Physician Donates Unparalleled Collection of Print Materials
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S N O I The C. Edgar and Julie Grissom Collection of Ernest Hemingway T Physician Donates Unparalleled Collection of Print Materials Edgar Grissom’s dedication to the hunt brought a remarkable collection of Ernest Hemingway print materials to the USC Libraries this fall. “I wanted to find and catalog everything,” said the now retired physician who began to amass his collection C in the late 1960s. “It was like an Easter egg hunt, and you never knew what would lie in the bush. You just had to keep on keeping on.” That persistence paid off. The C. Edgar and Julie Grissom Collection of Ernest Hemingway is a unique and comprehensive collection of more than 1,200 rare print Hemingway items, most of which are in fine or near fine condition. Items include editions, printings and issues of books, as well as periodical E appearances, galleys, keepsakes, translations and anthologies. The collection was built over the course of 40 years and includes some of the rarest print Hemingway titles, such as the first and second editions of Three Stories and Ten Poems; the first and second printings of the American edition of In Our Time, as well as the British edition and other scarce early editions; the three early printings of The Torrents of Spring all in dust L jacket; and the first edition of The Sun Also Rises. It also includes numerous sets of advance uncorrected proofs and salesman’s dummies. “Combined with its existing Hemingway holdings, the University of South Carolina will now have the best F Hemingway collection that I know of in the world, a Hemingway collection that is the most complete and most oriented to scholarly work,” Grissom said. Indeed, the addition of the Grissom collection E establishes USC as the premiere research center for the study of Hemingway’s print works. “These are research collections that we acquire because they are valuable to our faculty and our students for their research,” said Tom McNally, dean of University Libraries. “We don’t buy these R collections to put them on the shelf. We specifically select items that are going to enhance research at Julie and Edgar Grissom the university.” cont. on page 8 University of South Carolina • University Libraries Fall 2012 New Faces People News Emily Doyle, Business K athy Snediker, Interim Head, Librarian, Springs Business Springs Business Library Libr ary Kathy Snediker is the new interim head Emily Doyle, a new business librarian of the Springs Business Library. She at the Springs Business Library, has been a librarian in the Reference gained experience in library science Department of Thomas Cooper Library while working in Lauinger Library’s since 2011. Before coming to USC, Special Collections Research Center Kathy served as the Associate Director at Georgetown University; in the of Library and Instructional Technology World Bank’s Library and Archives of Services at Newberry College, Newberry, Development; as a regional manager for S.C. Prior to studying library science, Emily Doyle Opinion Archives in Boston; and at The Kathy Snediker Kathy worked in corporate environments MIT Press. She has an MLIS and a Certificate in Advanced Study in as an operations manager and team leader. Kathy received her MLIS Digital Libraries from Syracuse University. She also has a master’s of from the University of South Carolina in 2007, and she received her accountancy as well as bachelor’s degrees in business administration B.A. in history from the University of Virginia. and animal science from Auburn University. Jessica Harvey, Music Cataloger, Music Library Jessica Harvey has recently transitioned from temporary to full- UPCOMING EXHIBITS time Music Cataloger at USC. Prior to that, she worked as a cataloger at Georgia Perimeter College, and HOLLINGS LIBRARY as a temporary research assistant IRVIN DEPARTMENT OF RARE BOOKS AND SPECIAL in the music cataloging division at COLLECTIONS GALLERY the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has a long history “ ‘A Sort of Brilliance in the Room’: Two Centuries of at the USC Music Library, beginning Charles Dickens” Jessica Harvey with employment as a student worker November - January 2013 in 2003. She received bachelor’s degrees from USC in English and psychology. She received her master of library science from UNC SOUTH CAROLINA POLITICAL COLLECTIONS GALLERY Chapel Hill. “ ‘The Best Circus’: Campaigning for President, 1952 to 2000,” featuring campaign memorabilia from SCPC collections, Colin Wilder, Associate through November Director, Center for Digital Humanities “Annual Holiday Card Exhibit,” December – January 2013 Colin Wilder is the new Associate Director of the Center for Digital “The Art of Political Biography,” December – March 2013 Humanities (CDH), which is now part of the USC Libraries. He