Welcome to the Kenneth Spencer Research Library blog! As the special collections and archives library at the University of Kansas, Spencer is home to remarkable and diverse collections of rare and unique items. Explore the blog to learn about the work we do and the materials we collect.
I find the KU yearbooks to be one of the most informative and entertaining resources in the University Archives. When you open the covers you are transported back to the 1930s, 1960s, or even the 1900s. The yearbooks span from 1873 to the present and depict student life, campus growth, and university history as it was happening. By 1901 the University’s yearbook was given the name “The Jayhawker.” The name was chosen by a committee of student representatives from each class with the hope that “The Jayhawker” would become the permanent name of the Annuals of Kansas University. Their wish came true and the yearbook retains that title today.
The covers on display below have been chosen because they are indicative of the years they represent and are just plain fun – Enjoy!
Becky Schulte
University Archivist
Jayhawker: A Record of Events of the University of Kansas for the Year…
Spencer Library Call Numbers: LD2697 .J3 (Reading Room Reference Collection copy); UA Ser 69/1 (University Archives copy). Click images to enlarge.
Want to browse more yearbooks in person? Copies of all of KU’s yearbooks are housed with the reference collection in the Kenneth Spencer Research Library Reading Room (you don’t even have to fill out a paging request). Come in and travel back in time with a KU yearbook!
Diary of Lieutenant Wint Smith, September 12, 1917 – May 10, 1918, open to the entries for September 13-15, 1917.
Wint Smith Papers, Call Number: RH MS C55. Click images to enlarge to a readable size.
Lt. Smith, from Mankato, Kansas, kept this diary while serving with the American Expeditionary Forces in England and France during World War I. The diary, which begins with Smith’s departure from New York City aboard a troop ship, the “Mongolia,” is quite detailed and anecdotal. The diary ends with an entry for May 10, 1918, while Smith is convalescing from a knee operation.
Left: Snapshot of Lt. Smith on ship crossing the Atlantic, 1917. Wint Smith Papers–Photographs, RH MS-P 201: Box 2, Folder 7; Right: the cover of his Diary from September 12, 1917 – May 10, 1918,
Wint Smith Papers, Call Number: RH MS C55.
Sheryl Williams
Curator of Collections / Kansas Collection Curator
The bullfrog, Rana catesbeiana, is the largest frog in North America. However, even as flat as he looks on this plate, he’s an unlikely candidate for road pizza on your plate, because although he’s an amphibian, the adult bullfrog tends to stay in his moist habitat and not to venture out onto dry land. Unfortunately for him, in this country, he’s one of the few species large enough to provide a satisfactory meal of frog legs for Homo sapiens.
James Petiver (1663 [or 4]-1718). Gazophylacii naturæ & artis,: decas prima-[decima]. In quâ animalia,
quadrupeda, aves, pisces, reptilia, […] descriptionibus breviubs & iconibus illustrantur. Londonii: Ex Officinâ
Christ. Bateman ad insignia Bibliæ & Coronæ, vico vulgo dict. Pater-Noster-Row., MDCCII. [1702-1706?]
Call Number: Ellis Aves E116 item 2. Click image to enlarge.
James Petiver, known primarily as a botanist and as one of the founders of British entomology, went to considerable expense to have ships’ captains and surgeons supply him with specimens of natural history from around the world for his museum. In the Gazophylacium, one of Petiver’s rarest and most interesting productions, the figures of reptiles and amphibians, plants, shells, insects, birds, and other animals are displayed together on the same plate. It was the intention of both author and publisher that the text be pasted down on the versos of the plates facing the appropriate plate, with dedication mounted at the foot of each, as in the Spencer Library’s copy; however, in most states of the work, text is simply printed on the back of each plate.
Late August marks the one year anniversary of the launch of Aeon at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library. Aeon is an online researcher account system that replaces the library’s old paper registration cards and call slips. All researchers who want to view materials in Spencer’s reading room should create an Aeon researcher account and use it to submit item requests.
Getting started is easier than ever. The library now has two new video tutorials that will help you navigate creating your Aeon account and submitting paging requests.
Video Tutorial on Creating Your Aeon Account:
Video Tutorial on Requesting Items through Aeon:
You may also access these tutorials through the “Library Use and Policies” section of the Kenneth Spencer Research Library website at http://spencer.lib.ku.edu/using-the-library/library-use-and-policies (click on the tab for “Creating an Account and Registering through Aeon”).
Aeon offers several advantages to you as a researcher:
Aeon enables you to have a lasting record of all items you view in our reading room (click on the “All requests” link on the main page of your Aeon Account). This is particularly handy when you want to look at a book or manuscript collection that you’ve examined in the past, but whose precise title or call number you can no longer remember. Gone are the days of “I remember that it was a big blue book with gold ornaments…” Now you can simply login to your account and review what you requested the last time you were here.
Aeon allows you to submit paging requests from the comfort of your own home. In fact, you can even “auto-populate” requests through KU’s online catalog. Simply click on the “Get at Spencer Link” next to the location field in the online catalog record (see image below), and you will be prompted to login to your Aeon account. Once you do, Aeon will automatically transfer information, such as the title and call number, from the catalog record to an item request. All you have to do then is scroll down and click “submit.” Once you arrive on site in our Reading Room and show a photo ID, we will page your request.
Your Aeon account is not tied to your KU online ID, which means that researchers not affiliated with KU can create accounts and that KU faculty and students are able to retain their accounts (and continue to access them!) after they leave KU.
Above: Online catalog record with the “Get at Spencer” link circled in yellow
The system is a great example of how new technology can help facilitate the delightfully hands-on work of conducting research with archives, rare books, and manuscripts. Happy first anniversary, Aeon!
The volume below contains a wonderful example of paste paper on its binding. Paste paper is most associated with 16th- and 17th-century books from the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium. It was usually created in the bookbinding workshop for books that did not warrant the expense of marbled paper, a luxurious commodity.
Left: This 1815 volume from a run of the Spencer Library’s holdings for the periodical Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung has a binding that uses paste paper (Call Number: D3204, Vol. 107). Right: a detail from the bottom right corner of the volume. Click images to enlarge.
Paste paper was created with starch paste—a staple of any bookbinding operation—and some sort of pigment. Often an implement was dragged through the paper, creating lines that look remarkably three-dimensional. Once in a while you find a mark of the bookbinder left behind: a finger or thumbprint used to make flowers or other patterns. There are many instructions for making paste paper, easily discoverable on the internet.
Paste paper details from the bindings of volumes in the Spencer Library’s collections. Top left: Tractatus optimus de arte bene moriendi (expanded version by Dominicus Capranica, d. 1458), Germany, 1456. (Call # MS D38). Top right: Saint Bonaventure’s Soliloquium , Germany, 1433. (Call# MS D37). Bottom left: Anna Seward’s Poem to the Memory of Lady Miller by Anna Seward, 1782 (Call Number: D2763). Bottom right: A modern example: Brian North Lee’s Bookplates and Labels by Leo Wyatt, 1988 (Call # D3245). Click images to enlarge.
For more information on paste paper, see Rosamond Loring’s book, Decorated Book Papers; being an account of their designs and fashions (Call Number: C6396).
![Plate from James Petiver's Gazophylacii Naturae & Artis in qua animalia [...]](http://blogs.lib.ku.edu/spencer/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/EllisAves_E116_item2.jpg "Plate from James Petiver's Gazophylacii Naturae & Artis in qua animalia [...]")
