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18 books match the query 'Collections'

cover of Collections in Context: The Organization of Knowledge and Community in Europe

Collections in Context

The Organization of Knowledge and Community in Europe

Edited by Karen Fresco and Anne D. Hedeman

The Ohio State University Press, 2011

The fourteen essays that comprise Collections in Context: The Organization of Knowledge and Community in Europe interrogate questions posed by French, Flemish, English, and Italian collections of all sorts—libraries as a whole, anthologies and miscellanies assembled within a single manuscript or printed book, and even illustrated ivory boxes.

Collecting became an increasingly important activity during the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries, when the decreased cost of producing books made ownership available to more people. But the act of collecting is never neutral: it gathers information, orders material (especially linear texts), and prioritizes everything—in short, collecting both organizes and comments on knowledge. Moreover, the context of a collection must reveal something about identity, but whose? That of the compiler? The reader or viewer? The donor? The patron?

With essays by a wide array of international scholars, Collections in Context demonstrates that the very act of collecting inevitably imposes some kind of relationship among what might otherwise be naively thought of as disparate elements and simultaneously exposes something about the community that created and used the collection. Thus, Collections in Context offers unusual insights into how collecting both produced knowledge and built community in early modern Europe.
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cover of Collections of Nothing

Collections of Nothing

William Davies King

University of Chicago Press, 2008

Nearly everyone collects something, even those who don’t think of themselves as collectors. William Davies King, on the other hand, has devoted decades to collecting nothing—and a lot of it. With Collections of Nothing, he takes a hard look at this habitual hoarding to see what truths it can reveal about the impulse to accumulate.

Part memoir, part reflection on the mania of acquisition, Collections of Nothing begins with the stamp collection that King was given as a boy. In the following years, rather than rarity or pedigree, he found himself searching out the lowly and the lost, the cast-off and the undesired: objects that, merely by gathering and retaining them, he could imbue with meaning, even value. As he relates the story of his burgeoning collections, King also offers a fascinating meditation on the human urge to collect. This wry, funny, even touching appreciation and dissection of the collector’s art as seen through the life of a most unusual specimen will appeal to anyone who has ever felt the unappeasable power of that acquisitive fever.

"What makes this book, bred of a midlife crisis, extraordinary is the way King weaves his autobiography into the account of his collection, deftly demonstrating that the two stories are essentially one. . . . His hard-won self-awareness gives his disclosures an intensity that will likely resonate with all readers, even those whose collections of nothing contain nothing at all."—New Yorker

"King's extraordinary book is a memoir served up on the backs of all things he collects. . . . His story starts out sounding odd and singular—who is this guy?—but by the end, you recognize yourself in a lot of what he does."—Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune

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cover of Collections of Nothing

Collections of Nothing

William Davies King

University of Chicago Press, 2008

Nearly everyone collects something, even those who don’t think of themselves as collectors. William Davies King, on the other hand, has devoted decades to collecting nothing—and a lot of it. With Collections of Nothing, he takes a hard look at this habitual hoarding to see what truths it can reveal about the impulse to accumulate.

Part memoir, part reflection on the mania of acquisition, Collections of Nothing begins with the stamp collection that King was given as a boy. In the following years, rather than rarity or pedigree, he found himself searching out the lowly and the lost, the cast-off and the undesired: objects that, merely by gathering and retaining them, he could imbue with meaning, even value. As he relates the story of his burgeoning collections, King also offers a fascinating meditation on the human urge to collect. This wry, funny, even touching appreciation and dissection of the collector’s art as seen through the life of a most unusual specimen will appeal to anyone who has ever felt the unappeasable power of that acquisitive fever.

"What makes this book, bred of a midlife crisis, extraordinary is the way King weaves his autobiography into the account of his collection, deftly demonstrating that the two stories are essentially one. . . . His hard-won self-awareness gives his disclosures an intensity that will likely resonate with all readers, even those whose collections of nothing contain nothing at all."—New Yorker

"King's extraordinary book is a memoir served up on the backs of all things he collects. . . . His story starts out sounding odd and singular—who is this guy?—but by the end, you recognize yourself in a lot of what he does."—Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune

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cover of Creators in the Academic Library: Collections and Spaces

Creators in the Academic Library

Collections and Spaces

Rebecca Zuege Kuglitsch

Assoc of College & Research Libraries, 2023

Engineering students, designers, studio artists, and other student creators have unique research needs that libraries are well-positioned to meet. They use academic literature to inspire and ground creation, but also seek information from trade literature, patents, technical standards, and how-to manuals. They apply tacit knowledge and need to learn not only how to write within academic discourse but also create objects, designs, and experiences.
 
