Kenneth Spencer Research Library

The Summerfield Collection at Kenneth Spencer Research Library consists of early-modern printed books, but the focus of a current project supervised by Special Collections Curator Eve Wolynes is to identify instances of binder’s waste and, when possible, identify their original source. Binder’s waste is a term for when parts or pages of an older, often medieval, manuscript are reused as part of the structure of a book’s binding. This could mean the boards of a book, structural support for the spine, or more decorative details like the cover, flyleaves, or similar. Many of the materials used as examples here are currently available for viewing – with a second case of materials highlighting illustrations by Edward Gorey – in Spencer’s North Gallery through May 29th.

Beginning with structure, the most obvious examples of reuse can be found in the interior of a volume, generally on the boards near the spine. This kind of reuse is generally to help support either just the spine or the adherence of the boards and the spine together. Lorenzo Valla’s Elegantiae (Call Number: Summerfield B1962) has an example of this as the paper pasted on top (pastedown) has worn away enough to show some of the reuse (Fig. 1). This is clearly a medieval text, and – while it is fragmented – some of the words such as “Johannes” in the body text and “baptista” in the marginal notation among other examples illustrate that the focus of the text is on John the Baptist.

An example of more spinal support (Fig. 2.1) is seen in Analysis Logica Libri S. Lucae Qui Inscribitur Acta Apostoloru (Call Number: Summerfield B698). The strips are another method in which reuse occurs, though it can also be in longer or wider strips. The strips in this particular volume do not have any text or decoration remaining, so their exact origin cannot be certain. However, it is possible they come from the same leaf that was used to make the cover (Fig. 2.2). Based on the text visible both from the interior of the spine and the exterior cover, we can find that the lyrics to the music sheet are from “Lauda Sion,” a Christian hymn that celebrates Jesus Christ. Reuse of music sheets is fairly common within the Summerfield Collection, likely due to the rubrication and various ink colors or decoration that may accompany them.

Music, although not a particularly popular feature, was not an uncommon form of reuse, either because of its wide availability or because it had some aspect of artistry and thus aesthetic interest for a cover. While actual music sheets may have been popular, texts of chant or hymnal lyrics are also quite common. A book of hours in the Summerfield Collection (Call Number: Summerfield B2890) has one such instance of reuse as the cover consists of a chant to laud St. Louis (Ludovicus in Latin), which would likely have been performed during Mass (Fig. 3).

There were, of course, numerous other ways to reuse materials, but these are some of the most common examples within Spencer’s holdings. While some of the items are currently part of the temporary exhibit, the Summerfield Collection is always available for access in the Reading Room at Kenneth Spencer Research Library.

Kit Cavazos
Public Services student assistant

During Fall of 2025, my Dean in KU’s School of Social Welfare forwarded an announcement to our faculty from Kenneth Spencer Research Library, calling for submissions to the newly established Bergeron-Souza Exhibit Program. At the time, I had only visited the library once for a special event and had come away with some mild curiosity about what other archival materials one might access there.

I immediately had an idea about using this guest curation opportunity to showcase artwork from a digital archive I had been managing for several years, the Untold Stories of Aging exhibition of aging-focused artwork from intergenerational creators. I was intrigued by the possibility of showing the work in a display setting that would focus not only on the pieces’ artistic merit, but also on their commentary on aging as a universal human experience. By putting contemporary artwork into conversation with archival materials, I envisioned bringing to life a deeper and richer narrative about the ways in which artistic representations of aging motivate us to envision our own futures in more expansive ways and inspire us to action – individual and collective – to realize those futures.

What followed was a loosely guided and ever evolving process of uncovering what the research library had to offer. I, along with my PhD Graduate Research Assistant Zhiqi Yi, perused over 100 boxes worth of material as well as dozens of individual artifacts sourced from various collections. There were the 20 or so boxes documenting the extensive efforts of long-time activist Mildred Harkness, who seemed to have her hands in all things aging within Kansas over the span of several decades. There were the seemingly endless boxes from the Jayhawk Area Agency on Aging. There were dozens of memoirs, artistic works, books, and essays penned and created by older adults that we requested, never really sure where they would lead.  

Some discoveries were more impactful than others. Having viewed the artistic drawings of Elizabeth “Grandma” Layton over the past decade, it was a tremendous joy to find that the library had archived over a dozen boxes of her personal documents, photographs, news clippings, exhibition flyers, and reprinted artwork. I read her memoir alongside her personal documentation, interweaving a rich storyline between the individual artifacts. Having begun drawing at the age of 68, Layton’s drawings document her struggles with and victory over mental illness. She often credited her discovery of blind contour drawing with having healed her life-long depression, illustrating the rich potential of artistic exploration and creation in the lives of older adults.  

Photos of Elizabeth Layton, blind contour drawing in process, undated. Don Lambert Collection of Elizabeth Layton Papers. Call Number: RH MS 1538, Box 12, Folder 6. Click images to enlarge.

