Bookplates are generally good ways of tracing the provenance, or previous ownership, of a book. Sometimes, however, they can be misleading, and researchers should be careful not to jump to conclusions.

A book from the LSU Libraries’ McIlhenny Natural History Collection illustrates this point. Inside the cover of John Ray’s Wisdom of the Works of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation (1756) is a bookplate with the name “Hans Sloane, Esqr.” printed on it. One might assume that the book belonged to Sir Hans Sloane, the famous natural history collector whose bequest of books and artifacts formed the foundation of the British Museum. (Sloane is also famous for having “invented” milk chocolate, the recipe for which was later adopted by John Cadbury, founder of the Cadbury chocolate company).

There’s just one problem: Sir Hans died in 1753—three years before this book was published.

A quick look at the Dictionary of National Biography reveals that Sir Hans had a son, also named Hans; unfortunately, the child died in infancy. However, an inquiry to the Sloane Printed Books Project at the British Library, which is trying to recreate Sloane’s library (many books from which were sold in duplicate sales in the 19th century), reveals that Sloane had a great-nephew, also named Hans, who used a bookplate. Given the 1756 printing date of LSU’s copy of Ray’s sermons, the book must have belonged to Sir Hans’ great-nephew rather than to Sir Hans himself.

At least one other U.S. library with a book bearing the bookplate shown above has identified it as being from the library of Sir Hans. Bibliographers beware! Hans Sloane, Esq., and Sir Hans Sloane were not one and the same.

–Michael Taylor, Assistant Curator of Books

Visitors to the Hill Memorial Library reading room are encouraged to have a look at our newest display, focusing on the Nita Sims Breazeale Family Papers.

Nita Sims Breazeale was born in 1896 to Robert Nicholls Sims, Jr., and Nita Dalferes Sims of Ascension Parish, La. She was a member of a prominent family of businessmen, judges, lawyers, and politicians. As a resident of Baton Rouge, she actively participated in community affairs, and her involvement in charitable organizations continued throughout her life. In 1940, she established the Baton Rouge chapter of Bundles for Britain. This relief organization provided clothing, supplies, and equipment for victims of the London bombings. Her husband, Hopkins Payne Breazeale, a Baton Rouge attorney, served in the 358th Infantry, 90th Division during World War I. During the Allied occupation of Germany, he remained with the American Expeditionary Forces as Provost in Charge of Civil Affairs.

The papers consist of correspondence, legal documents, printed material, photographs, and artifacts that reflect the family’s interest in service organizations, the arts, local history, genealogy, and the professional careers of family members. Notable in this collection are papers related to family history, World War I and the relief organization, Bundles for Britain.

If you would like to find out more about this collection, please contact our reference department at (225) 578-6568.

You can’t judge a book by its cover… or can you?

Visitors to LSU Special Collections’ new mini exhibit, “A Brief History of European Bookbinding from the Middle Ages to 1900,” will have a chance to ponder that question. In the days before mass-produced publishers’ bindings, books were often bought with no covers on them at all, leaving their owners to have them bound as they saw fit. The result was a wide and colorful range of binding styles that varied from time to time and place to place. The exhibit also introduces visitors to some of the work and materials that go into binding a book. Did you know, for example, that scraps of medieval manuscripts are often “hidden” in the bindings of later books? Have you ever wondered how marbled paper is made? Did you know that there are books bound in ivory, velvet, and even Scottish tartan?

Come and find out more about these and other fascinating aspects of the history of the book. The new exhibit will be on display in the Hill Memorial Library lecture hall from May 9 through June 30. The library is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays, and Tuesday evenings (while classes are in session) until 8 p.m. For more information, contact Michael Taylor at (225) 578-6547 or mltaylor@lsu.edu.

Last time we asked a couple of questions about the history of the Lady Tigers basketball team.

Q: When did the Lady Tigers basketball team begin intercollegiate play?
A: 1973 and had a 3-8 season.