In four parts, Creators in the Academic Library: Collections and Spaces explores how academic libraries can build collections, spaces, and communities that serve creators.
  • Tailoring Collections for Creators
  • Making in the Academic Library
  • Creating Experiences in the Library
  • Cultivating Creator Communities 
Chapters identify innovative ways the academic library can support creators by building new kinds of collections, resources, and experiences, including the use of rare books and archives; building a comprehensive technology and research equipment lending collection; performing in library spaces; supporting sustainability across disciplines; and creating equitable access to creator spaces, tools, and resources. Creators in the Academic Library documents spaces and collections that strive for equity and authenticity, for playfulness and joy, and offers strategies for creating a library open to all comers seeking a place to create in a liberating environment.
 
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cover of Drama in English From the Middle Ages to the Early Twentieth Century

Drama in English From the Middle Ages to the Early Twentieth Century

Christopher J. Wheatley

Catholic University of America Press, 2016

At a time when good editions of drama in English are prohibitively expensive and online texts are unedited and lack the apparatus necessary for students to understand and contextualize the plays, this anthology affordably illustrates every significant genre of drama in the English language from the late fourteenth century to the early twentieth century, with plays from England, Ireland, and the United States of America. The mystery and morality plays of the Middle Ages, Renaissance comedy, tragedy and meta-theater, Restoration and eighteenth-century comedy, tragedy, and ballad opera, nineteenth-century melodrama, and early twentieth century realism and naturalism are all presented with the introductions glossaries and notes suitable for a college level reader by an editor with a quarter of a century of experience teaching courses on the history of drama in English. The plays both reflect their times and critique them, while remaining stageable today. The Wakefield Master, The York Realist, Marlowe, Jonson, Dryden, Wycherley, Gay, Boucicault, Synge, and Shaw are some of the playwrights in this representative collection of plays that reveal both the popular appeal of the English-language theater and the dazzling dramatic artistry it embodied over a period of six centuries. Further the collection is in "old spelling" and is thus a useful sourcebook for those interested in the history of the English language.
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cover of Eight Plays for Children: The New Generation Play Project

Eight Plays for Children

The New Generation Play Project

Edited by Coleman A. Jennings

University of Texas Press, 1999

The New Generation Play Project was a daring experiment in American children's theatre. Begun in 1989 by a consortium that included the Seattle Children's Theatre, The Children's Theatre Company of Minneapolis, Stage One: The Louisville Children's Theatre, and the Honolulu Theatre for Youth, the NGPP raised half a million dollars to commission major American dramatists to create new works for young people and to produce these plays over a several-year period.

This book provides the full text of the plays produced through the NGPP:

  • Constance Congdon, Beauty and the Beast
  • Velina Hasu Houston, Hula Heart
  • Tina Howe, East of the Sun and West of the Moon
  • Len Jenkin, The Invisible Man
  • Mark Medoff, Kringle's Window
  • Eric Overmyer, Duke Kahanamoku vs. The Surfnappers
  • Michael Weller, Dogbrain
  • Y York, The Witch of Blackbird Pond

In his introduction, Coleman Jennings describes the work of the NGPP, some of the controversies surrounding its selection of playwrights who do not ordinarily write for young audiences, as well as the playwrights' reactions to the project, and the critical reception of the plays. Suzan Zeder, one of the nation's leading playwrights for family audiences, supplies the foreword.

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cover of Goatfoot Milktongue Twinbird: Interviews, Essays, and Notes on Poetry, 1970-76

Goatfoot Milktongue Twinbird

Interviews, Essays, and Notes on Poetry, 1970-76

Donald Hall

University of Michigan Press, 1978

These essays and interviews from 1970-76 are lively, pointed, often polemical. They derive from a unified point of view about creativity and about the function of poetry. For the interested reader they can provide a key to the universe of the contemporary poet. In this work, Donald Hall speaks in a conversational way about his poetry and about his poetic wishes, endeavors, failures, and successes.
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cover of Infinite Constellations: An Anthology of Identity, Culture, and Speculative Conjunctions

Infinite Constellations

An Anthology of Identity, Culture, and Speculative Conjunctions

Edited by Khadijah Queen and K. Ibura

University of Alabama Press, 2023

A galaxy of voices. A universe of belonging.

