Sprucing up the Rare Book Room

The F. Ambrose Clark Rare Book Room at NSLM houses our rare collections. These collections include more than just books: manuscripts, typescripts, letters, panoramas, and other ephemera are housed there. Over the past 18 months, we have been working hard on reprocessing the collections in Rare Books. This project was brought to completion recently. We’ve certainly made a lot of progress!

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A “before” photo from the Rare Book Room. Many collections in the room were disorganized, incorrectly stored, or in need of assessment for condition.
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An “after” photo of the same shelf with books reprocessed.
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Every volume in the Rare Book Room was cataloged, assessed for condition, and had barcode tickets inserted. The entire space was reorganized to match the organizational structure in Library’s Main Reading Room.

In addition to working on the rare contents of the room, the room itself received some major care.

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Cases against the walls were re-anchored and straightened.
06 - After Folios
A new section of shelving for folios was built at the back of the room.
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The room was repainted sage green, and vinyl lettering was installed.

All told, the project included months of reprocessing, the installation of new storage units, and general maintenance which was due for the space. The Library staff is moving on to other collections maintenance projects: cataloging the contents of the Library Vertical File, as well as loose photographs and ephemera that have gone uncataloged to this point. After that, the Library’s periodicals collection will be cataloged, completing the ability of researchers to find any materials from any Library collection.


Wedding Photography by Spiering Photography

John Connolly has served as the George L. Ohrstrom, Jr. Head Librarian at the National Sporting Library & Museum (NSLM) since early 2014. He is responsible for the care of the Library collections, including books, magazines, photographs, diaries, letters, and much more. The NSLM collections span over 350 years of the history of equestrian sport, as well as fly fishing, wing shooting, and other field sports. Have a question? Contact John by e-mail 

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