Last Tuesday students, faculty and staff gathered in the ARC for an event entitled “A Victorian Affair.” The evening began with Dr. Elizabeth Raschke delivering a presentation entitled “Victorian Novels, Victorian Readers.” She shared her findings regarding the most popular novels during the Victorian era. Surprisingly, the most well known authors we associate with this time, such as Charles Dickens, ranked very low in popularity, while authors whose names are unfamiliar to most people today were more popular.
Raschke was followed by a reading of “Skittles: A Tale of Female Life and Adventure” by Stephanie Kruckeburg, Information Literacy and Outreach Librarian. The evening finished with the performance of a short play, “Locked Out,” starring Deone Merkel, the ARC’s Acquisitions Coodinator, and her husband, Clark. During the performance Victorian-era refreshments were served, such as lemon bars and mint lemonade.
The entire evening was one in a series, one of which is held every year, each with a different theme. “These events are designed to increase awareness of our Special Collections among students, faculty and staff,” explained Heidi Pettitt, the Technical Services Librarian, who is also in charge of the Special Collections. This section, located in a separate room, can be found on the third floor of the ARC.
This collection has informally been a part of the library since the college’s beginning. It started out when priests, building up their own personal libraries, bought books, often during their travels to Europe. When these priests passed on, they would often leave their collections to the school, to be incorporated into the library. Under the supervision of Reverend Lester Kuenzel, a Loras librarian from 1922 until 1942, the rare or unique books were brought together to form what is today the Special Collections.
Today, this section houses around 7000 books, including handwritten manuscripts from the 12th century, early printed works from the latter half of the 15th century, first editions and limited edition collections, such as illustrated editions – the collection has one that was illustrated by Pablo Picasso. It holds the largest existing collection of books on the game of checkers, and the second largest collection of books by Horace. There is an extensive collection of bibles in various languages, and collections of publications by Loras faculty and residents of Dubuque.
There is also a large collection of Victorian novels, many of which, in keeping with the theme, were on display last Tuesday in a collection entitled “Living Vicariously in the Victorian Era: 19th Century Novels of Love and Adventure.”
It is hoped that by holding these events, more people in the Loras community learn about the unique collection held by the college. Pettitt added, “We’re planning next year’s display, so if any faculty or students have suggestions of what they’d like to see, we’d be happy to hear them.”
Pettitt can be contacted at heidi.pettitt@loras.edu.