holds a B.A. in philosophy from Yale University and a Ph.D. in history from the University SOUTH CAROLINIANA LIBRARY of Chicago. Before joining the CDH, LUMPKIN FOYER he was Solmsen Research Fellow at the “Seventieth Anniversary of the Formation of the 345th Bomber Colin Wilder University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Group,” through December 20 Postdoctoral Research Associate at Brown University. His historical research focuses on networks analysis of large groups of readers, writers and texts in early modern Europe. “South Carolina Composer and Librettist Carlisle Floyd,” January 10 – March 9, 2013 2 3 Birch Collection Puts Spotlight on 97 Years of Moving Image Journalism A new USC Libraries’ collection broke out he joined the military and got in Once the collection is cataloged and made chronicles the extraordinary careers to Hollywood director Frank Capra’s Signal available, students will be able to peer into of father-and-son cameramen Harry and Bill Corps Unit. Harry’s silent camera and see Bill’s candid Birch. Harry was behind a camera during “After the war, newsreels were going out of interviews with Harry Truman. style and television was new,” she said. “Bill started and ran the NBC network news bureau in Chicago, and he was one of three NBC cameramen. He was with NBC for 15 years. He covered a lot of presidential campaigns, including Harry Truman’s, who was a personal friend of his. Bill covered the 1957 race riots in Little Rock, Arkansas, and he Doing what he loved: Bill Birch on location Bill Birch is photographed while photographing his friend, U.S. President Harry Truman, who then signed the infancy of film; Bill was a cameraman the photo ‘with kindest regards’ to Birch. during the infancy of television. Together they left a legacy that has become the “The University of South Carolina is Harry and William Birch Collection at an educational institution with a strong Moving Image Research Collections (MIRC). undergraduate focus, and the Birch Collection “Harry and Bill saved everything: will be an enormous instructional resource,” cameras, film, paperwork, still photographs, said Greg Wilsbacher, MIRC’s newsfilm curator. scrapbooks, awards,” said Marjorie Fritz- “Many of the items, including the cameras, will Birch, who was married to Chicago native be used to show how films were made.” Bill Birch for nearly 30 years before his The Birch Collection came to the death in November 2011. “The collection is University through a years-long friendship a complete photographic history dating back between MIRC and Bill and Marjorie. to 1915.” Harry Birch helps conduct the first coxial test from “Bill contacted us a number of years ago,” Washington, DC to New York, 1946. Highlights of the Birch Collection Wilsbacher said. “He had heard that we had include 1933 films of the Chicago World’s some newsfilm that had been taken by his was even riding on Fidel Castro’s Jeep when Fair by Harry, a comprehensive scrapbook father Harry. In fact, MIRC has more than Castro rode into Havana in 1959. of Bill’s wartime service in the Signal Corps, 100 of his father’s nitrate films. Bill had never “Bill opened his own company, like his and early television news by Bill. Other seen them, and asked if he could see one or father had done, doing documentaries, and items include Harry’s Debrie Parvo “Model two that may have survived the years. We then he had a successful career in movies. K” 35 mm silent camera, and Bill’s 1979 made transfers of almost all of his dad’s films In 1980, he was the Second Unit Director of Ikegami camera, one of the first professional onto VHS. As they were ready, we would ship Photography on Coal Miner’s Daughter, and video cameras. Comprised of more than them to him so he could enjoy them. he was the Chicago Director of Photography 40 hours of motion picture film and video, “Bill had expressed a longstanding on The Blues Brothers. He shot the opening photographs, paper records and equipment, wish that the collection come to MIRC,” scenes and stunts on that film. Wilsbacher said. “We are quite honored to be the collection compliments MIRC’s world- “Bill won awards for his work all his class newsreel and television news film. life, including Silver Screen Awards for given the collection.” “Bill loved the business – he worked documentaries and commercials. One year, Since USC already had the newsreels shot well into his 80s – and he had such he won five awards in the News Pictures by Harry, Bill wanted all of the collection to an amazing career,” Fritz-Birch said. of the Year competition for excellence in go to USC, his wife said. “His father began as a silent newsreel photo journalism from the National Press “He liked that it would be open to the cameraman, so Bill was raised in the Photographers Association. There were five public, and that anyone could look at it and business.