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Usually when we head to the library, we’re looking for something relatively mundane, like a common book or a periodical. Step into a library’s special collections, though, and you’ll find all sorts of offbeat offerings. From puppets to porn, here’s a look at some unusual special collections one can peruse in reading rooms around the country.
1. Kidney Literature
Yearning to learn more about your kidneys? Head to the University of North Carolina’s Carl W. Gottschalk Collection. The 12,400-item collection houses legendary medical professor Gottschalk’s passion: historical items related to the study of kidneys. Gottschalk’s medical research focused on the kidneys, and throughout his life he managed to collect texts, engravings, woodcuts, and other relics on the subject that dated back to the 16th century.
2. Glass Eyeballs
Not to be outdone, UNC’s rival Duke has an interesting medical collection of its own. When the Duke History of Medicine Collections underwent an internal audit last year, it found a number of interesting stockpiles in its holdings, including boxes of glass eyeballs and old surgical saws that date back nearly 400 years.
3. Showgirls
Could a library collection that focuses on showgirls be anywhere other than UNLV? The school’s collection of showgirl-related memorabilia includes drawings and costumes that have been used in some of Vegas’ racy entertainments. And yes, there’s nudity, but the collection’s website notes “[I]t would be a misrepresentation of that history to ignore topless showgirls and their costumes. In the context of this exhibit the object is the costume, not the woman wearing it.”
4. Dean Martin
Showgirls aren’t the only Vegas institution immortalized in UNLV’s special collections. The school’s library also has a special exhibition that focuses on stalwart entertainer Dean Martin’s career at the Sands and other casinos, including early pictures of the Rat Pack yukking it up on stage.
5. Puppets
If you’re like me and feel just a little creeped out by puppets, you might want to steer clear of UC-Santa Barbara’s library. The Betsy Brown Puppetry Collection features everything you could ever want to see—possibly in your nightmares—related to puppets. The collection—which is named after famed puppeteer Betsy Brown—includes puppet plays, materials related to puppet design, photographs of puppets, and even puppet periodicals. If you can’t find the puppet materials you’re looking for here, try McGill University’s Rosalynde Stearn Puppet Collection, which contains 171 puppets of its own.
6. Witchcraft
If you’re looking for a particularly obscure spell, Cornell might have some answers for you. The Cornell Witchcraft Collection includes over 3,000 titles that examine the history of persecuted witches. Although the collection—which the school started assembling in the late 19th century—focuses mostly on the theological aspects of treating witches as heretics, there are also Latin volumes on demonology and graphic depictions of the torture of suspected witches.
7. Baby Books
For centuries parents have been keeping meticulous records of their children’s early years in baby books, and UCLA has an amazing special collection of these treasured mementos. The Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library has been working on building a collection of these memory books from the 19th through 21st centuries to help shed light on trends in early childhood care and children’s health. The collection includes everything from books that haven’t been filled out at all to diligently completed books. Where has the school been able to round up so many baby books? You guessed it: eBay.
8. Bloodletting
UCLA doesn’t just have baby books, though. The school also houses a collection devoted solely to bloodletting. The materials inside cover everything from the difficulties of applying leeches (you can try to dump them onto the patient out of a wine glass, but some will just stick to the glass) to pictures of the required instruments for a good bloodletting. Sure, the practice has been out of favor for well over a hundred years, but if it ever catches back on, head to Los Angeles to get up to speed.
9. Patent Medicine Ads
UCLA’s libraries sound like an absolute goldmine. In addition to the aforementioned collections, it also houses a terrific set of patent medicine advertisements.
How can you pass up a chance to look at ads for products like A. Danforth’s Great Vegetable Pain Destroyer or Merchant’s Gargling Oil, which is good for burns, scalds, flesh wounds, hemorrhoids, toothaches, and “many other diseases incident to man and beast?” They’re all online here, and they’re absolutely worth checking out.
