Let’s Get Personal: The Collector-Donor and the Special Collections Librarian

Bill Scheide brought one from home. Henry Huntington exported more than one from New York to California. Phyllis Gordan married one. J.P. Morgan got one from his nephew at Princeton. Lloyd Cotsen got one from a dealer. Wilmarth Lewis plucked one out of the graduate English program at Yale. The Folgers chose a wrong one and got help correcting that choice. Who are these “one”s? Why, Special Collections Librarians of course.

Personal relationships between collector-donors and librarians, though almost infinite in their variations, have been key to collection development. This talk is an attempt by a book professional on the sidelines of the library world to examine some of these relationships and how they might inform the present and future of special librarianship in an increasingly depersonalized culture.