The innovative fictions in Infinite Constellations showcase the voices and visions of 30 remarkable writers, both new and established, from the global majority: Native American/First Nation writers, South Asian writers, East Asian writers, Black American writers, Latinx writers, and Caribbean and Middle Eastern writers. These are visions both familiar and strange, but always rooted in the mystery of human relationships, the deep honoring of memory, and the rootedness to place and the centering of culture.

The writers in this anthology mirror, instruct, bind and unbind, myth-make and myth-invert, transform and transmute, make us belly-laugh or hum our understanding, gasp or whisper gently, and remember that sometimes we need to holler and fight as we grieve. Any dangers herein, imagined or observed in poem and story, transport us: moving from latent to extant, then unleashed.

This work does not presume; it presents and blossoms, creating a constellation of appearances, a symphony of belonging.

“In collecting this work,” note editors Khadijah Queen and K. Ibura, “we felt humbled by the love threaded throughout the voices speaking to us in stories and poems that vault beyond expectation and settle in our consciousness as an expansion of what’s possible when we tend to one another with intention. We felt lifted, held aloft in these arrangements of language. We hope that as you read each story and poem, you will find the same sense of empowerment and celebration that we know has sustained us over countless generations, and in their beauty and humor and intelligence and complexity, continue to enrich us still.”

CONTRIBUTORS
George Abraham / Kenzie Allen / Shreya lla Anasuya / Thea Anderson / Wendy Chin-Tanner / Alton Melvar M. Depanas / Yohanca Delgado / Jennifer Elise Foerster / Aerik Francis / André O. Hoilette / Brian K. Hudson / K. Ibura / Pedro Iniguez / Ruth Ellen Kocher / Ra’Niqua Lee / Tonya Liburd / Kenji C. Liu / Shalewa Mackall / Lucien Darjeun Meadows / Melanie Merle / Juan J. Morales / Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint / Cindy Juyound Ok / Daniel José Older / Soham Patel / Lynn C. Pitts/ Khadijah Queen / Sheree Renée Thomas /  Sarah Sophia Yanni / dg nanouk okpik / shakirah peterson
 

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cover of Lofty Dogmas: Poets on Poetics

Lofty Dogmas

Poets on Poetics

Deborah Brown

University of Arkansas Press, 2005

Compiled by three noted poets, this is an eclectic, stimulating, and informed selection of poets' remarks on poetry spanning eras, ethnicities, and aesthetics. The 102 selections from nearly as many poets reach back to the Greeks and Romans, then draw on Chaucer, Shakespeare, Sidney, and Milton, on to Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, and Poe, then Hopkins, Yeats, Eliot, Rilke, and Pound, concluding with many of our contemporaries, including Hall, Clifton, Mackey, Kunitz, and Rukeyser. The book is divided into three sections. "Musing" concerns issues of inspiration, "Making," issues of craft, from diction to meter to persona and voice, and "Mapping," the role of poetry and the poet. Headnotes at the beginning of each selection provide background information about the poet and commentary on the significance of the selection. There is also a useful appendix with a listing of essays arranged according to more specific topics. As the poets write in their introduction: "This book was intended to deepen readers' understanding of age-old poetic ideas while at the same time pointing out new directions for thinking about poetry, juxtaposing the familiar and the strange, reconfiguring old boundaries, and shaking up stereotypes."
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cover of Millionaire Shopping: The Collections of Alfred Morrison, 1821–1897

Millionaire Shopping

The Collections of Alfred Morrison, 1821–1897

Edited by Caroline Dakers

University College London, 2025

The first detailed account of Alfred Morrison, the enigmatic Victorian collector and patron of the arts. 

Although his fame has faded with time, Alfred Morrison was one of the most influential and avid collectors and patrons of the arts in Victorian England. Morrison was an obsessive and comprehensive collector, using his extravagant wealth to accumulate old master paintings, autograph manuscripts, coins and medals, imperial Chinese porcelain, and other treasures, and his commissions were equally eclectic. Millionaire Shopping includes contributions by contemporary museum curators, scholars, and dealers in painting, sculpture, and decorative arts, with each chapter dedicated to a particular aspect of Morrison’s collecting and patronage. Extensive illustrations, including many never-before-seen images from private archives, help bring his impressive artistic footprint to life.  
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cover of Mobile Museums: Collections in Circulation

Mobile Museums

Collections in Circulation

Edited by Felix Driver, Mark Nesbitt, and Caroline Cornish

University College London, 2021

An argument for the importance of circulation in the study of museum collections, both past and present.