10. Libertine Literature
What’s libertine literature? To put it bluntly, it’s old smut. Princeton has a large collection of early English pornography, including what it calls “two of the earliest substantial pieces of pornographic writing in English.” Some of the material in the collection dates back to the 17th century, but it also contains items like Venus Miscellany, a 19th-century publication said to be America’s first pornographic newspaper. Sounds a little more exciting than the average trip to the periodicals room.
11. Magic
Princeton’s other unusual collection focuses on magic. Carl W. Jones, a 1911 Princeton grad, built up an impressive library of scrapbooks regarding the performance of magic in the U.S., and when he died his wife presented it to his alma mater. In addition to covering regular magic, the collection includes a number of rare early texts on witchcraft, including the 16th-century book De Praestigiis Daemonum, an influential text on demonology.
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Does your local library have a great special collection that we missed? Tell us about it in the comments!
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Comments (54)
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The article mentions that bloodletting has been out of practice for over a hundred years but that’s not a true statement. I was an infectious disease nurse for many years and one doctor in the practice used leeches to clean out wounds, particularly those with necrotic tissue. Believe it or not, leeches still have clinical uses!
posted by Lilly on 3-11-2010 at 3:14 pm
I remember my college library (East Texas Baptist University) found the need to collect portraits of every President from Washington to Reagan made from wood scraps. The scraps weren’t dyed, they were just whittled down really small so they could look like the President.
It was definitely an interesting art piece, but every time I saw all those pictures in the library I just thought “Why?”
posted by Witty Nickname on 3-11-2010 at 3:22 pm
Although not an unsual collection. I was tasked with collecting historical data from 2 NJ towns. The one town’s library had a historical section. I was let into the locked room and was allowed to peruse its contents. It is quite something to actually be touching a map from mid-1800s! There was some great material in that library!
posted by Mavis on 3-11-2010 at 3:53 pm
My alma mater, UC San Diego (our library was featured as a spaceship for a movie back in the 70′s) has one of the largest cookbook collections in the world- The American Institute of Food and Wine donated their collection. It was fun to peruse through some of the old italian ones from the 1700s back when I was a freshman.
posted by Vivian on 3-11-2010 at 4:11 pm
Our local library has a collection of information pertaining to Great lakes shipping. They have some spectacular photos.
@Lilly, I don’t believe that classifies as bloodletting though – bloodletting was actually making people bleed for medicinal purposes.
posted by hockey zombie on 3-11-2010 at 4:18 pm
Doesn’t Cornell also have collections of brains and porn?
posted by Joey on 3-11-2010 at 5:52 pm
At Mayville State University in North Dakota, our library has a collection of dolls to resemble the president’s wives. They are dressed in period clothing and painted with (horribly done) make-up. I just think they are creepy!
posted by Lindsay on 3-11-2010 at 5:56 pm
My alma-mater, Syracuse University has some cool special collections online, like their collection of dime novel covers and some illuminated manuscripts. Of course, any library you go to is bound to have something interesting in the back room.
posted by Margaret on 3-11-2010 at 6:44 pm
Just curious Vivian, what was it like back in the 1700′s when you were a freshman?
posted by Grammar and Grampa on 3-11-2010 at 6:46 pm
At UConn in Storrs, CT, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, which has a pretty impressive (and scary) collection of puppets, marionettes and the like.
posted by R in CT on 3-11-2010 at 6:53 pm
University College at the University of Toronto has a porn library, though they call it the “Sexual Representation Collection” – http://www.uc.utoronto.ca/content/view/523/2531/
posted by Jenna on 3-11-2010 at 7:38 pm
The Reference Library of The Toronto Public Library has one of the largest collections of Arthur Conan Doyle. A totally separate room dedicated to all of his works.
posted by Dimwit on 3-11-2010 at 7:53 pm
Ohio State University has the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum. They currently have almost 3 million catalog items relating to printed comic strips and cartoons.
