Mortimer Rare Book Collection
{{short description|Collection of rare books at Smith College, part of the department of special collections}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2025}}
{{Infobox library
| library_name = Mortimer Rare Book Collection
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| country = United States of America
| type = University library
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| established = 1937
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| location = Northampton, Massachusetts
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| collection_size = 45,000 books and manuscripts
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| website = https://libraries.smith.edu/special-collections/about/mortimer-rare-book-collection
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The Mortimer Rare Book Collection (MRBC) is the rare books collection of Smith College. Along with the Sophia Smith Collection and Smith College Archives, it makes up Smith College Special Collections. The collection supports both general research and the curriculum of Smith College classes.{{Cite web|title=Smith College's Mortimer Rare Book Room celebrates 50 years with exhibit of Shakespeare folios, manuscripts edited by Virginia Woolf, and more|url=https://www.masslive.com/living/2012/11/smith_book_room_exhibit_a_rare_find.html|date=2012-11-27|website=masslive|language=en|access-date=2020-05-01}}
History
Smith created its first Rare Book Room in the 1937 addition to Neilson Library, under the direction of Smith librarian Mary E. Dunham.{{Cite web|title=History of the Mortimer Rare Book Collection {{!}} Smith College Libraries|url=https://libraries.smith.edu/special-collections/about/mortimer-rare-book-collection/history|website=libraries.smith.edu|access-date=2020-05-01}}
It was renamed the Mortimer Rare Book Room in 1994 in honor of curator and teacher Ruth Mortimer, who herself graduated from Smith,{{Cite news|date=1994-02-02|title=Ruth Mortimer, 62, Rare Books Curator And Smith Librarian|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/02/obituaries/ruth-mortimer-62-rare-books-curator-and-smith-librarian.html|access-date=2020-05-01|issn=0362-4331}} and served as the collection's steward from 1975 until her death in 1994. It was under Mortimer's leadership that the collection developed its Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf collections. The repository was renamed the Mortimer Rare Book Collection when it became a part of Smith College Special Collections, a then-newly formed entity at Smith.
Collections
The MRBC has extensive holdings of both printed books and literary manuscripts, including cuneiform tables, European and American herbals, modernist literature, artist's books, and book historical artifacts and examples. Among the Collection’s eighty incunables (books printed before 1501) is the Epistole devotissime of St. Catherine of Siena (Venice: Aldus Manutius, 1500), acquired in 1987 as Smith College Libraries' millionth volume.{{Cite web|title=Rare Books & Literary Archives {{!}} Smith College Libraries|url=https://libraries.smith.edu/special-collections/research-collections/resources-lists/rare-book-collection|website=libraries.smith.edu|access-date=2020-05-01}}
Collection highlights include:
- Sylvia Plath [https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/3/resources/1282 collection] (and related collections, as well as a small selection of Plath realia)
- Ann M. Martin [https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/3/resources/1578 papers]
- [https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/3/resources/405 Papers] of Virginia Woolf
- George Salter [https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/3/resources/427 papers]
- Leonard Baskin [https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/3/resources/1571 broadsides and prints]
- [https://libguides.smith.edu/c.php?g=1215567&p=9008674 Sally Taft Duplaix Collection] (mainly comprising 20th century lesbian pulp fiction)
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [https://libraries.smith.edu/special-collections/about/mortimer-rare-book-collection Mortimer Rare Book Collection] website
- [https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/3/resources? Archival collections in the Mortimer Rare Book Collection]
{{Smith College}}
Category:University and college academic libraries in Massachusetts
Category:Rare book libraries in the United States
Category:Special collections libraries in the United States
Category:1937 establishments in Massachusetts
Category:Literary archives in the United States