Kenneth Spencer Research Library

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 34,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

So what is this group (semi-)smiling about? The Snyder Book Collecting Contest, of course! In case you can’t tell by the hair and the clothes, the year was 1973, but you don’t have to travel back in time to join in the book-related fun because the 64th Annual Snyder Book Collecting Contest is now open and accepting entries. KU undergrads and grad students, scan your shelves and submit your collections by March 22, 2020, 11:59 p.m. to win cash prizes as well as a gift card from contest co-sponsor Jayhawk Ink!

The contest offers the following awards in both Graduate and Undergraduate divisions:

• First Prize: $500
• Second Prize: $350
• Honorable Mention: $100

Each winner will also receive a gift card in the following amounts from contest co-sponsor Jayhawk Ink, a division of KU Bookstore:

• First Prize: $100
• Second Prize: $50
• Honorable Mention: $25

The first place winners in each division are eligible for the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest, which awards a top prize of $2,500.

In fact, the student representative on this year’s judging panel, History graduate student Paul T. Schwennesen, first won the graduate division of the 2018 Snyder Book Collecting Contest with his collection “Borderlands — A Manifesto on Overlap,” and then went on to take second place at the national contest in Washington, DC. Since 2014, KU students have won prizes at the national level three (!) times.

The speaker for this year’s awards ceremony on April 14 is also a Snyder Contest alumnus: Danny Caine. Since placing second in the graduate division of the 2016 Snyder competition, Danny has made a life in books. Not only is he a poet whose books include Continental Breakfast (2019) and El Dorado Freddy’s (with Tara Wray, 2020), but he owns and runs Lawrence’s Raven Book Store. In 2019, he was selected as the Midwest Bookseller of the Year.

To learn more about the Snyder Book Collecting Contest and how to enter, please visit the contest page on the KU Libraries website. There you will find the contest rules, a handy FAQ, as well as selected essays, bibliographies, and a sample collection to help you on your way.

Whether the subject of your collecting passion is Writings from the Black Revolution, Susan Sontag, Contemporary Theatre of the Southern Cone, or Vintage Textbooks of the Natural and Physical Sciences, start thinking (and writing!) about your collection. Contest entries are due by 11:59pm on Sunday, March 22, 2020.

Elspeth Healey
Special Collections Librarian

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 34,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

Book lovers, it’s that magical time of year! The competition for the 63rd Annual Snyder Book Collecting Contest is officially open. KU students should enter their collections by February 24, 2019 to win cash prizes as well as a gift card from contest co-sponsor Jayhawk Ink (more on the prizes below…).

Not only will the winners earn prizes, bragging rights, and a place in KU history, but they might even set themselves off on a future career. The picture below from the 1960 competition holds a special place in our hearts here at KU Libraries. The first place winner in that year’s contest was Ann Hyde (d. 2014), who would eventually go on to become Spencer Research Library’s longtime manuscripts librarian.

Ann Hyde (right), 1960 winner of what was then called the Taylor Book Collection Contest,
with second place winner E. Bruce Holmes (left) and KU libraries Assistant Director
Robert L. Quinsey (center). University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 32/40 1960:
University of Kansas Libraries: Book Contests (Photos). Click image to enlarge.

In recent years, Snyder Book Collecting Contest winners have achieved national recognition for their bibliophilia. First place winners in KU’s undergraduate and graduate divisions are eligible to enter the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest. Since 2014, KU students have won prizes at the national level three (!) times, including last year’s graduate student winner Paul T. Schwennesen, who placed second in the 2018 national competition, with his collection “Borderlands — A Manifesto on Overlap.”

Throwback to the recent past! Graduate student Paul T. Schwennesen
(Department of History) with his collection at the 2018 Snyder Book Collecting Contest.
Schwennesen placed first in the graduate student category and then took second place
at the national contest in Washington, DC. Image courtesy of KU Libraries. Click image to enlarge.