Westerville (Ohio) Public Library is home to the Anti Saloon League Museum, with a large collection of Prohibition material.
posted by Laurel on 3-11-2010 at 8:22 pm
My alma mater (Henderson State University) has a special collection of sermons and filmed services from Appalachian snake handling churches. I thought that was pretty interesting.
posted by arkansaswebb on 3-11-2010 at 9:04 pm
Don’t forget the Kinsey Institute Library collections at Indiana University in Bloomington http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/library/
posted by Doc Rock on 3-11-2010 at 9:18 pm
Michigan State University has a huge collection of cookbooks, all of them available online.
posted by MSUgrad on 3-11-2010 at 9:48 pm
The University of North Texas has a miniature book collection of books under 4″ in height. The coolest one is carved into the shape of an apple, and each chapter looks like a slice of apple when removed to be read. http://www.library.unt.edu/rarebooks/about-the-collections/miniatures/
posted by Leah on 3-11-2010 at 9:53 pm
Along with a large collection of cookbooks, Michigan State University also hasa very immense collection of comic books and comic art.
posted by Annie on 3-12-2010 at 12:01 am
hockey zombie, where is the library with that collection? I want to go!
posted by Rachel on 3-12-2010 at 12:39 am
UC Santa Cruz has a Grateful Dead Archive.
posted by Circes on 3-12-2010 at 3:58 am
The University of Wisconsin — La Crosse has probably the foremost collection of pictures and material relating to the steamboating era (mid 1800s to early 1900s) on the Mississippi River.
-”BB”-
posted by Bicycle Bill on 3-12-2010 at 4:14 am
Kent State University is home to the \world’s largest Hearing Aid Museum\.
Check it out here:
http://ehhs.kent.edu/spa/museum.cfm
posted by CMD on 3-12-2010 at 4:43 am
I work at a university library in Illinois, and our Special Collections dept. has a collection of pornographic photos of circus folk from the early to mid 1900′s. It’s not something that ever sees the light of day, nor is it something that the library publicizes. I worked here for years before a co-worker mentioned it to me, and he only knew because he’d worked in that dept.
posted by Dante on 3-12-2010 at 9:07 am
Kent State University also has the official Babar the Elephant Archive
posted by CJaws on 3-12-2010 at 9:50 am
Rachel,
Try here for samples:
http://drc.library.bgsu.edu/handle/2374.BGSU/2
These are from BGSU in Bowling Green, Ohio, where I went to school!
posted by keithg on 3-12-2010 at 11:11 am
NYU has the cookbook collection of the now-defunct gourmet magazine as well as a Riot Grrrl collection that started with Kathleen Hanna cleaning out her closets. Not as weird as some of the stuff here, but neat nonetheless.
posted by John on 3-12-2010 at 11:34 am
The University of Michigan has a special collection of anarchist and radical history docs, including letters and personal belongings of Ted Kaczynski.
posted by Rob Northrup on 3-12-2010 at 11:57 am
Lake Forest College, in Lake Forest, IL, has a collection of holography!
posted by Molly on 3-12-2010 at 12:03 pm
Thank you for this article. I just wish you had included links to the websites for these libraries and their special collections (besides the one to UCLA).
posted by Lori on 3-12-2010 at 12:14 pm
Welp, if I ever need a copy of the Necronomicon, now I know to go to the Princeton Library.
posted by Two Worlds on 3-12-2010 at 1:00 pm
http://www.princeton.edu/~ferguson/h-in-mi.html
Scroll down and search for “Magic Collection”. No Necronoominicon, unfortunately :(
posted by Two Worlds on 3-12-2010 at 1:11 pm
A number of Ivy Schools including Penn and Harvard have books bound in human skin.
posted by d on 3-12-2010 at 1:17 pm
The College of William and Mary’s Swem Library has a large collection of historical material related to dogs.
posted by Joanna on 3-12-2010 at 1:32 pm
You should have linked to these collections’ catalog records or finding aids–archives and special collections libraries could use the web traffic.
posted by joe on 3-12-2010 at 1:54 pm
Dante-same thing happened when I was working in Special Collections at my alma mater. Someone told me they had every issue of Playboy….and yes, yes they did. I never saw the first issue, though, and imagine it was in the vault. But that’s one collection you can imagine a college library wouldn’t advertize!
