Month: November 2013

For the love of plants : sixteenth-century botany in the Low Countries

On By europeancollectionsIn Dutch, Historical collectionsLeave a comment
Sel.2.81._pictores_detail
Pictores operis, from De historia stirpium commentarii insignes. Classmark: Sel.2.81.

Books by the sixteenth-century Flemish botanist Rembert Dodoens are remarkably well represented in the University Library, both in Dutch and in translation. The Library holds 32 different imprints, 18 of them published in the sixteenth century. Dodoens was amongst the most skilled botanists of his time, spearheading the rapid development of the science and exercising considerable influence upon later English practitioners. Continue reading “For the love of plants : sixteenth-century botany in the Low Countries” →

Individuality at a price: classification and Martin Luther

On By europeancollectionsIn German, Historical collections, The Department of Collections and Academic LiaisonLeave a comment
D. Martin Luthers Werke : kritische Gesamtausgabe.
D. Martin Luthers Werke : kritische Gesamtausgabe

No large academic library with significant holdings of open access
material would today ever invent its own classification scheme. Cambridge University Library’s individual and eccentric classification scheme, invented in the 1920s, has come to be viewed as a burden by the present generation of librarians. The British Library and the Bodleian, where most material is on closed access, don’t have to worry about classification at all. Most open access libraries in Britain and America will use either Dewey or Library of Congress. This means that just as they share cataloguing data, they can also share classification information. In the UL every time a title is added to the open shelves, we have to reinvent the wheel and classify from scratch, which limits our ability to streamline our processing of material. Continue reading “Individuality at a price: classification and Martin Luther” →

The ‘lost’ library of Eleonora Duse

On By europeancollectionsIn College Libraries, Historical collections, ItalianLeave a comment

Italian actress Eleonora Duse (1858-1924) was also an intellectual and book lover. Although she only performed in Italian, Duse spoke and wrote French fluently, and had a reading knowledge of English and German. She amassed a sizeable library in a variety of languages.

Many of Duse’s books found their way to the library of Murray Edwards College as part of the Bullough bequest. Identifying them has been a long and painstaking task, described in a recent publication by Anna Sica of the University of Palermo and Alison Wilson, former Librarian and Fellow of Murray Edwards. Entitled The Murray Edwards Duse Collection (Cam.d.2012.51), the book has 300 pages and was published last year by Mimesis edizioni in Milan (978857512556). Continue reading “The ‘lost’ library of Eleonora Duse” →

The devil is in the detail: retrospective conversion of Insel-Bücherei

On By europeancollectionsIn German, Historical collectionsLeave a comment
Luther Im Kreise der Seinen
Luther Im Kreise der Seinen. Leipzig, Insel-Verlag, 1917. 9100.d.9311.

The history of the Library’s original special collection of illustrated Insel-Bücherei, presented by Hans Schmoller, is described on the German language web pages. The range of publications devoted to the Insel-Bücherei over the past 25 years – a journal Insel-Bücherei : Mitteilungen für Freunde, several volumes of bibliography, and a range of articles in journals of library history in both German and English, testify to the ever increasing interest in these examples of quality German book design and printing.

Hans Schmoller’s collection is one small part of the Library’s Insel-Bücherei holdings. When the Library first began to acquire these titles in the early decades of the 20th century, detailed bibliographical data was difficult to come by, so many of the entries in the Library’s Guardbook catalogue were fairly rudimentary, lacking an accurate date of printing and pagination details. This lack of precision meant that accurate retrospective conversion of these records for Cambridge’s online catalogue, which was not done with book in hand, was sometimes  impossible. We are quite regularly offered donations of Insel-Bücherei, and find we cannot rely on the catalogue entries to establish whether a title is an exact duplicate or not. Direct physical comparison, and subsequent detailed recataloguing, is often required. Continue reading “The devil is in the detail: retrospective conversion of Insel-Bücherei” →

J.B. Trend, first Professor of Spanish at Cambridge

On By europeancollectionsIn Historical collections, Spanish1 Comment

John Brande Trend (1887-1958) was the first Professor of Spanish at Cambridge University. He was appointed to the chair of Spanish in 1933. His friendship with Edward Joseph Dent, Professor of Music at Cambridge between 1926 and 1941, was to play an instrumental part in Trend’s passion for Hispanism. His first degree was in Natural Sciences, but he soon developed a keen interest in Spanish life and culture and would later become a prime figure in Spanish musicology. Trend admired Luís de Góngora, one of the most influential poets of the Golden Age, and Manuel de Falla, possibly the greatest Spanish composer of the twentieth century. Continue reading “J.B. Trend, first Professor of Spanish at Cambridge” →

Clemens Brentano at Newnham College Library

On By europeancollectionsIn College Libraries, German, Historical collectionsLeave a comment
Romanzen_von_Rosenkranz
Page from the manuscript of Romanzen von Rosenkranz. By kind permission of The Principal and Fellows of Newnham College Cambridge.