Want to join in the fun? Start reviewing your bookshelves and enter this year’s competition! Winners of the 2019 (63rd Annual) Snyder Book Collecting Contest will be selected in both the graduate and undergraduate divisions, with the following awards:

Each week we’ll be posting a photograph from University Archives that shows a scene from KU’s past. We’ve also scanned more than 34,800 images from KU’s University Archives and made them available online; be sure to check them out!

Bibliophiles rejoice! It’s that time of year when KU students have the opportunity to translate their passion for collecting books into cold hard cash by entering the Snyder Book Collecting Contest.

Elizabeth M. Snyder (left) and Betty Ann Bush (right)
examining Bush’s winning collection, 1969.
University Archives Photos. Call Number: RG 32/40 1969 Negatives:
University of Kansas Libraries: Book Contests (Photos).
Click image to enlarge (redirect to Spencer’s digital collections).

This week’s photo looks back to the 1969 competition and features Betty Ann Bush (right) with her winning collection, “Writings from the Black Revolution.” Also pictured is Elizabeth M. Snyder, who founded in the contest in 1957 to recognize and cultivate student interest in books and book collecting. At the time of the 1969 contest, first place garnered $100.

Earn your place in KU history by entering your collection in this year’s competition! Winners of the 2018 (62nd Annual) Snyder Book Collecting Contest will be selected in both graduate and undergraduate divisions, with the following awards:

Okay, so you didn’t win 1.5 billion dollars in the recent Powerball drawing, but you still have the chance to turn your love of books into a nice little rainy day fund. This year KU Libraries is celebrating the 6oth anniversary of the Snyder Book Collecting Contest. To help mark this banner year, the contest will offer even larger prizes than usual.

Winners will be selected in both graduate and undergraduate divisions, with the following cash awards:

• First Prize: $1000
• Second Prize: $600
• Honorable Mention: $300

Each winner will also receive a gift card in the following amounts from contest co-sponsor Jayhawk Ink, a division of KU Bookstore:

• First Prize: $200
• Second Prize: $100
• Honorable Mention: $50

Start combing your shelves, though, since entries are due by 5 p.m. Friday, February 19, 2016. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on Thursday, April 14th, 2016.

The contest was established by Elizabeth M. Snyder in 1957 to cultivate and recognize undergraduate and graduate students’ interest in collecting books.

In recent years, the rules have expanded to include digital objects and non-print materials. You can learn more about the contest and how to enter by visiting https://lib.ku.edu/snyder/. There you’ll also find a handy FAQ as well as selected essays, bibliographies, and a sample collection to help you on your way.

In need of further inspiration? Take a glance at some of the evocative titles of winning collections from the past fifteen years. What might you title your collection?

• Clandestine Publications, by Resha S. Cardone, 1st place Graduate Division, 2002
• Writing for No One: Zines and the Literature Underground,  by Joe Morgan, 1st place Undergraduate Division, 2004
• On Being and Becoming a ‘Total Woman:’ Bestselling Books on Christian Marriage, 1972 to 1979, by Jennifer Heller, 1st place Graduate Division, 2004
• Binding Times: Central American and Caribbean Literature Created in Crisis, by Erin S. Finzer, 1st place Graduate Division, 2005
• Out of Season: Collecting Hemingway In Our Time as the Su[m] Also Rises, by Todd Giles, 1st place Graduate Division, 2007
• The Mythology of Mozart, by Bailey Pike, 1st place Undergraduate Division, 20o8
• High and Low: Commix, Art and Their Influence, by Thayer Bray, 1st place Undergraduate Division, 2009
• Return With Us Now: The Rise of the Old Time Radio Hobby, by Ryan Ellett, 1st place Graduate Division, 2010
• A Genre of One’s Own: Constructing Science Fiction as a Space for Feminist Discourse, by Meagan Kane, 1st place Undergraduate Division, 2011
  
