Special Collections libraries seem irrelevant in modern times….until you spend some time in one. After just a half-hour viewing the Watkinson Library’s latest exhibition, Catalysts for Religious Change: Monuments of Reformation Printing most thoughtful visitors will see how relevant history captured in print really is. The religious, political, and social changes of the Reformation, as seen in the printed books of the 15th and 16th centuries, remain relevant today as modern society struggles with its own outbreaks of religious and sectarian strife. Intolerance, bigotry, censorship, propaganda, satire, all important elements in the Reformation, are more than just reflected in the printed books of the period; these books helped make history just as surely as the intolerance, bigotry, censorship, propaganda, and satire (e.g. Danish cartoons of Mohammed) of today’s media are helping make modern history. This is one of the reasons why the special exhibitions and collections of the Watkinson Library at Trinity College provide such a valuable resource in Connecticut.
The Watkinson Library is not just the special collections library of Trinity College, it is also a library intended for public use. The “nearly 200,000 volumes….include late medieval manuscripts and early printed books, a vast array of 18th and 19th century British and American publications, important 19th and 20th century literary manuscripts, diverse ephemera collections, a comprehensive collection of ornithology books, and a large collection of modern private press books.” Founded in 1857 for “all citizens and other residents and visitors in the State of Connecticut”, the Watkinson Library still serves these patrons as well as providing the Trinity College community with convenient access to some of the finest research collections in New England.
Jeffrey Kaimowitz and the staff of the Watkinson Library are actively involved in promoting the research value of the Watkinson. This is the motivation for the regular exhibitions that they design and organize approximately twice per year. These exhibitions usually highlight existing material, but sometimes the staff will purchase or borrow items to help complete the story described in the exhibitions. A recent exhibition, Alternative Voices: Artists’ Books, Comix, and Zines, an exhibition of contemporary work from the Watkinson collections, was of special interest to librarians and others interested in the book as an art form. This exhibition helped show how artists have used the physical book as a vehicle for artistic expression.
The current exhibition on Reformation printing highlights an impressive collection of early printed books from German, Swiss, French, British and other printers. As stated in the catalog introduction “it begins with pre-Reformation criticism of the Catholic Church, in particular that of Savonarola, Sebastian Brant, and Erasmus. There follow cases on Luther and Lutheranism, Swiss Protestantism, especially Zwingli and Calvin, free thinkers and dissenters, the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and the Reformation in England, and the English Bible from Tyndale to the Authorized Version.” By design, the book choices illustrate mostly the religious debate and struggle of the Reformation. At the same time, the books themselves helped make history as their existence affected the religious, social, and political change of the period. The Reformation may be the first major historical event where a new information technology played a crucial role in promoting change, just as the internet today seems to play a similar role in affecting modern events. Exhibitions like this one helps us remember how the past so clearly repeats itself, no matter how hard we try to avoid such condemnation.
All of the works that make up the Reformation exhibition come from the Watkinson’s own holdings. These holdings include an impressive number of manuscript books of hours, 200 incunabula and over 1000 16th century books. Much of this material demonstrate the development of fine printing methods and include many illustrated books. Librarians interested in the book arts would do well to explore the Watkinson holdings.
The Watkinson library is famous for many other collections. The Library’s Americana, especially 19th century material, is the library’s strongest subject area. Included here are collections on the Civil War, slavery and abolition, Indians of North America, schoolbooks, etiquette, and popular and church music. Other important subjects are botany, architecture, archaeology, Bibles, British History, children’s literature, the classical tradition, jazz, religious history, voyages and travels, women’s studies, and World War I. The Watkinson is well represented with print literature from famous English and American authors, and has many examples of major private press titles of the 18th, 19th, and 20th century. Besides print material, the library has extensive manuscript collections from Charles Dudley Warner, Robert Frost, E. A. Robinson, Lydia Sigourney, Sir Walter Scott, and others. Manuscript collections also include the papers of the Connecticut famous, such as the politician Odell Shepard, the musician and composer Nathan Allen, author James Hammond Trumbull, and educator Henry Barnard. The Watkinson Library also houses the Trinity College Archives.
Perhaps the Watkinson Library is most notable for its ornithology collection. Considered one of the best in the country, the Ostrom and Alice Talcott Enders Collection has over 7,000 monographs dating from the mid-16th century to the present, and includes major ornithology periodicals, manuscripts, papers, and a small group of original paintings created for book illustration. With a generous endowment specifically for the Enders collection, the Watkinson Library continues to build in this subject area. The Gurdon Russell Natural History Collection complements the Enders Collection and includes John J. Audubon’s stunning elephant folio Birds of America.
An edited version of this article appeared previously in Connecticut Libraries.
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