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Collection Development Priorities
Archives and Special Collections: Collection Development Priorities
1. Saint Thomas More Collection.
The Leonard William Longstaff Saint Thomas More Collection is one of the department’s two "flagship" rare book collections. The collection consists of over 800 titles by and about Thomas More and his times. Writings by More include the March and November editions of Utopia printed in 1518, as well as over sixty other editions of the classic. Works about him include early biographies (Roper, Cresacre More, Stapleton, etc.), fiction and drama. More's contemporaries reflected in the collection include works by Erasmus, Tunstall, Pole, Colet, Henry VIII, Luther, Fisher, Wolsey, Holbein, Tyndale and others.
Non-book materials include nine volumes of newspaper clippings relating to More’s canonization, stills from the motion picture A Man for All Seasons, over 900 prints and portraits on Saint Thomas and related subjects. There are also original sketches and drawings by L. W. Longstaff and several of his manuscripts, including Margaret Roper's translation of Erasmus, copied by him from the British Museum printed copy, a lecture of his on Thomas More, and notebooks with biographical quotes and details related to his sketches. Photographs from the canonization ceremony of 1935 are included in the image collection.
The goals for the More collection are:
- to fill existing gaps in the collection;
- to acquire modern literary and scholarly works on Saint Thomas More and to retrospectively purchase those that we do not have;
- to acquire works on Saint Thomas More and his times, including, but not necessarily limited to, the humanist circle of which he was a part, Catholicism in England during the Tudor period, Protestant perspectives of the period, and the politics of Tudor England.
2. The Teaching Collection.
Many classes visit the department each year to hear lectures and see book exhibits. Students of the History of the Book taught at other institutions also visit us to examine our rare books. For this reason, we feel that it is important to have a broad range of examples of rare books and fine printing over a broad range of subjects. Of course, all of the department’s holdings are part of our "teaching" collection, but the Helena and John Weadock Collection of Rare and Fine Printed Books and First Editions—otherwise known as the Chilton Collection—is a very rich source of material for this purpose. This second flag-ship collection contains over 2,500 titles that range from a 1481 edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy and the First Folio of Shakespeare (1623) to a military manual owned by George Washington and many first editions of the greatest English and American works of literature dating from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. We feel that it is our responsibility to build the teaching collection by purchasing books on subjects of interest to classes that regularly use the department.
The goals for the teaching collection are:
- to acquire books that illustrate the artifactual history of the book from the beginning of printing (manuscript transition to incunable period) to the present;
- to acquire books that support lectures and exhibits for classes that regularly use our department.
- to acquire books that strengthen the Chilton collection.
3. Oliver Goldsmith Collection.
Our Oliver Goldsmith materials are found in two collections: the John J. Doran Collection and the Daniel T. Mitchell Collection. The Doran Collection contains rare and early editions of Oliver Goldsmith. This collection is especially strong in translations of The Vicar of Wakefield into many languages—including Czech, Danish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and phonetic English. The bulk of the Mitchell Collection is comprised of works by and about Oliver Goldsmith, including forty-six editions of The Vicar of Wakefield published from 1766 to 1965.
The goals for the Goldsmith collection are:
- to acquire editions of Goldsmith that we do not have;
- to acquire modern literary and scholarly works on Goldsmith and to retrospectively purchase those that we do not have.
4. Jesuit Collection.
When he was rector of the Jesuit Community, Rev. Michael Engh, S.J. created a fund for the purchase of rare books relating to the history of the Society of Jesus, which the Jesuit Community has continued to support. We feel that it is important to our University’s identity to develop this collection.
The goals for the Jesuit collection are:
- to build a representative collection of classic works by and about the Society of Jesus;
- to build a comprehensive collection of books relating to Jesuits in the Western United States and California.
5. The Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary/ Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange Collection.
In 1923 the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary founded the Marymount School in Los Angeles. This was the origin of Marymount College that moved to this campus in 1968 and finally merged with Loyola University in 1973 to form Loyola Marymount University. When the RSHM moved to Westchester, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange joined with them as partners in sponsoring Marymount College. Given the importance of these two orders in the history of Loyola Marymount University, we feel it is important to collect materials relating to their history.
The goals for the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary/ Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange Collection are:
- to build a representative collection of classic works by and about these two orders;
- to build a comprehensive collection of books relating to these two religious orders.