The U of Delaware has a collection on forgeries, which is pretty nifty.
posted by Kate on 3-12-2010 at 1:58 pm
The University of Pittsburgh’s Information Sciences Library has a Mr. Rogers collection including the scripts from all of his episodes.
posted by Elizabeth on 3-12-2010 at 2:24 pm
McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The Bertrand Russell Archive, which contains original manuscripts, his personal library, and most of his personal papers and effects, including his writing desk.
posted by R on 3-12-2010 at 3:03 pm
Mechanical Puzzles at Indiana University:
http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/overview/puzzles.shtml
posted by breal on 3-12-2010 at 3:27 pm
Dante, was that part of a larger circus-related collection?
posted by FactWino on 3-12-2010 at 3:28 pm
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Brown University’s archives.
Among typical things like map and stamp collections, the University has a Gay Pulp Fiction collection with over 4,600 titles, a collection on books about fireworks, a collection of (mostly negative) caricatures of Napoleon, over 80 books (stolen, but they don’t put it that way) from Hitler’s bunker, and two books made out of human skin.
We also have a collection of over 5,000 toy soldiers, (one of the largest in the world, I believe), plus thousands of items devoted to the history and iconography of soldiers and soldiering, from circa 1500 to 1945.
Also we have all your typical magic and alchemy and the Occult and mystic symbology collections and such.
posted by Sofia Ortiz on 3-12-2010 at 4:36 pm
University of Illinois has an endowed occult collection:
http://www.library.illinois.edu/edx/specialcollections/mandeville/
posted by Ceuthophilus on 3-12-2010 at 4:45 pm
The California State University Fresno library contains one of the largest collections of “World’s Fair” literature, maps, and ephemera in the world–only the World’s Fair organizers have larger, and theirs is almost entirely off-limits to scruffy proles like your average college student or tourist.
posted by DarkExarch on 3-12-2010 at 7:20 pm
oakland public library has a whole library dedicated to african americans. materials don’t check out. it’s called african american museum and library of oakland (aamlo)
posted by dk on 3-12-2010 at 8:14 pm
The Downtown Collection at NYU’s Fales Library, which began in 1993, documents the downtown arts scene that evolved in SoHo and the Lower East Side during the 1970’s through the early 1990’s in NYC. Great flyers, posters and photos–graffiti, punk rock, experimental theater and music, installation art.
posted by Jean on 3-12-2010 at 9:36 pm
Texas A&M University has one of the largest science fiction and fantasy collections that currently on exhibit. The collection houses the papers of a UFO enthusiast that include “polaroid photos” of a space ship.
posted by Becky on 3-13-2010 at 1:05 pm
Leeches are not used often in the U.S. but in Europe they are very much utilized. The saliva in a leech has an anticoagulant in it. The leech drinks the “bad” blood from a bruise or an infection and the anticoagulant stimulates blood flow to the affected area. The best medicinal leeches come from Ireland.
posted by sandy on 3-13-2010 at 1:58 pm
The State Library of Victoria, Australia, holds the WG Alma Conjuring Collection, which ‘contains around 2000 books on magic, 60 magazine titles, 1500 photographs, 300 posters, over 400 detailed research files on individual magicians and other magic memorabilia’.
Most of the posters have been scanned and made available on the library’s catalogue, and make for very entertaining viewing! Hello frogmen and headless ladies.