• The Evolution of Scientific Knowledge: Vintage and Antique Textbooks of the Natural and Physical Sciences, by Laci Gerhart, 1st place Graduate Division, 2012
• Language and Linguistics: How Words Changed My Life,  by Allie Alvis, 1st place Undergraduate Division, 2012
• Discovering Hollywood’s Mysteries: Juvenile Literature from Cinema’s Golden Age, by Baiba Sedriks, 1st place Graduate Division, 2013
• A Decade of Yarncraft, by Emma Fahrlander , 1st place Undergraduate Division, 2014
• Southern Appalachia: Historic and Imagined, by Clarissa Nemeth, 1st place Graduate Division, 2015

 Clarissa Nemeth, with her collection “Southern Appalachia: Historic and Imagined.”
Nemeth won first place in the Graduate Division in the 59th Annual Snyder Book Collecting Contest (2015)

 

 

This post is written to highlight the current exhibit at Spencer Library: Free Speech in America: The Wilcox Collection at 50. A reception will be held on March 25 at Spencer Library to celebrate the Wilcox Collection.

Fifty years ago Laird Wilcox was a student at the University of Kansas. He had started collecting political literature in his teen years, fueled in this interest by his diverse family leanings and volatile discussions over family meals. He wanted to understand what motivated people to believe the things they did and act on those beliefs.

In 1964 Laird entered and won the Elizabeth Taylor Book Collecting Contest sponsored by the KU Libraries. The Libraries purchased his collection in 1965 (then four filing cabinets of materials). Today the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements is one of the largest assemblages of left and right wing U.S. political materials anywhere. There are thousands and thousands of pamphlets, books, newsletters, audio recordings, and political ephemera such as bumper stickers, posters, flyers, organizational membership mailings, and book catalogs, relating to some 10,000 organizations at the fringes of the political spectrum. There is also a growing component of manuscript collections as well, including Laird Wilcox’s personal papers.

Laird Wilcox standing in the Wilcox Collection stacks, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, KU, 1996. University Archives. Call number: RG P/LW. Click image to enlarge.

In 2015 an exhibit was mounted in Spencer Research Library to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the Wilcox Collection. The exhibit includes examples of books, newsletters, and ephemera, and highlights some of the many books that have resulted from research in the collection. Materials from the collection include items from a scrapbook that Laird kept as chair of the Student Union Association Minority Opinions Forum, a FBI wanted poster with photos of Bernadine Dohrn and William Ayers from the ephemera file of the Weather Underground, and examples of Laird’s many publications.

Poster for a documentary film shown at KU in 1964 focusing on the Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). From the Laird Wilcox scrapbook. Kansas Collection. Call number: RH WL MS Q5. Click image to enlarge.

FBI wanted poster from the ephemera file of the Weather Underground which operated as an underground urban guerilla force. Kansas Collection. Call number: RH WL EPH 2094. Click image to enlarge.

One of the strongest features of the Wilcox Collection is ephemeral materials, including bumper stickers, buttons, and flyers. Because of their “throw-away” nature ephemera are often overlooked as an information source, but can provide the original message of the creator in a way that is often concise and colorful.  On display are materials from the National Youth Alliance, Community Churches of America, the American Education Lobby, the Lesbian/Gay Labor Alliance, the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, T.R.A.I.N. (To Restore American Independence Now), Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, Phoebe Courtney’s Tax Fax, and The Fact Finder published by Harry Everington. There are more than 200,000 pieces of ephemera in the Wilcox Collection.

Representative ephemera from the Wilcox Collection. Kansas Collection. Call number: RH WL EPH. Click image to enlarge.

The Wilcox Collection is a prime example of one of the world-class collections that reside within the Kenneth Spencer Research Library. Researchers from many parts of the globe have traveled to the KU campus to view this collection, an opportunity that is easily available to KU’s students and faculty.

Rebecca Schulte
University Archivist and Curator, Wilcox Collection

Sherry Williams
Curator of Collections and Curator, Kansas Collection