This week I continued my efforts to catalog monographs and exhibition catalogs, but also tackled our shelf of un-cataloged wrapped books. While they present multiple challenges, the library’s wrapped books and folios offer exciting discoveries and the chance to physically connect with rare and older materials. Most of the wrapped books I’ve encountered were published in the late 19th and early 20th century and, because of extensive use, poor paper quality, or environmental conditions, many are showing signs of their age. We wrap these books in acid-free, archival-quality paper to help preserve their pages and keep them together (check out previous posts from interns Casey and Chelsea for an insider’s account of the process).

Wrapping is only the first step, however, in making these materials useful for library patrons and this week, in a scene reminiscent of Christmas morning, I’ve been unwrapping some of these treasures and adding them to the catalog. The cataloging challenge for wrapped books is two-fold: handling the brittle materials while searching for necessary information to create a robust catalog record and navigating the many foreign languages in which these books were printed. So far I’ve encountered German, French, Italian, Russian, Danish, Swedish, and what is very likely Dutch. My limited Spanish vocabulary has thus far been sadly untested. However, with the combined efforts of library staff and interns and existing shared catalog records, I’ve been able to integrate these valuable materials into our collection.

Two interesting items of the week include one very large folio dedicated to architectural masters of the late 19th century and one very small catalog of an engraved powder collection at the Georgia Museum of Art. His Horn[e] Made: Engraved Powder Horns from the Collection of James E. Routh, Jr. highlights the often intricate and beautiful cravings found on the utilitarian powder horns carried by American frontier colonists. A Monograph of the Work of McKim, Mead & White, 1879-1915, Volume 2 celebrates the work of a successful architecture firm around the turn of the century. As a recent resident of Boston, I was thrilled to see detailed drawings, floor plans, and even photographs of the beautiful McKim Building of the Boston Public Library. It was fascinating to see how McKim’s vision has withstood the test of time; many of the illustrations in the book reflect the look of the building today.

--John Curtis, Cataloging Fellow