Getting to Know a Collection

February 1, 2023

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Books from the rare book collections.

As the new Curator of Rare Books I had a big challenge in August 2022: get to know a collection of more than 150,000 volumes in order to assist researchers, faculty, and students who visit the Booth Family Center for Special Collections. This might seem like a never ending task, and in many ways it is. There will always be more to learn about the books in the collections, whether it's finding new titles, exploring annotations in the text, or finding out something new about how books found their way to Booth in the first place. This journey of constant learning is one of my favorite things about being a librarian. Another is sharing what I’ve found with visiting classes and researchers. 

Prior to joining the Booth Family Center for Special Collections I spent eight years as a Special Collections Librarian at the University of Miami. The collections at UM were focused on Florida and Caribbean history, along with a strong collection of zines and artists’ books. I wasn’t sure how much overlap I would find here at Georgetown so I decided that one of the ways I would approach the collection here was to look for old friends - books I was already familiar with from my time in Miami.

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Screenshot of the Library catalog with search filters

I decided to start my catalog search with the keyword “artists’ books.” As a genre, artists’ books push and often break the boundaries of what a book can, and should, look like and are often intricately crafted. They are one of my favorite genres of books in special collections. After searching and getting more than 500 results I decided to use specific subject terms from the left toolbar to narrow down my search.

I selected “artists’ books” as a subject so that the search would return only those records specifically identified as artists’ books, rather than all records containing the words “artists” and “books.” After scrolling through the results I found an old favorite, Direction of the Road, printed and bound by Aaron Johnson using text from an Ursula LeGuin short story. Finding such a fantastic book in the collection here immediately made me feel at home and encouraged me to more broadly search the catalog.

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Catalog sidebar with active filters

I selected “artists’ books” as a subject so that the search would return only those records specifically identified as artists’ books, rather than all records containing the words “artists” and “books.” After scrolling through the results I found an old favorite, Direction of the Road, printed and bound by Aaron Johnson using text from an Ursula LeGuin short story. Finding such a fantastic book in the collection here immediately made me feel at home and encouraged me to more broadly search the catalog.

When branching out into larger searches, I do what our researchers do: start with a specific topic. Most often I use the syllabus and subject materials of visiting classes to do targeted searches. In Booth I’ve enjoyed teaching classes on witchcraft, dystopian/utopian fiction, detective and spy stories, the American Revolution, French literature, and environmental history. The collection supports a huge range of topics and exploring has been great fun so far.

The Library catalog is an excellent resource for finding collection items, as is the Booth Family Center for Special Collections website. Work done by my colleagues, both present and past, describes in detail many of the highlights in the collection. Our descriptive catalog, the “blue book,”  not only has information about various books and collections, it includes some stunning pictures of rare books and manuscripts. 

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Shelf of books with Masque of Anarchy

One of my favorite ways to get to know the collection is by browsing the stacks and seeing what catches my eye. You never quite know what you’ll find once you pull a book off the shelf. Sometimes the results are almost unbelievable. I was in our vault recently and spotted this box with the spine title The Masque of Anarchy. I was intrigued. 

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The Masque of Anarchy binding and bookplate

After pulling the book and opening the box I found this jaw-dropping custom binding by the English firm Sangorski & Sutcliffe. Boxes are used to protect books, especially when they might have decorative covers, but I was amazed to see such an intricately designed bookbinding. There are so many more amazing bindings, illustrations, texts, and more in the collections. I am excited to continue learning what is here and sharing some of the things I find. If you’ve been in for class, research, a tour, or simply  by, I hope you had a chance to see something unique. If you haven’t been in, please make an appointment to visit, I’ll be delighted to share the collection with you!

Jay Sylvestre, Rare Books Curator