Q: Who was their first coach?
A: Jinks Coleman.

Barry Cowan of University Archives writes

Intercollegiate play for the Lady Tigers, also known at the time as the Ben-Gals, began in 1973 as a club sport, but women played intramural basketball as early as 1908.

Jinks Coleman, head coach from 1973-1979, taught kinesiology classes and was also volleyball coach until 1977. Coleman was the first coach in Louisiana to offer athletic scholarships to women athletes.

In their first seasons, the Lady Tigers had to drive their own cars to away games, stay in dormitories, and had no medical help for minor injuries. Coleman said “well, you just had to live through the blisters.”

The Lady Tigers and other women’s teams played under the auspices the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) until the early 1980s when the NCAA began sanctioning women’s athletics. Although the Southeastern Conference started holding postseason women’s basketball tournaments after the end of the 1979-80 season, the SEC finally recognized women’s basketball at the beginning of the 1982-83 season.

The 1908 Intramural Varsity team was made up of Annie Boyd, Louise Thonssen, Ena Paulsen (Capt.), Elizabeth Bott, Allie Spyker, Gladys Doherty, Jesse Turnage and Essie Guithreaux.

The 1908 Intramural “Scrubs” were Thera Nicholson (Capt.), Lida Coleman, Lulie Norwood, Lucille Scott, Ida Howell, Margeret Schoenbrodt and Mary Clarke.

Unfortunately we have no roster for the 1975 team.

In response to the increasing interest and need for digital access to microfilm, Hill Library purchased a Canon MS-800 and two ST-Imaging ST200 reader/scanners for the reading room. Using one of the three new machines, Special Collections patrons can view microfilm in the reading room where they have the option of saving scanned images from the reel to a USB drive, e-mailing the files to themselves, or printing the images.

LSU Special Collections was able to purchase an additional component, the Remote Film Access System, for one of the ST200 machines with the grant money. The remote access capabilities enable patrons who cannot visit the reading room to view film. Utilizing remote desktop software and a unique remote film access system created by ST-Imaging, Inc., Special Collections patrons are now able to view, scan, e-mail, and print from reels of microfilm in the comfort of their homes.

Individuals from around the state and the country who have used this LSU Libraries service are very pleased with the results. Special Collections provides the remote access service for a fee of $20 per session/reel. A session with one reel is offered from 5:00 p.m.- 9:00 a.m. (central time) Monday through Thursday, which is outside regular business hours to allow for in-house patron use of the machine.

Additional information about the service is available on the Special Collections website. Please contact Judy Bolton, Head of Special Collections Public Services or Gina Costello, Digital Services Librarian if you would like further details about Special Collections’ microfilm services for library patrons.

Q: When did the Lady Tigers basketball team begin intercollegiate play?

Q: Who was their first coach?

Come back next week for the answers and for some background on women’s basketball at LSU.

In the early 19th century, Midwestern farmers loaded their crops on flatboats at the end of every summer and floated them down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. The timber that was used to make these boats came from places like Minnesota and Wisconsin, and yet because the river’s current was so strong, it was impossible to take the boats back upriver after they had been unloaded. Instead, they were sold for scrap in New Orleans and were subsequently used to build many of the city’s houses.

Although the flatboat trade ended with the coming of the railroad, another product of the Wisconsin woods recently found its way to Louisiana. Between 1996 and 2006, Gaylord Schanilec and Ben Verhoeven (both of Midnight Paper Sales) collected 24 species of wood near Schanilec’s home fifty miles southwest of Eau Claire—ranging from maple and birch to ironwood and black walnut—and wrote a “biography of a forest.” But it’s not just a catalog of dry, scientific facts. “Gaylord and I have found that trees are fitting vehicles for human history,” Ben writes. “They have been not only witnesses, but also players in many pivotal events, both nationally and locally.” Bound in beautiful wooden boards and featuring, in the text, cross-sections or “portraits” of each of the 24 trees, the book is entitled Sylvae (from the Latin word for “forest”). LSU Special Collections recently purchased a copy of it for the E.A. McIlhenny Natural History Collection.

