Institutional Collections

I happen to have a few days in Chicago this week and a friend here recommended I check out the Newberry Library. While searching their online catalog for items of interest - primary hard to find, expensive volumes I’m unlikely ever to own - a few notable items jumped out.

‘The Play of Pericles’, Barbarian Press
‘Moby Dick’, Arion Press
‘Metal Type’, Heavenly Monkey Press

The ‘Pericles’ and Heavenly Monkey volumes are new to the collection as of 2021, being donated by Robert McCamant. There are many other books I’d have liked to have looked at, but as I only had a few hours opted to keep the scope manageable. If I lived near an available copy I’d love to actually be able to read the entirety of the Arion ‘Moby Dick’ - as it was had to settle for perusing the engravings and reading a few chapters scattered throughout.

Any one have recommendations or favorites for institutional collections that are open to the public that contain hard to find or interesting editions?

New York Public Library, most major universities....so many out there.
Huntington Library in San Marino, CA
and sooo many more. Any large university has a rare book and manuscript dept..Yale, Columbia, Harvard, etc, etc.

Visitation is usually by appointment. Oh, and the University of Iowa has a large private press collection which includes Arion, Barry Moser (Pennyroyal Press), Mindnight Paper Sales, Yolla Bolly, Yellow Barn and others.

The Thomas Fischer Rare Book Library in Toronto has a very respectable collection, including Pericles.

>1 jeremyjm:

The Morgan Library & Museum (NYC) and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas (Austin) are incomparable.

The University of Chicago:
https://guides.lib.uchicago.edu/c.php?g=298052&p=1988440
https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/scrc/rarebooks/

University of Illinois - Chicago:
https://library.uic.edu/scua/rare-books/

Loyola University - Chicago:
https://www.luc.edu/archives/rare_book_collection.shtml

Chicago Public Library:
https://www.chipublib.org/special-collections/

Field Museum:
https://www.fieldmuseum.org/science/research/area/rare-book-room

Northwestern University:
https://libguides.northwestern.edu/specialcollections

See also: https://blog.bookstellyouwhy.com/chicagos-rare-book-scene

In San Francisco/Bay Area:

The San Francisco Public Library has an amazing rare books collection. It is on the 6th floor.
https://sfpl.org/locations/main-library/book-arts-special-collections#
The North Beach Branch on Columbus also has a nice (albeit small-ish) collection of Beat literature and related ephemera.
https://sfpl.org/locations/north-beach

The University of San Francisco also has a very fine rare books collection.
https://guides.usfca.edu/special-collections

And nearby, both the Stanford University collection (Bender Rare Books Room) and the UC Berkeley collection in the Bancroft Library are amazing treasures.
https://library.stanford.edu/spc/rare-books-division/about-rare-books-stanford
https://library.stanford.edu/libraries/green/bender-room
https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/libraries/bancroft-library/rare-books-collection

See also the Sperisen Library at the Book Club of California headquarters on Sutter.
https://www.bccbooks.org/library/

Yup, like I said, there's lots of 'em!

Thanks for all the suggestions!

>1 jeremyjm:

The Dumbarton Oaks Museum in Washington DC has a nice little collection, although I believe only a small part of it is open to public viewing, with a couple of rotating book galleries. And of course if you take the Library of Congress tour, you can get a slice of Thomas Jefferson's Library, purchased by the Library of Congress, with works I've mostly never heard of other than Buffon's Histoire Naturelle.