Back in November 2007, an exhibition celebrating European Languages special collections in Newnham College Library brought to attention the Library’s significant collection of material relating to the German Romantic writer, Clemens Brentano (1778-1842). This collection was given to the college by Miss Edith Renouf (NC 1881), whose grandfather was Christian Brentano, brother of Clemens. The collection contains a number of early editions of the works of Brentano and his circle, including works by Achim von Arnim,  Bettina von Arnim (née Brentano), Joseph von Görres and Ludwig Tieck, as well as several  books by the eighteenth-century writer Sophie von La Roche (1730-1807), the grandmother of Clemens, Christian and Bettina Brentano. Continue reading “Clemens Brentano at Newnham College Library” →

Albert Camus : a collecting history

On By europeancollectionsIn French, Historical collections, New AcquisitionsLeave a comment

The University Library collects a great deal of work by and about Albert Camus. In 2013, the 100th anniversary of his birth, he is indisputably an important literary figure whose influence extends beyond French literature. Gallimard recently estimated that sales of works by Camus now exceed 22 million copies. L’étranger has sold 8 million copies, La peste more than 4 million.

However, when his first books were published, how were his contemporaries—librarians, academics, and the book-buying and reading public—to know that Camus would become such an important figure? Similarly, how can librarians now know who will be the Camus of the current generation of novelists? The University Library actively collects works of contemporary French literature, but its collections are, by necessity, imperfect and incomplete. We cannot buy all important authors in their first edition, nor can we even identify them all as they are still writing and publishing.

Some of the UL's earliest received Camus books.
Some of the UL’s earliest received Camus books.

The example of Camus provides an insight into the importance of the decisions of language librarians working to create a great collection of literature, as well as the activities of the UL’s Legal Deposit English-language material to supplement these decisions. Continue reading “Albert Camus : a collecting history” →

Burning books

On By europeancollectionsIn German, Historical collections, New AcquisitionsLeave a comment

2013 marks the 80th anniversary of the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists in Germany. One of the most famous events of that year took place on May 10th 1933 with the public book burning of over 25,000 “un-German” books on Opernplatz in Berlin (now renamed Bebelplatz).

At the beginning of April 1933, the German Student Association proclaimed a nationwide “action against the un-German spirit” throughout German universities. The aim was to remove undesirable professors from their posts, to blacklist “un-German” books and to purify libraries according to National Socialist principles.

The campaign reached its climax on the night of May 10th 1933 when students in over 20 university towns across Germany marched in torchlight parades to public book burnings. Students threw books onto bonfires, accompanied by marching bands, songs, incantations, fire oaths, speeches and ritualised ceremonies. The highlight of the evening was the public burning of over 25,000 “un-German” books on Opernplatz in Berlin, which was carried out by students, professors in academic robes and members of the SA, SS and Hitler Youth paramilitary organisations. The event was accompanied by music from SA and SS bands, broadcast live on German radio and filmed by the weekly newsreel “Wochenschau”. At midnight, the Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, addressed a crowd of over 50,000 people  and condemned works written by Jews, liberals, leftists, pacifists, foreigners and others as “un-German”. Continue reading “Burning books” →

Of men and their demons : masculinity in Dostoevskii’s ‘Besy’

On By europeancollectionsIn Historical collections, Russian, SlavonicLeave a comment

The CamCREES bibliographical notes aim to link Cambridge library resources with the fortnightly seminars hosted by CamCREES (the Cambridge Committee for Russian and East European Studies) in the Michaelmas and Lent terms of each academic year.  Each set of notes starts by looking at the specifics of a seminar and then goes on to explore related research tips and library issues; this latest set, for example, ends with a look at the problems of varying Russian transliteration in the world of electronic resources.  The CamCREES bibliographical notes were introduced in February 2011 on the University Library’s Slavonic webpages, where all earlier notes can be found.

The second CamCREES seminar of Michaelmas 2013, again part of Dr Katia Bowers’ CEELBAS-funded project ‘Promoting the Study of Nineteenth-Century Russian Literature in the UK’, was given by Dr Connor Doak of the University of Bristol.  His talk, ‘Of men and their demons : masculinity in Dostoevskii’s Besy’ looked at the characters in Dostoevskii’s novel (commonly translated into English as ‘The devils’ or ‘The demons’ or ‘The possessed’) about young radicals and their parents. Through close reading of selected passages, Dr Doak demonstrated how Besy ‘critiques both the sentimental men of the 1840s generation – presented as effete performers who have voluntarily renounced their manliness – and the radical men of the 1860s – presented as hypermasculine in their taste for violence’ (quotation from the talk’s abstract).

Continue reading “Of men and their demons : masculinity in Dostoevskii’s ‘Besy’” →