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My collection includes rare first edition books that detail the early days of America ’s empire in the Philippines (1898-1947) as well as reflections of this time by current Philippine and American historians, critics, and artists. Many of the books deal with the almost forgotten Philippine American War (1898-1902). When the United States defeated Spain in the Spanish American War (1896-1898), they demanded as “war spoils” through the Treaty of Paris the Spanish colonies of Cuba , Puerto Rico , and Guam , and bought the Philippines for 20 million dollars. The Philippines remained a colony of the United States for almost 50 years but were finally given their independence on July 4, 1947 .
The ramifications of these events are still being felt today. Last fall while in Manila , President George W. Bush proclaimed that he wanted to use the Philippines as a model for democracy in Iraq . As the United States once again forays into “state building,” it is important that we study our troubled past legacy of imperialism.
Adolescent literature as a genre has come of age over the twenty years I have been reading it, and so have my tastes as a reader. What were once books that helped me reflect on my own experience growing up are now books that show me the range of lives today’s teenagers lead.
My collection of adolescent literature began with I was a teenager myself. At that time I simply wanted to own the books I loved—works by Judy Blume and Madeleine L’Engle were special favorites. It was not until I was a young college graduate and a beginning high school teacher that the collection really began to take shape. I brought books into my ninth grade classroom and created a classroom library, inviting students to borrow freely and discover their own favorites in my collection. Each year since then the collection has grown. Reading these books as a teenager, then as a high school teacher, and now as a researcher interested in the out-of-school reading practices of adolescents has deepened my commitment to this collection. It represents not just a changing genre, but changes in myself and in my knowledge of teenage readers.
This collection represents an interest in Japanese literature, arts, and culture nurtured for the past seven years. My interest in Japan began rather unexpectedly and has continued to grow organically over the years. As a sophomore at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, I took a survey course of Japanese history. That summer I read Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of Genji, and my life changed. Knowing that Amherst had a resident Genji Scholar, Doris Bargen, I contacted her and she encouraged me to develop my interest in this literary masterpiece.
Since my initial interest in Genji, the scope of my area of interest has broadened considerably. Now, the collection contains not only a significant number of Genji-related items, but also a substantial collection of books on art, history, culture, modern Japanese literature, literary criticism, and religion. Additionally, being a saxophonist, I have attempted to synthesize my interest in Japan with my musical pursuits. As a result, the collection contains a sizeable amount of music for saxophone by Japanese composers.
As a student in physics and mathematics I seek to understand our world in terms of fundamental principles. The insights and questions of science have shaped every aspect of history. While the physics I study today may seem slightly disconnected from our everyday experience, there is nothing more human than the history of our understanding of the world.
I have read prolifically on the history of science and have collected many primary and secondary sources. From the development of our understanding of numbers and logical deduction to the development of the quantum field, the history of mathematics and physics is one of the widest, richest tales to be read. In addition to collecting and reading the books that make up this collection together with dozens of others, I have begun to translate primary sources. With a moderate background in Latin and German, I am slowly translating Leonhard Eulers’s Opera Omina. Euler’s work spans nearly 90 volumes today and will continue to grow for the foreseeable future. Virtually none of it has been translated into English, and I hope to make a small contribution.
Robert L. Ripley was one of the greatest entertainers of his or any other time. At the time of his death, Ripley had conquered the mediums of newspaper, book, radio, newsreel, and the recently invented television. Ripley traveled to distant lands and witnessed bizarre rituals during the depression, and through him people were able to journey to exotic locales they themselves could not possibly visit. Ripley would mix his worldly experiences with tales of strange coincidences, impossible feats, and human anomalies involving everyday people.
This collection exemplifies the weird and wonderful world of Ripley. Spanning seventy years, the collection includes three hardcover copies of Believe it or Not from before 1931, twenty three “pocket-books” collections of Believe it or Nots, one large coffee-table book, three board games, one deck of factoid cards, sixty comic books, hundreds of newspaper clippings from the 1940s-1960s, and miscellaneous other books, postcards, video tapes, and ephemera.
After the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottomans in 1453, a 700-year history of ancient Christian music came to an abrupt close. For nearly 200 years thereafter, there was almost no production of music by the remnant Christian inhabitants. In 1814 three clerics known as the “Three Teachers” developed a “new method” for composing music in response to the loss of the musical art and the poor attempts to imitate it. Known as “neo-Byzantine,” this new method remained the musical standard until the early 20 th century when Western music—especially harmonized music—began to displace the extant neo-Byzantine repertoire.
My collection is an attempt to gather the principal works of neo-Byzantine musical notation. While these works in modern reprints can be readily acquired in Europe , there has been surprisingly little interest in the Western Hemisphere . I have also been engaged in transcribing a number of these melodies into Western staff notation in an effort to preserve this tradition among Greeks, musicians, and Christians in America .
