Winter 2012 Welcome to the Newberry Magazine

Magazine Magazine Winter 2012 Welcome to The Newberry Magazine It is my pleasure to introduce you to the inaugural issue of The Newberry Magazine. Highlighting our 125th anniversary, the following pages will bring you inside the Newberry and give you an intimate look at the past year, from preparations for two major exhibitions to the publishing of our new volume, The Newberry 125, Stories of Our Collection. In the center, you will find our 2011-12 Annual Report, including financial statements, program summaries, and other important information about the past year. Highlights in this section include our “Conversations at the Newberry” series, the installation of compact shelving, and an update on our campaign. Above: Walter L. Newberry’s likeness graces the grand As a friend of the library, you will receive The Newberry Magazine twice a year. The staircase. winter issue will include an annual report, and the summer edition will feature core Newberry initiatives as themes, such as our fellowship programs, collection projects, Cover: Detail from Charles and our campaign. Every issue will inform you about upcoming programs and special Lippincott’s A Genealogical Tree of the Lippincott Family in events. America. A mixture of science and creative license, this We hope you find our new magazine engaging and informative, and we welcome your nineteenth-century family feedback. Meanwhile, please enjoy your armchair journey through the Newberry as it tree traces one Quaker family’s history to heroic colonial prepared for and celebrated its 125th year. origins. The Newberry is one of the top institutions for genealogy research in the United States. David Spadafora, President and Librarian Contents Decision 2012 2 By Kelly McGrath An inside look at “The Newberry 125” selection process Penning A Compendium 5 By Corinne Zeman Telling our story in 125 items Profile: Richard and Mary L. Gray 7 By Meredith Petrov Meet the couple who made possible The Newberry 125, Stories of Our Collection The Slimmest Margin 8 By Corinne Zeman We highlight a few of the magnificent objects that were thiiiiis close Tome Improvement 10 By Corinne Zeman Behind the scenes in our Conservation Lab The Newberry 2011-2012 Annual Report 13 Letter from the President 14 Letter from the Chair 16 Public Programs 18 Research and Academic Programs 19 Honor Roll of Donors 26 Board of Trustees and Volunteer Committees 37 Staff 38 Financials 40 The Ideal Library 43 By Alex Teller Briggs and Brown bring Newberry history to life Cooper Black 46 By Alex Teller In Search of Oswald: A 1922 typeface inspires a pilgrimage from Tokyo to Chicago Piction the Future 48 By Alex Teller The Newberry makes big strides in digitization Special Events 50 Upcoming Events 52 I had been at the library for just six months—and was still relationship to families; its physical condition and beauty; its having trouble locating the mailroom—when Newberry place in literature and the arts; and its value to communities and President David Spadafora asked me to help plan the institution’s public service. quasquicentennial. The main elements, he explained, would be a “It was very important that we establish criteria that book and a major exhibition, each highlighting the Newberry’s would accurately reflect not just who we are, but why we are most significant 125 objects—out of about 2 million. Honored who we are, and why that’s important,” Spadafora said. “We and excited to be on the team, I got to work. have a magnificent collection of which we are, of course, First, I had to find out what a quasquicentennial is. (This extremely proud. But we are not everything to everyone. was by no means the first nor would it be the last time I had We have very thoughtfully and carefully developed and to surreptitiously look something up that had been said at a established the core strengths that make us unique and bring to Newberry meeting. It does, in fact, occur every day.) I mildly the Newberry readers, scholars, and visitors from around the wondered if David had made it up. world, thereby creating a vital, vibrant community of learning It means, of course, 125th year. It is a big, quirky, here in Chicago.” somewhat and charmingly unwieldy and scholarly word that is Ready with our score sheet, we asked the entire staff to not immediately understood—like the Newberry. And, like the nominate as many items as they wished. From across the library, ElectingDecisi Our 125o Representativesn 2012 Newberry—albeit on a much smaller scale—there is pleasure, they came pouring in—some nominated just one or two objects, even joy, when you suss it out. It was us; we would use it. others as many as 25 and more. They came from almost every In addition to David and me, the seven-member committee department and covered every core area of the collection, and consisted of Director