Valentine's Day in Special Collections and Archives

 By Icely88 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

In honor of February and Valentine’s day, we here at Special Collections and Archives thought it might be fun to explore the different books we have about romance and love and the human heart. This of course is a limited list, there are numerous other books that will not be listed in this post that you should absolutely come check out!

For all you biology lovers, or those who just really want to know how the body works, there are a couple of great books in our collection for you this holiday season. Andreae Vesalii Bruxellensis... De humani corporis fabrice libri septem. Cum indice rerum & uerborum memorabilium locupletissimo, by Andreas Vesalius is a book about the human anatomy in the 1500s. It is considered one of the most important books in medicine, and one of his most famous works. Born in Belgium, Vesalius is often referred to as the founder of modern human anatomy. Another fun read for the biology lover would be The anatomy and physiology of the human body: containing the anatomy of the bones, muscles, and joints, and the heart and arteries, by John Bell. If you’re interested in biology and psychology Fay Bound Alberti’s Matters of the heart: history, medicine, and emotion, covering a range of everything from the physical body to hormones to disease--how romantic!

 By Jonathan Thorne (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

If you’re into the more poetic side of Valentine’s Day, not to worry. Special Collections has books for you. Everything ranging from love poems from places like Egypt (by Ezra Pound and Noel Stock) and Greece (by Jacques Le Clercq or Corrinne Ondine Pache), a collection of love stories from Brazil (by Fabio Lucas, Elizabeth Lowe, and Edla van Steen), and finally Henrietta Temple. A love story by Benjamin Disraeli--a fascinating love story (according to Goodreads) about the plight of a man who must now marry well in order to save his family name and pay off his debts. 

For those of you who would like to focus on relationships this February, whether that be friendships or romantic relationships, we have (and again there is much more than this) Brotherly love: freemasonry and male friendship in Enlightenment France by Kenneth Loiselle, Secret love: the effects of secrecy on romantic relationships by Sara Dimitri, and Love Between the Sexes by Henry Miller. 

Any art or photography majors or enthusiasts out there may enjoy our copy of The Face of Love.

Let us not forget those who (with legitimate reason) believe that Valentine’s Day has become a celebration of Hallmark rather than the Saint it was meant to honor. There are plenty of books unrelated to love including, The practical feminism of Rebecca West : three novels in the context of contemporary feminist theory by Elizabeth Schewe, and Marxism & feminism by Charnie Guettel.*

There is something for everyone in Special Collections, whether you’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places or if romantic type books aren’t for you, you can find something with us. 

*This is not to say that I don’t believe Feminists cannot celebrate Valentine’s Day, because it is most certainly your right (as it is anyone’s) to celebrate or not celebrate what you wish. These books simply came up when I searched key words related to this February holiday. 

--Brandi Russell, Trinity Student, Class of 2015 

Works Cited

Florkin, M.D. Marcel. "Andreas Vesalius (Belgian Physician)." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 04 Nov. 2014.

Vesalius, Andreas. Andreae Vesalii Bruxellensis ... De Humani Corporis Fabrice Libri Septem. Cum Indice Rerum & Uerborum Memorabilium Locupletissimo. Venetiis: Apud Franciscum Franciscium Senensem, Ioannem Criegher Germanum, 1568. Print.

"Librivox." LibriVox. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Nov. 2014.

Disraeli, Benjamin, and Philip Guedalla. Henrietta Temple: A Love Story. London: Peter Davies, 1927. Print.

The Paul Baker Experience: Embarking

There are a lot of reasons to love working in Special C., not the least of which is digging up old photos of your professors and sharing them with your friends (Nice hair, 1990s Tim Francis!). I thought that over the course of three and a half years here, I had dug up and poured over every piece of information about my beloved theatre department that the university had retained here. Imagine my surprise when I learned that we have been housing a collection of papers from Paul Baker (Wow, right?!). Okay, maybe you don’t know who Paul Baker is, so my surprise is difficult for you to imagine. 

Some context: Paul Baker was a theatre teacher, who came to Trinity from Baylor in 1963 after the Baptist university closed his production of Long Day’s Journey into Night. His move was more of a return, since he graduated from Trinity’s Waxahachie campus in 1932. What little I already knew about him was colored by the vague sense of reverence with which members of the current faculty occasionally mention “the Baker years,” but I knew that he had essentially established the theatre department at Trinity by bringing along all eleven members of his Baylor staff and that he had designed Trinity’s Theatre One, which preceded the Stieren Theatre that we all know and love. This collection was big news for me, promising an insight I’d never had. If I’d been making a little “Ancestry.com” hobby of the archives’ theatre records, this was one big green leaf. 

Having forced Megan to stop everything and take me to the boxes, I selected one at random and opened it. The first photo inside was a picture of Paul Baker huddled over a script with Charles Laughton (Google him). My nerdy heart exploded.

 Most of the materials need some TLC if they're going to last.

Much better! (And safer!)

So here we are a few months later, and I’m up to my elbows in Paul Baker. Though there are numerous press releases dated from his time at Trinity and some information about the architecture of his theatre here, the bulk of the collection dates earlier, detailing the development of his theatre program at Baylor and at the Dallas Theatre Center, where he served as founding artistic director.

I’m looking forward to many surprises. The cursory glance I took at the papers was not enough to get a real idea of the exciting things I know are there. The first real delight was a “Campus Sketchbook”—kind of like a tiny yearbook--from Waxahachie in 1931! Who knows how many of those are still floating around in the world? Then I must admit I was a little moved. See, that’s the other thing to love about working in Special C. There is something especially personal—even intimate—about searching through and caring for people’s papers and photographs. I can’t wait to get to know Paul Baker better over the course of the semester, and I’m hoping that when everything’s processed, the rest of our campus community can get to know him better too. 

Paul Baker's Papers should be processed and ready for visitors by the end of the Spring 2015 semester.

--Kate Cuellar, Class of 2015

The Special Collections Christmas Selections

                Tis the season, everyone!  Can’t you feel it in the air?  The crying students furiously searching for books and typing their papers here in the library, all with matching Java City cups…yes, finals season is truly the most magical time of the year.

                Jokes aside, here in Special Collections we want to get into the holiday spirit, and perhaps you too would like a breather from those five tests you have coming up.  So I went searching through our collections and found an eclectic array of Christmas-themed books and items that I think are definitely worth checking out.  So without further ado, I present to you “The Special Collections Christmas Selections”!