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NETHERLANDIC TREASURES | ||
FROM MANY STRANDS A THICK ROPE:
Building Netherlandic Collections in the University of Michigan Library Karla Vandersypen, Exhibit Curator
Introduction
Efforts of W.W. Bishop
Bishop spent the first few months in his position analyzing the collections. According to his biographer, Glenn C. Sparks (Doyen of Librarians: A Biography of William Warner Bishop, 1993), he found them well selected on the whole but not uniformly developed. The quantity of source materials was fair in English and United States history and economics, insufficient in European history, and almost wholly lacking in the history of the world. In September 1921 Bishop undertook an extended book-buying trip to Europe, visiting book dealers and libraries in Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and The Netherlands. In The Netherlands he visited, among others, the Royal Library, the Leiden University Library, and the Public Library of Amsterdam. In The Hague he met bookman Wouter Nijhoff, who became a personal friend. The Library had, in fact, begun dealings with the firm Martinus Nijhoff in 1918, just after the First World War. The Library's accessions books, huge, heavy ledgers written in various library hands, contain many hundreds of entries for which the vendor is Nijhoff, beginning November 25, 1918. A large number of these titles are Dutch and Flemish. The results of Bishop's 1921 trip are clear to see in the accessions books: Library accessions of 1922 numbered almost 15,000 more than in 1921. Another positive effect was the lasting, friendly relations personally established with dealers such as Nijhoff, Sotheran, Champion, and Harrassowitz. Through these connections Bishop laid the foundation for the University of Michigan European collections which have grown steadily since. The Library's connection with the firm Nijhoff continued after Bishop's retirement. In 1945, Bishop's successor, Warner G. Rice, wrote to Wouter Nijhoff, authorizing him to send books published in Holland and Belgium during World War II. Dutch History Chair Proposal
Notable Nijhoff offerings of large collections of Dutch political and historical pamphlets from the 16th to the 18th centuries came in 1925 and again in 1928. These pamphlets, most of which are listed in the bibliography by W. P. C. Knuttel, Catalogus van de Pamfletten-Verzameling berustende in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Den Haag, 1889-1916), now number some 4,200 titles. The "Knuttel Collection" is one of the jewels of the Library's Dutch holdings. (As of the fall of 1998 these pamphlets began to be cataloged individually into the Library online catalog, MIRLYN. This project is scheduled to be completed sometime in the first decade of the 21st century.) The proposed program in Dutch history did not get off the ground, however. In his 1955 book Netherlanders in America, Henry S. Lucas describes the Queen Wilhelmina Lectureship in Dutch Literature at Columbia University and the short-lived chair of Dutch History, Literature, and Art at the University of Chicago (1911-1914). Lucas goes on to state that later attempts to found similar chairs at the University of Illinois and at the University of Michigan failed, presumably referring, in the latter case, to these efforts by Mrs. Hulst and her colleagues in Grand Rapids. Hubbard Imaginary Voyages Collection
In 1992 the UM Library cooperated with the University of Groningen (which also possesses a large collection of Robinson Crusoes: the Staverman Collection) in organizing parallel exhibitions of their Robinsonades. A publication to commemorate this cooperative effort was produced: Robinson Crusoe in the Old and New Worlds, with contributions by scholars from around the world. Two of them, Ton Broos (University of Michigan) and Jelle Kingma (Groningen), spoke at the reception/exhibit opening in Ann Arbor, and Broos also spoke at the Groningen program, along with Peggy Daub, Head of the University of Michigan Special Collections Library. Elzevier Collection; Plantin holdings
Hulst Trust Fund
Funds from The Netherlands Minstry of Education and Nederlandse Taalunie From the late 1960s on, the University of Michigan has received gifts of Dutch books financed first by the Netherlands Ministry of Education and after 1992 by the Nederlandse Taalunie (Dutch Language Union), a bilateral Dutch/Belgian government organization. The policy of the Ministry was to make annual gifts of books to the established lectureships and chairs of Dutch language and literature at foreign universities. At the University of Michigan, these funds were expended on behalf of the University Library by the resident Lecturer in Dutch. In the late 1960s and 1970s Ministry funds were used to purchase Dutch and Flemish literature from the 17th to the 20th centuries, as well as major South African authors and Dutch-language literature from the East and West Indies. The Taalunie's contribution to the Dutch Studies Program became a book allowance made direct to the Dutch Lecturer to support the teaching of the language. These titles are eventually added to the holdings of the Library. Donemus Foundation
Labadie Collection and its Dutch holdings
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