of Public Programs Rachel Bohlmann; we finished with about 400 nominations, an impressive but Director of Reader Services and Bibliographer of Americana manageable number. John Brady; Lloyd Lewis Curator of Modern Manuscripts One thing we hadn’t counted on, however, was the Martha Briggs; Custodian of the John M. Wing Foundation collusion among our collegial, team-oriented staff. Instead of on the History of Printing Paul Gehl; and Vice President for receiving, as we had expected, multiple votes for at least a dozen Research and Academic Programs Daniel Greene. items, we saw, and were surprised, that only a few objects were To establish criteria, we asked ourselves: what makes an item voted for more than once. “significant”? Its rarity, or beauty? Its importance to scholarship? “Everyone was involved, everyone excited to nominate To the general public? Its place in the Newberry collection? something that would be in the show,” Gehl, co-curator of the The committee—or Team Q, as it was now called— exhibition, said. “So, they’d catch each other in the hall and concluded, after hours of discussion, that an item’s significance, say, ‘What are you nominating?’ If it was something they had as well as exhibitability, was defined by the above and more: been considering, they’d choose something else. It made our job its representation of our core collections; its relevance to the tougher, but it was wonderful.” library’s position in Chicago; its impact on building and shaping Nominations in hand, Team Q began the half-day the collection; its value to scholars and readers; its era; its meetings that came to be known as elimination rounds. It was 2 The Newberry Magazine one of the most challenging things I’ve encountered in my Indeed, throughout the process, we heavily, and gratefully, career, and, hands-down, the most fun. relied on many members of our expert staff. Scott Manning Ranging from serious debate about scholarship value to Stevens, director of the D’Arcy McNickle Center for American conservation issues to hilarious back stories, the discussions were Indian and Indigenous Studies, showed us where we were wrong a rare, perhaps unique, look at the collection and the people who and why, and then set us right in innumerable and invaluable intimately know it, expertly manage it, and deeply care about it. ways; the former and the current directors of the Hermon The extraordinary breadth and depth of the Newberry Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography, Bob collection made round one relatively easy; it would later make Karrow and Jim Akerman, respectively, taught us the sometimes the final round almost excruciatingly difficult. Several paintings subtle nuances that made one map a clear choice over another; from the American Indian collection (ours is the best in the and Carla Zecher, director of the Center for Renaissance Studies world) had been nominated, many of which were by the same and recently named music curator, thoughtfully and meticulously artist, and the group made quick work of eliminating most. The reviewed, rejected, and replaced items—all from 2,000 miles enormous strength of our collection of Ptolemy’s Geography led away and while meeting the demands of her Huntington Library to replacing one nomination, an atlas published in Florence in Fellowship. 1480, with one published in Ulm, Germany in 1482—the two so Dozens of spreadsheets and six months later, we entered the similar, in certain respects, that we almost exhibited the wrong final round, with just 171 nominations. one. American history materials and modern manuscripts are “Now we began to know what pain really is,” joked Briggs, certainly distinct categories but overlap in, for example, the U.S. curator of “Realizing the Idea 1887 – 2012,” the accompanying Civil War, enabling Team Q to rather swiftly pare down Civil exhibition on the history of the Newberry. “Right up until War-related items. the final round, we had been able to retain most of the items we strongly believed needed to be included. It was extremely “ ... the discussions were a tough—but also, and more importantly, it was a testament to the staff’s commitment to and passion for particular collection items, rare, perhaps unique, look the collection as a whole, and the Newberry itself.” at the collection and the That passion resulted in a spirited three-hour discussion, in which committee members drew upon their diplomacy, people who intimately know creativity, and even cunning to do battle for their preferred nominees. When Team Q left the room, it was with regrets, but it, expertly manage it, and we had our 125. “It was challenging, invigorating, frustrating, and deeply care about it.” enlightening,” Spadafora said. “And I wouldn’t have had it any It also greatly eased two more practical but critical other way.

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