News and more from ZSR’s Special Collections & Archives
Z. Smith Reynolds Library has received an EZ Digitization LSTA Grant from the State Library of North Carolina for $15,235. This project will provide funds for the description and digitizing of archival material that is part of the North Carolina Baptist Historical Collection at Wake Forest University. Nearly 100 linear ft. of original archival records... Continue reading “Grant Announcement for the NC Baptist Historical Collection” ›
Teaching ZSR’s History of the Book (LIB260) class is always more fun–and more work– than I anticipate. The undergraduate elective class gives students the opportunity to interact with 800 years’ worth of texts from the Rare Books Collection, and it draws participants from a wide variety of disciplines. The spring 2015 class included majors from... Continue reading “Wake Forest Students Delve into Book History” ›
Special Collections & Archives (SCA) recently sponsored a visit from textile conservator Claudia Walpole, who reviewed a historic banner, which was tentatively identified as belonging to the Philomathesian Literary Society of Wake Forest College. The banner was painted on silk and is rapidly deteriorating. The banner was named an Endangered Artifact for the State of... Continue reading “Philomathesian Banner Reviewed by Professional Textiles Conservator” ›
Preservation Week is an annual event sponsored by ALA which is focused on bringing attention to preservation issues. This year, April 26 – May 2 has been designated as the week to celebrate and bring attention to our preservation needs. In 2004, Heritage Preservation carried out the first national survey, called the Heritage Health Index.... Continue reading “Preservation Week 2015” ›
Please join us in the Special Collections & Archives Reading Room (ZSR 625) this evening at 5 p.m. for a lecture by renowned Irish poetry scholar Dr. Matthew Campbell. Dr. Campbell is Professor of Modern Literature at the University of York and has written extensively on Irish and English poetry. His books include Rhythm and... Continue reading “Matthew Campbell Lecture in Special Collections” ›
Book-making now-a-days, is done for money-making; and he who takes the Indian for his theme, and cannot go and see him, finds a poverty in his matter that naturally begets error, by grasping at every little tale that is brought or fabricated by their enemies. Such books are standards, because they are made for white... Continue reading “Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indian, by George Catlin (1841)” ›
The Dalton Family Papers include materials from several generations of this family from Stokes County, NC. The Dalton Family papers are frequently used by our patrons in Special Collections. I recently encapsulated about 200 indentures in polyester (mylar) from this collection. Encapsulating a document involves creating two identically sized sheets of polyester which are attached... Continue reading “Preserving Indentures from the Dalton Family Papers” ›
ZSR Special Collections & Archives will celebrate Poetry Month on Thursday, April 16 with a special Library Lecture event. In coordination with the current Special Collections exhibit, W.B. Yeats and his Books, Dr. Jeff Holdridge of the Wake Forest English Department will give a talk entitled “The Sterner Eye: Yeats and the Inhuman.” The lecture... Continue reading “Poetry Month: A Celebration of W. B. Yeats” ›
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a “tacket” as a nail; in later use, a small nail, a tack: a hob-nail with which the soles of shoes are studded. In the case of book preservation, a tacket is a physical connection between a loose board and the book itself with linen thread. I learned to make... Continue reading “Repairing Shakespeare with a “tacket”” ›
2015 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of William Butler Yeats, one of the most important and influential literary figures of the 20th century. In celebration of the Yeats sesquicentennial, Z. Smith Reynolds Library’s Special Collections department has opened an exhibit of materials from its extensive Yeats collection. William Butler Yeats was born in... Continue reading “W.B. Yeats and His Books” ›