How did the process of the circulation re-examine, inform, and unsettle common assumptions about the way museum collections have evolved over time and space? Mobile Museums presents an argument for the importance of circulation in the study of museum collections, both past and present. It brings together a diverse array of international scholars and curators from a variety of disciplines to consider the mobility of collections, especially in the context of Indigenous community engagement. By foregrounding the question of circulation, the book represents a paradigm shift in the understanding of the history and future uses of museum collections. Taking on a global perspective and addressing a variety of types of collection, including the botanical, ethnographic, economic, and archaeological, the book helps us to understand why the mobility of museum collections was a fundamental aspect of their history—and why it continues to matter today.
 
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cover of Object-Based Learning: Exploring Museums and Collections in Education

Object-Based Learning

Exploring Museums and Collections in Education

Thomas Kador

University College London, 2025

A rich resource illustrating the key ideas behind learning with things. 

This textbook provides an overview of some of the most important approaches to material culture and object analysis to illustrate broader themes and trends in museum studies and pedagogy. Covering diverse topics related to curatorial practice and exhibiting objects, including accessibility, curatorial ethics, colonialism and museums, audience engagement, and histories of collecting, Object-Based Learning weaves together important historical context and theoretical perspectives with practical case studies and exercises. It also includes discussion of timely issues like the role of digital technologies in teaching with objects, the psychosocial role of objects, and the use of collections in health and wellness. 
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cover of Pushing Boundaries in Southwestern Archaeology: Chronometry, Collections, and Contexts

Pushing Boundaries in Southwestern Archaeology

Chronometry, Collections, and Contexts

Stephen E. Nash

University Press of Colorado, 2022

Pushing Boundaries in Southwestern Archaeology draws together the proceedings from the sixteenth biennial Southwest Symposium. In exploring the conference theme, contributors consider topics ranging from the resuscitation of archaeomagnetic dating to the issue of Athapaskan origins, from collections-based studies of social identity, foodways, and obsidian trade to the origins of a rock art tradition and the challenges of a deeply buried archaeological record.
 
The first of the volume’s four sections examines the status, history, and prospects of Bears Ears National Monument, the broader regulatory and political boundaries that complicate the nature and integrity of the archaeological record, and the cultural contexts and legal stakes of archaeological inquiry. The second section focuses on chronological “big data” in the context of pre-Columbian history and the potential and limits of what can be empirically derived from chronometric analysis of the past. The chapters in the third section advocate for advancing collections-based research, focusing on the vast and often untapped research potential of archives, previously excavated museum collections, and legacy data. The final section examines the permeable boundaries involved in Plains-Pueblo interactions, obvious in the archaeological record but long in need of analysis, interpretation, and explanation.
 
Contributors: James R. Allison, Erin Baxter, Benjamin A. Bellorado, Katelyn J. Bishop, Eric Blinman, J. Royce Cox, J. Andrew Darling, Kaitlyn E. Davis, William H. Doelle, B. Sunday Eiselt, Leigh Anne Ellison, Josh Ewing, Samantha G. Fladd, Gary M. Feinman, Jeffrey R. Ferguson, Severin Fowles, Willie Grayeyes, Matthew Guebard, Saul L. Hedquist, Greg Hodgins, Lucas Hoedl, John W. Ives, Nicholas Kessler, Terry Knight, Michael W. Lindeman, Hannah V. Mattson, Myles R. Miller, Lindsay Montgomery, Stephen E. Nash, Sarah Oas, Jill Onken, Scott G. Ortman, Danielle J. Riebe, John Ruple, Will G. Russell, Octavius Seowtewa, Deni J. Seymour, James M. Vint, Adam S. Watson
 
 
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cover of Radical Collections: Re-examining the roots of collections, practices and information professions

Radical Collections

Re-examining the roots of collections, practices and information professions

Edited by Jordan Landes

University of London Press, 2018

Available as free PDF download at http://humanities-digital-library.org/index.php/hdl/catalog/book/radical_collections Do archivists ‘curate’ history? And to what extent are our librarians the gatekeepers of knowledge? Libraries and archives have a long and rich history of compiling ‘radical collections’- from Klanwatch Project in the States to the R. D. Laing Archive in Glasgow- but a re-examination of the information professions and all aspects of managing those collections is long overdue. This book is the result of a critical conference held at Senate House Library in 2017. The conference provided a space to debate the issues and ethics of collection development, management and promotion. This book brings together some key papers from those proceedings. It shines a light on pressing topical issues within library and information services (LIS)- to encompass selection, appraisal and accession, through to organisation and classification, and including promotion and use. Will libraries survive as victims of neoliberal marketization? Do we have a responsibility to collect and document ‘white hate’ in the era of Trump? And how can a predominantly white (96.7%) LIS workforce effectively collect and tell POC histories?
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cover of Sappho to Valéry: Poems in Translation

Sappho to Valéry

Poems in Translation

John Frederick Nims

University of Arkansas Press, 1990

Revised and enlarged, the second edition of Sappho to Valéry includes both the originals and translations of ninety-eight poems from nine different languages. Nims offers new and lively interpretations of a number of poems that have been translated and others available in no other English translation.

