Beyond the Reading Room

Anecdotes and other notes from the U-M Special Collections Research Center.
Detailed illustration from Audubon's Birds of North America of a nest in a tree with birds sitting around it.

Posts in Beyond the Reading Room

Showing 21 - 30 of 354 items
Image of cover of book titled "The Irish Buddhist" by Alicia Turner, Laurence Cox, and Brian Bocking
  • Martha O'Hara Conway
Guest post by Brian Bocking, Heid Fellow, on his research in the Harry Alverson Franck Papers. Brian is Professor Emeritus of the Study of Religions at University College Cork (Cork, Ireland).
Head and shoulders photograph of a smiling white woman with short gray hair.
  • Juli McLoone
Join us on Thursday, 11 May 3-5 pm for a panel honoring the impact of collector, donor, and adjunct curator Janice B. Longone (1933-2022) through her work building the renowned Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive (JBLCA). The JBLCA encompasses more than 25,000 items including 19th and early 20th century cookbooks, charity cookbooks, immigrant cookbooks, food-related advertising ephemera, and restaurant menus.
Red book cover with an illustration of a women with black hair in traditional Asian dress
  • Lisa Soomin Ryou
Cookbooks can reveal so much about the time in which they were written through their recipes and their authors. For instance, many cookbooks were written for a particular audience, most often women because historically they were the ones cooking or keeping up in the kitchen. In the 20th century, more and more cookbooks were published that sought to bring cuisines of the world to American housewives. The Chinese-Japanese cookbook (1914) is an early example of one.
Dark green leather book cover, with title stamped in gold: Dr. Chase's Recipes or Information for Everybody. Gold border also stamped around the edges, with patent medicine bottles in corners
  • Juli McLoone
We are excited to announce a special collaboration between the Special Collections Research Center, the William L. Clements Library, and the students of ALA 264 Much Depends on Dinner. From April 17 to May 8th, you will be able to find culinary history across campus on Diag Boards and Campus Bus Signs. To see all five selected items together, scroll through this blog post or visit the Shapiro Screens (April 16-May 7) on the first floor of the Shapiro Library.
caucasian presenting man with tan shirt and headphones in profile with stone wall visible behind
  • Philip A Hallman
Join us next Friday 14 April 3-5 pm in the Hatcher Gallery for an event with writer and director John Sayles! Sayles will kick off the Bilmes Visiting Filmmaker series by sharing items of interest he discovered while looking through the archives of fellow maverick directors Orson Welles and Robert Altman.
partially open book with red and black structure folding out from it
  • Jamie Lausch Vander Broek
  • Amy Crist
Join the Special Collections Research Center in Hatcher next Tuesday (11 April) at 4 pm for our final After Hours open house of the Winter term, exploring a selection of moveable books!
Mich. Ms. 30,  full illumination depicting John the Evangelist, fol. 306v. Gospels and biblical and patristic commentaries. [Northern Greece], May 31, 1430.
  • Pablo Alvarez
You are all cordially invited to attend the public lecture, "The Place of Greek Paleography in the Cultural and Literary History of Byzantium." Professor Elena Velkovska (University of Siena, Italy) will help us understand the international significance of the many treasured and valuable Byzantine Greek liturgical manuscripts held in the U-M Library's Special Collections Research Center.
printed page of latin text with large initial A and border of vines and leaves in black with green and gold accents
  • Pablo Alvarez
  • Shannon Zachary
Join us this Wednesday, 8 March, at 4 pm for refreshments, viewing, and casual conversation with the student curators of "Openings: Title Pages in the History of Printed Books"!
architectural scene of cityscape in black and beige
  • Pablo Alvarez
Join the Special Collections Research Center in Hatcher next Tuesday (14 March) at 4 pm for our third After Hours open house of the Winter term, exploring a selection of early rare books and prints containing images printed with the technique of relief (woodcuts) and intaglio (copperplate engravings).
printed page of latin text with large initial A and border of vines and leaves in black with green and gold accents
  • Pablo Alvarez
  • Shannon Zachary
The Special Collections Research Center is pleased to announce a new exhibit featuring the title page. Students in a Fall 2022 History Lab class researched and created the exhibit.