MSU's Main Library is home to a host of special collections, including comic books and fencing how-to's.
Nestled in the Main Library is a nondescript wooden door with “Special Collections” printed above it in bold letters. This room would perhaps draw more attention if it weren’t located in a far corner of the building’s basement.
Behind that windowless door is a small, quiet room with wooden paneling. A staff member will ask arriving visitors to stow their bags, coats and other belongings in a cupboard. There are strict rules about what students can bring with them beyond that point.
There are no distractions.
Beyond this reading room is another door — designated for staff members only — that leads to the entire Special Collections, consisting of more than 450,000 items.
Peter Berg has served as the head of MSU’s Special Collections library since 1988 and he said he still hasn’t explored every inch of the collection.
“There’s something always new, even though it could be very old,” he said. “I’ve been here over 25 years, and I’m still finding material that I wasn’t aware of.”
Old and new
“(Special Collections) has material as old as 4,000 years as well as a zine that was printed in the fall of 2014,” Berg said. “So we have very old material as well as contemporary material, and I think that’s the attraction of the collection not only for me, but for a lot of other people too.”
In addition to books, Special Collections also houses a number of personal letters from notable people such as Mark Twain and Harry Truman. Student activism paraphernalia, comic books, and magazines fill up even more of the collection and provide for a unique visitor’s experience.
“For a lot of people, handling an old book in Special Collections is probably going to be the oldest thing they’ll handle their entire lives,” rare books librarian Patrick Olson said.
Berg said if the items in the library were in a museum, visitors could only see it under a glass. But since they’re in a library, the whole idea is to use and handle them.
“There’s something special about that,” Berg said.
Of particular interest to many students are the first edition copies of “Leaves of Grass” by Walt Whitman and “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Occasionally a class focusing on Whitman’s work will come in to see the Special Collections copy of “Leaves of Grass.”
Berg said that the students’ phones will immediately come out to snap pictures.
“They hear about these things, they read about them, they have a paperback copy of “Leaves of Grass,” but to see the actual book when it first came out and know that Walt Whitman helped set the type for it and this is a book that he maybe even handled at one point — you never know — it makes it very exciting for them,” Berg said.
The Special Collection’s copy of “The Great Gatsby” is inscribed by Fitzgerald himself and contains a personal message about the character of Jay Gatsby to the book’s intended recipient.
“(It’s) really kind of an illuminating statement, about how he saw Gatsby as a character and how he was really kind of dissatisfied with how he turned out,” Olson said. “It’s those kinds of inscriptions that help historians and literary critics kind of put together the thoughts of the authors as they put together books.”
A quirky collection
Aside from medieval manuscripts and first edition copies of famous 19th and 20th century novels, special collections houses a number of more unusual collections and items.
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The oldest item the special collections houses, a 4,000-year-old clay tablet originating from Mesopotamia, garners interest usually because of its age. The content of the carved inscription is maybe less exciting, but humorous in its own way — it’s a receipt for the delivery of sheep.
The collection’s cookbook section is approximately 30,000 items strong, and growing. Many of these cookbooks are bound with plastic spiral binding, indicative of community-made books of recipes that were meant to be shared by institutions like churches and schools and provide an intimate view of what Americans were serving at their dinner tables in the early 20th century and beyond.
Even more unusual than the cookbooks is the extensive collection of Playboy magazines that Special Collections houses for the library, reaching from present day all the way back to the magazine’s beginnings in the 1950s. The reason for this isn’t entirely based on preservation, Olson said — there’s a more practical reason for keeping Playboys out of easy reach.
“People have a habit of taking Playboys from the library, so part of what we do is we offer much better security than the rest of the library,” he said. “So if anything is deemed kind of ‘at risk’ it’ll often find a home here so that it can be used with some supervision.”
Special Collections also houses an extensive collection of artist’s books, which aim to experiment with the boundaries of what a book even is. “Eight Slices of Pie” by Emily Martin is one such artist’s book, containing recipes and pie-related anecdotes in small booklets shaped in triangles and arranged within a disposable pie tin.
For business and pleasure
Of special interest to many undergraduates is the extensive comic book collection — the largest public collection in the world — which draws in many students who don’t have the funds to buy their own comics.
Recent graduate Paul Matouka recently discovered Special Collections and immediately dove into the comics, starting with the Marvel Civil War series. With more than 200,000 issues to choose from, he said the hardest part is deciding what to read next.
Undergraduate students are the primary users of the collection, something that Berg said many people find unusual. Whereas some Special Collections may only be available for use by senior scholars or visiting intellectuals, this collection is unique in that access is open to anyone.
It’s exactly that sort of interest from students and community members that Special Collections staff thinks is the most important part of the job.
“I get really excited about the material, and when I can help other people who aren’t familiar with this kind of material I get excited about it as well. I find that very rewarding,” Olson said.
Special Collections librarian Andrew Lundeen is especially frustrated with the lack of awareness, and feels that the majority of MSU’s population is unaware of the collection’s existence.
The idea of Special Collections can be intimidating, Lundeen said, which can discourage people — especially undergrads and community members — from taking advantage of the resource. But checking out a book to the reading room is easy, and the material can usually be retrieved within five minutes of filling out a request slip at the reception desk.
“There’s no point to having collections if they aren’t being used,” he said.
