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square Rare books speak volumes
spring 2013
Jonas Clark loved books. In fact, the founder of Clark University was so passionate about words and illustrations, both modern and ancient, that he accrued a personal library estimated at 10,000 books. In 1889, he donated some 4,000 of them to the University’s library, and today an incredible historical and literary array is housed in Special Collections at the Goddard Library. Many of those books, as precious and fragile as they are, are safely preserved in climate-controlled storage. But on Dec. 6, a number of Clark’s most fascinating volumes were put on display for the Rare Book Open House, conducted by students from English Professor Meredith Neuman’s Introduction to Archival Research seminar. Students shared examples of medieval and Renaissance books and explained topics from early paper making and typography to bindings and illustrations, to hand-press printing processes and manuscript reader annotations. Clark archivist Fordyce Williams noted that among Clark’s books are 40 “incunabula” — books, pamphlets or broadsides published in Europe after the invention of the Gutenberg press in 1455 and before the year 1501. One on display, “Nuremburg Chronicles” (1493), is the product of Anton Koberger, known at the time as
clark alumni magazine
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Harry Potter had a magical impact on the publishing and movie industries … but on the athletic fields? It’s true. Quidditch, the chosen sport of everyone’s favorite boy wizard, has been played on college campuses for several years, and in fall 2012 Clark launched its own club team (pictured at right). Several of the elements of the fictional game — most notably the brooms (though not the airborne variety) — have survived the transition from the page to the pitch. As a member of the Southern New England Quidditch Conference, Clark competes against the likes of Brown, Brandeis and the University of Rhode Island. And no, Hogwarts is not on the schedule.
“The Prince of Printing.” (The oldest of Clark’s volumes, Williams said, is a handwritten, hand-painted manuscript from 1275.) Also displayed was the “Expositionis Evangeliorum dominicalium” (1480), a book of sermons that features a small, thin, semi-translucent circle in one of the book’s pages, a phenomenon known as a “vat man’s tear” — an imperfection made by a drop of sweat from a worker making the hand-laid paper. Neuman’s students have begun creating descriptions and databases of the Clark collection, enabling access for researchers all over the world. The University’s original bibliophile would be proud.