John Sheveland
Thursday                                                                                                                            October 1, 2009
1:10-2:25

done

The Special Collections Room of Foley Library.

Our class went up to special collection room of the library, where they have 16,000 books dating back to 1475. Since these books are so rare, you cannot take them out of the library, they are only available for use in the reading room. The vault is not open to the public, they keep it temperature controlled to reduce humidity and protect the books. Some items available in the vault to look at are manuscripts, records photos and letters. All rare books are taken very good care of so they are preserved well and don’t get ruined. The library houses the biggest public collection of Bing Crosby memorabilia as well as the largest collection of the works of poet Gerard Manly Hopkins. The vault uses space saver shelves to reduce space and they also use Haylon gas in case of a fire so the books don’t get ruined by water. They have the first register of students and the librarian told us interesting information about the first year of Gonzaga, such as admission and room and board cost only $250 for the whole year, and you had to be at least 10 years old to attend school here. Many of the collection in the vault and rare book room are donated from people in the community or affiliated with the university.

What I learned from going up into the vault was that the library isn’t as shallow as it seems. There is a whole other secret world of living history just up the stairs, past a reference desk, and through a secured door. In a climate controlled room there are archives that date from 1475 to 2009, and are a multitude of items including books, pictures, and even Bing Crosby’s hat! Everything in there is valuable and protected by an effective gas that packs a punch. The room is so high tech; it has a climate control system for just itself, manual cranks that move shelves like they were at Hogwarts, and dog beds for the books to sleep in. If you wanted to look up basically the history of the world, you can come and get some material to read right there in the beautiful dome of the Foley Library. It is like a museum and a cornucopia of information about Gonzaga, Spokane, Europe, Catholicism, poets, etc…There is so much I don’t even know. If you’re curious then go ahead and delve…

The library has 16000 volumes, with books as old as 1475.

The  Vault is a temperature and humidity controlled. They use Halon gas instead of water in case of fires. They also use Spacesavers, a type of moveable shelf. Gloves must be worn while handling the books. They have manuscripts , photos, sound recordings, and vinyl records. They also contain the Gonzaga University archives, which contains the history beginning in 1887. They also have the largest public collection of Bing Crosby paraphernalia and largest collect of Gerald Manley Hopkins in the U.S. They are part of the Jesuit Oregon Archives, which deals with all the Pacific Northwest States. For example, they have the Dominican Missal from 1521, and the David Copperfield book from 1850, as well as Hopkins’ manuscripts from 1882, and Father Dassault’s scrapbook. The Bulldog nickname originated in 1921, because a reporter after a football game described their type of play as “tenacious as a bulldog.” Gonzaga was a college until 1912, women were not admitted until 1948.