Drawings titled “Fear” (left) and “Nike, Winged Victory” (right) in Elizabeth Layton’s memoir Signs Along the Way, 2013. Call Number: RH C12442. Click images to enlarge.

Similarly, I was delighted to stumble across several emeritus faculty who had contributed to KU’s aging-focused curricula over the years. This includes Shirley Patterson, who had her social work students interview older adults in the local community and create poems and brief essays based on their experiences. Additionally, Janet Hamburg of KU’s Department of Theatre and Dance taught “Dance for Seniors” and developed movement-based interventions for individuals living with Parkinson’s disease. These rich discoveries had to somehow be narrowed down to what could fit into a handful of display cases, and choosing amongst artifacts turned into a tall order, indeed. We will have to return to explore new topics another day!

Selected pages from “Aging, Strength, and Creativity Revisited” by Shirley Patterson, 1978. Personal Papers of Shirley L. Patterson. Call Number: PP 607, Box 2, Folder 26. Click images to enlarge.

From this year-long process, the resulting exhibition opened on February 23, 2026, and is organized into six sequential display cases of archival materials. The exhibit also includes 15 contemporary art works, both in display cases and along the exhibition walls, through which the exhibition themes are interwoven and illustrated in vibrant and moving detail.

The overarching narrative of the exhibition explores societal discourses around aging, illustrating that the ways in which we talk about a thing, person, or experience come to shape our ability to imagine and engage with the object of conversation. In this case, audience members are asked to grapple with societal conversations around aging and later life, considering the impact of how we construct and envision this universal, life-long experience and how those constructions shape our hopes and plans for our own aging present and futures. Historical discourses are captured in artifacts dating back to 1780, representing older citizens as making up a vulnerable and needy population. Documents from aging activists, creative essays, portraits, poetry, and much more provide contrasting and nuanced constructions of aging, balancing more varied images of later life based on agency, growing or evolving self-knowledge, hardships and joys brought by new phases of life, and more.

A special event next Tuesday, March 31, 2026 (5:30-7:00pm) will feature a mini-presentation on the making of the exhibition and will be attended by several of the exhibit’s contributing artists, who will mingle with attendees and informally share the meaning of their work. Come and join us to explore your own hopes for the future!

Sarah Jen
Associate Professor and PhD Program Director
KU School of Social Welfare

In 1984, the Union Pacific Railroad (UPR) made the decision to abandon its Union Pacific Depot in Lawrence and announced that they would demolish the building due to potential liabilities. The Depot had once been a shining gateway to Lawrence, with a tall steeple and busy railway line, but in the years prior, the passenger service had been discontinued, and the Depot building itself had fallen into disrepair. 

Lawrence residents swiftly jumped into action to campaign for the preservation of the building. Citizens from the recently formed Lawrence Preservation Alliance, fresh of the success of their first project to save a historic home at 947 Louisiana St, jumped into action to preserve this Lawrence landmark. Members from the Lawrence Preservation Alliance, University of Kansas Rowing Club, and other concerned citizens banded together to form the “Save the Depot Task Force.” With the original plan to use the Depot as a headquarters for the rowing team, they were able to negotiate with the UPR to stall the demolition and began coordinating and raising funds for potential restoration. 

There was one sticking point: the UPR was unwilling to permit the Depot to stay in its current location due to the building’s proximity to the railway line. With no other options, the Save the Depot Task Force began its “Move It or Lose It” campaign. The group hired a contractor to conduct a study to see if it would be possible to move the entire building in either one or two pieces on a hydraulic lift to a nearby lot. 

After years of negotiation and much back and forth, in 1990 the UPR agreed to let the Depot stay where it was, with the provision that the City of Lawrence would provide a protective iron fence protecting the building from the railway tracks. In the end, the UPR sold the Depot to the city for $1. 

Renovations began under architect John Lee officially in 1991, with construction happening in three phases & ongoing fundraising assistance from the “Save the Depot” task force. The Union Pacific Depot was officially rededicated as a community center in 1996. 

Learn more about the restoration of Lawrence’s Union Pacific Depot at our short-term exhibit in Spencer’s North Gallery! The exhibit is free and open to the public in the North Gallery through March 31, 2026. 

Centi Newby
Public Services Associate

I started working on this exhibit as part of an effort to tie Spencer materials in with this year’s KU Reads Common Book, John Green’s Anthropocene Reviewed. When I first started thinking about this exhibit, my idea was to collect things I thought people might be interested in reviewing themselves. I looked at the library’s first-edition copy of I Am Legend by Richard Matheson (Call Number: ASF B643). I looked at a gorgeous bound volume from Special Collections with binding I’d never seen before (Call Number: B10546). I even pulled and contemplated items from the Kansas State Seals collection (Call Number: RH MS Q428), wondering if there was a way I could somehow work a seal into the display.

