Meg MinerFollow

Publication Date

October 2016

Comments

A companion essay containing an analysis of Myers' interactions with others and his collections is available at https://works.bepress.com/meg_miner/29/ Portrait of a Collector is a biblio-biography, comprised of several parts, of IWU’s 17th President Minor Myers, jr. A summary describing the entire project is available at https://works.bepress.com/meg_miner/30/

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to provide an analysis of the books that President Minor Myers, jr. collected and that were subsequently transferred to Illinois Wesleyan University (IWU) after Myers’ death. For reasons that will be discussed below, keeping Myers’ collection in its entirety at IWU was not practical or desirable. Most of the collection was dispersed at auction and a brief discussion of that event and of the decisions about what to retain conclude this work. Even though most of his books are no longer at IWU, it is still possible to appreciate the breadth of Myers’ book collecting interests due to the cataloging project undertaken by the author after the University acquired the collection. Appended to this work are a list of the titles selected for retention in Special Collections at The Ames Library, the original auction catalog; and a prices realized list for the same auction material, but with a complete list of titles and condition notes, grouped by auction lot.[1] Photographs of the collection as it existed at the time of auction are also available here.[1] See Appendices B-D, respectively. Due to their length, they are accessible as a separate document at https://works.bepress.com/meg_miner/27/

Disciplines

Archival Science | Library and Information Science

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