto Bordon.
This Wednesday's watermark feature: watermarks in Isl. Ms. 78 (copied in 1401 or 2), one of the earliest manuscripts in our Islamic Manuscripts Collection copied on watermarked paper.
Take a peak at what a visiting Irish researcher is working on in the Labadie Collection!
We are pleased to announce the opening of a new exhibit on the seventh floor of the Special Collections Library: Through the Magnifying Glass: A Short History of the Microscope.
In 2013, an extraordinary collection on the history of medicine was transferred from the Taubman Library to the Special Collections Library, University of Michigan Library. Among the books, we came across three eighteenth-century microscopes stored in plain boxes and in need of conservation treatment. They have now been repaired and are in new homes. Here is a video explaining in detail the conservation work performed in one of these wonderful microscopes.
The University of Michigan Library’s first acquisition was John James Audubon's The Birds of America . After a brief interval of 175 years, it has been joined by Audubon's final work. In August, we acquired the only known complete copy of his Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, which includes the long-rumored but never before seen 151st lithographic plate, depicting the Lepus antilooapra of North America. This image is lacking in all other known copies of the work.