The process of creating a display is by necessity dialectical. You might pull items with a particular theme in mind, only to discover that another theme might be more appropriate. In some ways, having the exterior guide of Green’s essays helped to eliminate some of that back and forth.

I thought that I knew what I would end up writing about with each of the items by the time I finalized my selection. With the KU Monopoly game, I thought I would write about my childhood experiences (or lack thereof) playing Monopoly. But as I was looking through the box, trying to decide how I would want to have it set up in the display, I discovered a little sticky note describing the item as a gift to the archive.

“Wild Geese Flying” (Call Number: MS P650) was sent as a Christmas card by poet Barbara Howes, and I initially thought that I would write primarily about the idea of sending a poem as a card. As I sat with the item, however, I became captivated by the poem itself. It’s more about the idea of geese than about an encounter with an individual member of goose-dom. It’s about the transience of migratory birds. It made me think about how so much of what we strive for here is permanence, or something like it, and how almost everything we keep here is vulnerable to time.

Green says in The Anthropocene Reviewed that “there are no disinterested observers, only participants” (p. 5). I initially read this as a commentary on how the act of observing something – what we choose to give our attention to – is inherently an expression of our agency. But I think that it also speaks to the fact that it’s hard to be really, truly disinterested if you pay enough attention. Nothing is ever quite as straightforward as it seems, as this display has so aptly shown me.

The Uncommon Books exhibit will be open in Spencer’s North Gallery through December 1. The display is accompanied by a page on the Lawrence Reviews website. Feel free to stop by and write your own review!

Grace Brazell
Administrative Associate

In the course of my work as a conservator at KU Libraries, one of my favorite bookbinding features to spot “in the wild” is paste paper. A book covered in paste paper might come to the lab for treatment, or I might catch sight of one while working in the stacks, and I always take a moment to look at them closely and enjoy the variety of colors, patterns, and styles that paste papers come in. It was no easy task to narrow down Spencer’s abundant selection of paste papers to just a few volumes that will be on view in a temporary exhibit in the North Gallery through August and September.

Paste paper is a style of decorative paper made by coating the surface of paper with a thick pigmented starch adhesive (usually wheat paste or methylcellulose) and then manipulating the wet paste mixture to create patterns. Combs, stamps, brushes, wadded paper or textiles, rollers, fingers and more could be used to create designs. Paste papers were an economical alternative to marbled papers, which required a high degree of skill and costly materials to produce. No special training or supplies were needed to make paste papers; bookbinders could create them right in their workshops with materials already at hand. 

Paste papers were most often used for book covers and endpapers and were popular from the late 16^th through the 18^th century. Paste papers are often seen on books from Germany and Northern Europe, although there are many lovely examples of block-printed paste papers from Italy. There was renewed interest in paste papers during the Arts & Crafts movement of the late 19^th and early 20^th century. Today, paste papers are still created by book artists and hobbyists, and can be seen on some fine-press editions. The examples on view represent just a fraction of the many beautiful paste papers found in Spencer’s collections and available to view in the Reading Room.

Pulled (or veined) paste papers were created by coating two sheets of paper with the colored paste, pressing the two pasted sides together, and then pulling the sheets apart, creating a unique wave-like pattern on each sheet.

Drawn paste papers (also called scraped or combed) were made by “fingerpainting” in the wet paste or dragging various implements through the paste layer. The results can range from painterly and whimsical to clean and graphic. A faux wood graining tool was used to create the pattern on Summerfield E156 (second from left).

These are two very different examples of daubed paste papers: a boldly colored design executed in a thick layer of paste, and a subtle pattern possibly created with stiff brush bristles.

This charming stamped (or printed) design appears, appropriately, on the cover of a book about decorative papers used in bookbinding. An assortment of stamps in architectural shapes were pressed into the paste to create the pattern. Spattered (or sprinkled) papers were made by loading a brush with the colored paste mixture and striking the brush while holding it above the paper, creating a shower of drops.

Block printed paste papers used a matrix, probably carved as for a woodblock print, that was “inked” with the colored paste and stamped onto the paper. These designs can be simple or ornate and often use multiple colors. On Summerfield C1300 (at left) the binder used block printed papers in two different patterns.

In these examples the makers have used a combination of techniques on a single sheet: stamped over drawn, drawn over pulled, and so on. D2763 (at right) is also an example of a paste paper created using a colored sheet of paper, instead of white or light paper, as the starting point.

In Conservation Services we sometimes make paste papers to use in our own bookbinding models or in book making activities for colleagues or the public. Making paste papers is a fun and messy activity that invites exploration of colors, patterns, and mark-making tools. There are many online tutorials for making paste papers at home; bookbinder Erin Fletcher has a great video and written instructions on her blog. Tutorial // Paste Papers – Flash of the Hand

For more on paste papers, see Head of Conservation Services Whitney Baker’s 2012 blog post: Kenneth Spencer Research Library Blog » Historic Fingerpainting Seems More Dignified.

Angela Andres, special collections conservator