A former editor of Poetry, John Frederick Nims has published several volumes of his own poetry, poetry in translation, and essays on the form.

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cover of The Community College Library: Collections and Technical Services

The Community College Library

Collections and Technical Services

Janet Pinkley

Assoc of College & Research Libraries, 2025

Community colleges are a cornerstone of higher education and serve the unique needs of the communities in which they reside. Collections and technical services librarians at these institutions need expertise in their area of library work, but also a deep understanding of the community they serve to curate and make discoverable the resources their users need.
 
The Community College Library: Collections and Technical Services highlights the various approaches to collection development and the technical services work being done by community college librarians around the U.S. You’ll find strategies for developing equity-centered collections, data-driven acquisitions, cataloging, systems migrations, zero textbook cost degrees, and more. These programs can serve as a model, providing new and innovative ways to approach this work at your own institutions.
 
Community college librarians are engaged in meaningful work designing and delivering library programs and services that meet the needs of their diverse populations and support student learning. ACRL’s “The Community College Library” series is meant to lift the voices of community college librarians and highlight their creativity, tenacity, and commitment to students.
 
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cover of The Lost Species: Great Expeditions in the Collections of Natural History Museums

The Lost Species

Great Expeditions in the Collections of Natural History Museums

Christopher Kemp

University of Chicago Press, 2017

The tiny, lungless Thorius salamander from southern Mexico, thinner than a match and smaller than a quarter. The lushly white-coated Saki, an arboreal monkey from the Brazilian rainforests. The olinguito, a native of the Andes, which looks part mongoose, part teddy bear. These fantastic species are all new to science—at least newly named and identified; but they weren’t discovered in the wild, instead, they were unearthed in the drawers and cavernous basements of natural history museums. As Christopher Kemp reveals in The Lost Species, hiding in the cabinets and storage units of natural history museums is a treasure trove of discovery waiting to happen.

With Kemp as our guide, we go spelunking into museum basements, dig through specimen trays, and inspect the drawers and jars of collections, scientific detectives on the hunt for new species. We discover king crabs from 1906, unidentified tarantulas, mislabeled Himalayan landsnails, an unknown rove beetle originally collected by Darwin, and an overlooked squeaker frog, among other curiosities. In each case, these specimens sat quietly for decades—sometimes longer than a century—within the collections of museums, before sharp-eyed scientists understood they were new. Each year, scientists continue to encounter new species in museum collections—a stark reminder that we have named only a fraction of the world’s biodiversity. Sadly, some specimens have waited so long to be named that they are gone from the wild before they were identified, victims of climate change and habitat loss. As Kemp shows, these stories showcase the enduring importance of these very collections.

The Lost Species vividly tells these stories of discovery—from the latest information on each creature to the people who collected them and the scientists who finally realized what they had unearthed—and will inspire many a museumgoer to want to peek behind the closed doors and rummage through the archives.
 
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cover of Theatre for Youth: Twelve Plays with Mature Themes

Theatre for Youth

Twelve Plays with Mature Themes

Edited by Coleman A. Jennings and Gretta Berghammer

University of Texas Press, 1986

Since the beginning of the theatre-for-youth movement in the United States, the majority of plays written for children have been fairy tales. By the 1960s, however, encouraged by changes in social attitudes toward children, playwrights began to respond to a growing tendency on the parts of both parents and teachers to have children face, rather than avoid, the more difficult truths of existence. Thus children's dramatic literature was opened to new subjects, themes and characters previously considered unsuitable for the young audience.

Theatre for Youth seeks to identify and illustrate this trend by examining twelve plays that deal with mature themes: aging, death and dying, conformity, sexuality, divorce, moral culpability. The plays have been chosen not only for their mature content, but also for their professional integrity, the delicacy with which they handle their subject matter, and their respect for their intended audience.

A foreword by Jed H. Davis, an introduction and summary paragraphs for each play by Jennings and Berghammer, and a lengthy annotated list of suggested plays for further reading or viewing make this volume extremely useful both for directors of children's theatre and for teachers.

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