Almost 350 years ago, the English writer and horticulturalist John Evelyn wrote a similar book, Sylva, or A Discourse on Forest Trees (1664). The English may not have used flatboats to get their crops to market, but they did need trees for something else that was just as important—their navy. England’s famous “wooden walls” protected it from being overrun by foreign armies, and yet, as Evelyn complained, landowners “oftener find wayes to Fell down, and Destroy their Trees and Plantations, than either to repair or improve them.” A great nation, he pointed out, needed great forests. Although England ended up getting most of its timber from North America and Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries, Evelyn’s work was very popular and went through many editions. LSU now owns two copies—the second edition of 1670 and a later, annotated edition dated 1801.

On Sunday, April 6, two events will mark the opening of the exhibition, which runs through June 28. At 3 p.m., Martin will give an illustrated lecture, followed by a reception and book signing. At 2 p.m., preceding the talk, photographer Bruce Schultz will demonstrate the wet-plate collodion photographic technology that Lytle used during in his career. Both events are free and will take place at Hill Memorial Library.

With his roving camera, Lytle captured the city’s history in all its facets, from formal portraits of leading citizens to hilarious group shots of amateur theatricals. The Federal occupation of Baton Rouge during the Civil War is chronicled, as well the annual spring Fireman’s parade. Lytle photographed the cadets at LSU, as well as inmates of the state penitentiary. The exhibition offers views of the evolving landscape of Louisiana’s capital city through more than sixty years. Lytle’s photographs are, according to Martin, “the only visual record of that period of the life and times of Baton Rouge and its people.” Martin is the Photographic Processing Archivist in the LSU Libraries’ Special Collections division.

Bruce Schultz got involved with photography while a student at LSU, and went on to work as a photographer, reporter, and bureau chief for various newspapers in Louisiana, before joining the LSU AgCenter’s Communications Department. In April 2007, he took a workshop under expert wet-plate photographer Robert Szabo. After the workshop, Schultz says, “I was hooked. I haven’t shot any film since that fateful weekend in April 2007.” He often photographs Civil War reenactments and gives demonstrations of the wet-plate process for schools, libraries, and other similar institutions.

The demonstration, lecture, and exhibition are all free and open to the public. Hill Memorial Library, which houses the exhibition and extensive historical archives, is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays. When classes are in session, the library is open Tuesday evenings until 8 p.m. For more information about the library, visit the Special Collections’ Web site.

You can read more about the book in the LSU Press Catalog and 225 Magazine’s review.

Mark Martin will be on hand to sign copies of his book on April 12, 2008 at 1:00 pm at the Barnes and Noble store at Perkins Rowe on Bluebonnet Blvd.

An exhibition at Hill Memorial Library showcasing the work of Andrew D. Lytle is also in the works. Watch this blog for more details.

Visitors will learn about the early history of the freedom of the press in England and the American colonies as well as in Louisiana during the period of French and Spanish rule. Highlights of the exhibit include a copy of the Comte de Mirabeau’s Sur la Liberté de la Presse (1788), owned by Daniel Turnbull of Rosedown Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana. In addition to a first edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)—a work which was banned in the South due to its call for the abolition of slavery—a copy of Creole author Charles Testut’s Le Vieux Salomon will also be on display. Although Testut wrote his novel before the Civil War, he chose not to publish it until 1872, fearing that he would be lynched because of its anti-slavery views. Rounding out the exhibit are materials related to Huey Long’s attempts to gag the Louisiana press—including the LSU student newspaper—in the 1930s, one of which resulted in a landmark Supreme Court case.

The library is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays, and Tuesday evenings until 8 p.m. For more information, contact Michael Taylor at (225) 578-6547 or mltaylor@lsu.edu.