I would like to welcome readers to Hesburgh Libraries’ Rare Books and Special Collections Blog. The postings will include highlights from our rich and diverse collections, news about acquisitions, events, and exhibits, our services, and behind-the-scenes looks at the work of our curators and conservators.
Hesburgh Libraries at the University of Notre Dame holds diverse collections of rare and unique materials that range from a Babylonian cylinder from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II to Jean-Pierre Hébert’s In Visible Cities—a twenty-first century artist book that meshes the poetry of Italo Calvino with data landscapes generated from computer code based on the artist’s interpretation of Calvino’s writings. Our holdings include manuscripts, archives, rare books, periodicals, photographs, artist books, ephemera, and other materials with particular strengths in Roman Catholic Studies, Medieval Studies, Irish literature, Italian literature, Latin American history and culture, 20th-century Russian history and culture, Botany, and American sports. Every year, we welcome undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, other researchers, and the general public to our department to use our collections and attend our exhibitions and programs.
For more information about our department and collections, I invite you to visit our website and subscribe to our RSS feed (http://blogs.nd.edu/rbsc/feed/).