Imagine holding an Ethiopian goatskin satchel which contained a book with early christian figures and a crude drawing of a lion. It is like holding history in the palm of your hand. That is one of the many wonders inside of the Special Collections and Archives section at the Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest. On February 16th, 2017, my class had the privilege to visit this part of the library. Much like how one would expect a billionaire villain’s library to look, this section of the library has a certain aura about it. On display in the main area were some of Edgar Allen Poe’s works, and the two story organization of books was daunting. This all fed into my experience visiting, and learning about the special collections section.
We spent most of out time in the study room with Ms. Megan Mulder, the special collections librarian. Clearly very enthusiastic about her work, Ms. Mulder taught us the basics of the operations and logistics of the special collections section of the library. It was interesting to not hot this section of the library depends heavily in the preservation department, which we visited earlier in the year. When Ms. Mulder would pull out a resource to show us, she ofter would take it out of a holding container that I easily identified as from Craig Fansler and the preservation department.
I thought it was interesting to note how recently some books can be placed into the special collections section. I think I was surprised because before this visit, I would think of the archives of a library like the last scene in that Indiana Jones movie when the movie closes on the giant government facility filled with crates of confidential things.
My favorite part of the visit was very personal. Ms. Mulder pulled and showed us a yearbook from Wake Forest from 1979–1980 I believe. I find it very interesting to see who has come before me and how the contexts of different eras compare and contrast. I would have never expected to find that in the special collections section of the library, but it was definitely a highlight. Nonetheless, most things in that section interest me because they are historically relevant. Holding an early version of the King James bible was moving.
I enjoyed my experience visiting this section of the library becauseI was able to extend my learning about how information is organized. I feel like because of this class I was able to comprehend how information is organized and am confident I can effectively find it when need be. This visit was more of a spice to the entree that was this course. It added an important element to make the meal delectable. It also brought me closer to the library because much of what we had done in the class had been online. I appreciated this visit greatly.
