Tuesday 7 January 2014 at 15:27
CURATOR’S CHOICE #7: LAURA BANG & RUTH MARTIN FROM VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND DIGITAL LIBRARY Laura Bang, curatorial assistant at Villanova University’s Special Collections and Digital Library, and Ruth Martin, Digital Library intern, explore an early 20th-century scrapbook put together by Company 62 of the New York City Fire Department. When most people think of the collections in museums, archives, and research libraries, they think of the grand collections — the papers of famous people, the documents of important events, the artifacts of significant artistic movements or time periods. However, much of history happens between big events, to ordinary people. Often these quotidian histories are overlooked. The Special Collections of Villanova University’s Falvey Memorial Library has its share of impressive holdings — one of the first things that most visitors notice upon entering the Rare Book Room is a Union Army frock coat that was worn by General William Tecumseh Sherman and the Library is well-known for the Joseph McGarrity Collection, which consists of books and personal papers relating to Irish and Irish-American history. Alongside the books and artifacts made remarkable by the famous names connected with them, however, we also have a good collection of items that document […]
Source: http://publicdomainreview.org/2014/01/07/the-history-of-the-ordinary/