WOLFSONIAN-FIU LIBRARY: TAKE FIVE: PART FOUR OF FIVE!

REFLECTIONS ON THE SPIRIT OF GIVING AND THE LAST FIVE YEARS OF LIBRARY DONATIONS

Another important source of gifts to the Wolfsonian-FIU library have been those institutions or persons who, (through knowing the reputation of, or learning more about us during an actual visit to the museum), have offered us items they believed would be a good fit for our collection. Over the years, a number of libraries and librarians have directed collectors, duplicate copies, or rare items not appropriate for their own collections for consideration by the Wolfsonian. The director at the Bienes Museum of the Modern Book: The Dianne and Michael Bienes Special Collections and Rare Book Library, James Findlay was once the chief librarian here at the Wolfsonian and forwarded several runs of rare periodicals to us that match our own but not his new institution’s collecting interests.

GIFT OF THE BIENES MUSEUM OF THE MODERN BOOK

Samuel J. Boldrick, who recently retired after nearly two score years with the Miami-Dade Public Library System (where he managed the main library’s Florida Collection), has ever kept our collecting interests in mind. Over the years he has donated a number of rare books and art objects from his personal collection to the Wolfsonian-FIU.

GIFT OF SAMUEL J. BOLDRICK

As the Wolfsonian has transitioned in the last fifteen years from a private foundation to a public institution with an important university affiliation, so too has our reputation for excellence among the community of scholars here and around the globe. As a result, in the last few years the Wolfsonian-FIU library has also been contacted by librarians and museum directors offering items which were either duplicated or inappropriate for their own institutional holdings, but which they knew might enrich our own collection. Many gaps in our own holdings have been filled thanks largely to the facilitation of our rare books librarian Dr. Nicolae Harsanyi, and to the generosity of such institutions as:

THE JOSEPH REGENSTEIN LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

THE ALUMNI MEMORIAL LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, MADISON

THE NEW YORK SCHOOL OF INTERIOR DESIGN

THE HERMAN B WELLS LIBRARY, INDIANA UNIVERSITY

THE WATSON LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS ; THE CARRIER LIBRARY, JAMES MADISON UNIVERSITY

THE HOLY TRINITY ORTHODOX SEMINARY LIBRARY

THE GREEN LIBRARY, STANFORD UNIVERSITY ; THE ARTS AND SCIENCES LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF BUFFALO

THE ADAM CARDINAL MAIDA LIBRARY ; INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES ESTÉTICAS, COYOACÁN, MEXICO

In addition to those institutions whose caretakers knew enough about the Wolfsonian to selectively direct appropriate rare books, artist monographs, and archives our way, the library has also received offers of gifts from visiting fellows, researchers, and the general public. Often times, a tour through our galleries or an appointment in our rare books library served to provoke casual visitors and serious scholars alike to rummage through long-ignored boxes in their attics and cellars, and to send us a formal gift offer through the mail of some items they believed merited our attention. After a formal review process by the museum’s Collections Review Committee, many such items have been accessioned into our museum to be preserved and made accessible to many future generations of museum visitors and scholars.

While it would be impossible to acknowledge each and every individual who donated some reference book or artifact to the library in this blog, I did want to single out a few individuals, such as: Ruth Kruger, who was inspired by a Miami Herald article about Laurence Miller’s gift of his cruise line industry collection to donate a few of her own rare ocean travel materials; Mark Golebiowski, who was so enthralled by our Second World War collections as to ferret out and donate some rare items documenting occupied Poland; Michael Rosenfeld, who has repeatedly contacted us and sent a number of rare postcards and other ephemera to us on approval; Arno Erban, who following a presentation by myself and a former Wolfsonian fellow at the American Czech-Slovak Cultural Club, donated a rare biographical view book on the first Czech president, T.G. Masaryk; Tim, Bettina and Joe Gleason, who collectively gifted a number of steamship line and World’s Fair artifacts; and Charles L. Marshall, Jr., a Naples resident who visited the museum and afterwards contacted us and donated several World’s Fair ephemera, more than three score vintage sheet music covers in memory of pianist Anna Olson, and several programs from the Chicago Railroad Fair, jointly donated with Richard L. Tooke.