The collection also includes models and diagrams which explain the mysteries of ‘The Buzz Saw Illusion’, ‘The Elastic Lady’, ‘The Protean Cabinet’ and ‘The Electrocution Mystery’. However, when Alma donated his collection he wanted to maintain the magicians’ code, and insisted that ‘access to the models and detailed instructions of the tricks of his trade should be limited to magicians and bona fide researchers’. Some are on display in the library’s public exhibitions, if you fancy trying to puzzle them out.
http://guides.slv.vic.gov.au/magic
http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/about/news/focus_on/alma.html
Other special collections at the SLV include:
- the zine collection (one of only a handful of such collections in libraries worldwide),
- the news-stand collection, a time capsule of Melbourne’s reading habits, formed by periodically purchasing every item for sale on a Melbourne news-stand: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2009/10/23/1256147891355.html
- the Political Ephemera Collection, which includes ‘hundreds of thousands of handbills, flyers, leaflets, bulletins, posters, badges and stickers from a wide range of Victorian political and community organisations’:
http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/collections/australiana/ephemera.html
- the Anderson Chess Collection, which contains over 12,000 items (including books, tournament reports, magazines and pamphlets), and which is ‘one of the three largest public chess collections in the world’:
http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/collections/chess/index.html
Many of the modern publications can be consulted in an open-access space fitted with a number of chess sets, where you can practice your newly-researched moves.
Libraries are wonderous things indeed…
posted by Katherine on 3-13-2010 at 9:19 pm
Speaking of odd collections: the Lightner Museum in St. Augustine, FL is a “collection of collections” and includes many oddities from false teeth to carved eggshells to old shoes to pottery & glass. It has the added bonus of being located in one of Henry Flagler’s former resort hotels, so the building is a bit of an oddity itself. Example: the former indoor pool (pictured on Neatorama recently) is now a gallery floor. Good stuff!
posted by AmyG on 3-15-2010 at 12:34 pm
I know my last list of items weren’t from a university library per se, so here are a few Australian university library curios to make up for it!
‘Flinders University of South Australia
Library houses the archives of the Eros foundation – a sex industry lobby group. Melbourne University has an interesting collection of photographs revealing the composer Percy Grainger’s soundly beaten bottom and Sydney University Library has a euphemistically entitled special collection that is housed in the Fisher library. This collection contains the donated private collection of William Deane. His collection contains 1123 works published between 1609 and 1982 most of which are literary erotica. There is also a good number of works current and historic on the subject of flagellation as well as bibliographies and histories of sex and sexual relations’
Source:
Erotica in Australian Libraries: Are We Negligent Collection Managers?
Edgar Crook
http://libres.curtin.edu.au/LIBRE11N2/crook.htm
Happy reading :-)
posted by Katherine on 3-16-2010 at 2:58 am
Rhode Island School of Design’s Special Collections has plans and photos of WWI dazzle camouflage for ships. Think zebra strips, cubist paintings, and lots of color, http://www.risd.edu/dazzle.
posted by dazzlelib on 3-18-2010 at 9:48 am
There are many libraries out there with pornography collections, both ancient and modern. One of the reasons the collections aren’t normally publicized is that, unsurprisingly, such collections are often the target of theft or damage. The Playboy collection at my alma mater was kept locked up not because of the content itself, but due to people’s habits of taking razor blades to the pages.
posted by Rebecca on 3-18-2010 at 2:01 pm
UC Riverside currently has the largest Science Fiction collection on Earth in its Special Collections.
The Eaton Collection, (Which Grows monthly, I work here and just ordered over 60 new books for it) includes not only books but movies, anime, comics and manga and amateur fanzines created by sci-fi fan groups dating back to the early 50′s if not earlier!
posted by Sidney Carton on 3-19-2010 at 1:39 pm
First off, I’d like to send a big “howdy doo” to my fellow Spartans!
But here’s a list of the many collections found at MSU’s library:
http://www.lib.msu.edu/features/unique.jsp
posted by Jen on 4-26-2010 at 3:32 pm
Appalachian State has the largest collection of NASCAR media
posted by Mikey on 5-3-2010 at 11:17 pm