They’re tucked away in folders or on cabinets, securely saved in nondescript bins, and locked behind vault doorways. However when summoned by a researcher, or the insatiably curious, they encourage awe, testing the bounds of what a library assortment will be. The bouquet of wonders within the UC Berkeley Library’s collections contains way more than books (though we’ve these, too — by the hundreds of thousands, in actual fact). However you received’t discover any peculiar tomes right here. As an alternative, we’re having a look at only a few of the sudden, distinctive, and in any other case intriguing supplies within the Library’s collections.
Eva and Felicitas Titus Shadow Puppet Assortment
C. V. Starr East Asian Library
Centuries earlier than the appearance of movie, a distinct type of on-screen magic was capturing the creativeness of audiences throughout China. Chinese language shadow puppetry dates again to 100 B.C., taking root within the nation’s Yellow River area. With the accompaniment of music, puppeteers behind an illuminated display acted out fairy tales and legends, passing alongside traditions, customs, and beliefs within the course of. The Eva and Felicitas Titus Shadow Puppet Assortment — a set of 42 meticulously crafted puppets made from cut-and-dyed donkey pores and skin — was not too long ago acquired by the C. V. Starr East Asian Library, a beneficiant reward from Christina Titus Nadendla. The puppets had been obtained within the Thirties in Hankou, now a part of Wuhan, by Eva Titus, Nadendla’s grandmother. The gathering is called after each Nadendla’s grandmother and her aunt (Eva’s daughter), in whose care the gathering resided earlier than coming to Nadendla and, finally, the library. Through the years, the puppets had been saved in a black lacquer field, and had been sometimes taken out to be placed on show. Because of this, they continue to be in glorious situation. Though shadow puppetry has pale in recognition as new types of storytelling have taken maintain, it’s included on UNESCO’s “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity” listing, and devoted practitioners are preserving the artwork type alive at present. Nadendla is blissful that the puppets have discovered a brand new residence on the library, the place they “will be loved and studied by many others,” she says.
Diary of Patrick Breen
The Bancroft Library
Over the generations, the story of the Donner Social gathering has arrange camp in our collective psyche, exposing the shadowy reaches of human habits when survival hangs within the stability. Snowbound within the Sierra Nevada with their shops of meals depleted, members of a celebration of westward vacationers resorted to cannibalism, consuming the flesh of their fallen fellow sojourners. Among the many band of pioneers on the overland trek had been Irish immigrant Patrick Breen, his spouse, Margaret, and their seven kids. In his diary, held at The Bancroft Library, Breen bears witness to the ordeal. (Bancroft has digitized the diary — the one recognized journal saved by a member of the occasion that fateful winter — and has made it obtainable on-line, so anybody on the planet can see it.) Stark in its plainspokenness, Breen’s diary offers updates concerning the climate, meals, and the well being and deaths of vacationers, whereas pangs of desperation creep in. “Might we with Gods (sic) assist spend the comeing (sic) yr higher than the previous which we objective to do if Almighty God will ship us from our current dredful (sic) state of affairs,” he writes on the final day of 1846. At occasions, the entries are poetic of their simplicity, even because the loss of life rely rises: “Mrs (sic) Murphy says the wolves are about to dig up the useless our bodies at her shanty, the nights are too chilly to look at them, we hear them howl.” With assistance from rescuers, Breen and his household had been spared the destiny that had befallen most of the different vacationers, and by March, that they had safely arrived in Sutter’s Fort, in California. Isabella — the youngest member of the Breen household, only a child through the catastrophe — died in 1935 and was the occasion’s final surviving member.
Hair of Samuel Clemens
Mark Twain Papers & Mission, The Bancroft Library
The Bancroft Library’s Mark Twain Papers & Mission (MTP) holds wonders together with handwritten musings, tales, and different supplies that flowed straight from the top of Samuel Clemens. And, sure, that features a snippet of hair from the good American creator himself. After a barbering session, a swatch of Twain’s strands was scooped up by his secretary and private assistant, who preserved, dated, and described it — offering assurance of the specimen’s validity. Within the Clemens household’s Bible, Bob Hirst, basic editor of the Mark Twain Papers & Mission, discovered what appeared to be hair from the creator’s sister, Margaret, who died at age 9. DNA testing of each siblings’ hair indicated a standard mom, additional bolstering the case for his or her authenticity. At this time, the hair of each siblings is safely saved within the MTP’s vault, rigorously managed for temperature and humidity. Different stunning gems on the MTP embrace what stands out as the solely authentic {photograph} of a shirtless Twain, in his hirsute glory, believed to have been used to create a sculpture of the creator. A photograph of the bust is likely one of the frontispieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Chaseki Okoshiezu Mokuroku (Folding Drawings of the Well-known Tea Homes)
Environmental Design Library
The Environmental Design Library is residence to treasures galore, however maybe librarian David Eifler’s favourite “distinctive” merchandise is a surprising set of 90 pop-up fashions of Japanese tea homes. They’re a far cry from the pop-ups that may leap to thoughts. The three-dimensional layouts, held within the library’s uncommon ebook room, are extraordinarily detailed, exact, and sophisticated. Saved in two picket bins, with hand-calligraphed titles on their exteriors, the fashions have flaps for partitions, benches, ceilings, awnings, and different options, and embrace info on measurements and supplies, together with different particulars. Eifler counts them amongst his favourite gadgets for “their skill to symbolize in three dimensions architectural photographs usually rendered in two dimensions and their distinctive skill to fold flat for compact storage.” This set is from round 1930, however paper fashions like these have been utilized in Japan since no less than the 1500s.
Nouuelle France
Earth Sciences and Map Library
It’s a cartographic time capsule hailing from the seventeenth century. The unique manuscript map Nouuelle France, from 1641, was drawn in ink on animal pores and skin, and is the oldest surviving map to depict the entire 5 Nice Lakes. It’s additionally the oldest recognized map to point out the areas of Indigenous teams in a lot of Jap Canada, earlier than they had been scattered by pandemics and warfare. The Earth Sciences and Map Library’s model, a facsimile produced within the Eighties, is commonly utilized in library instruction, equivalent to when cartography college students come by for library excursions. Among the many Indigenous teams positioned on the map is the Iroquoian-speaking Wendat confederacy. Core to the confederacy’s cosmology is its members’ identification as islanders, residing on a tract of land with distinct boundaries on the heart of the universe. (In actual fact, the identify “Wendat” is known to imply “individuals of the island.”) Notably, the French cartographer who drew the map envisioned the Wendat homeland of southern Ontario (a peninsula) as an island. This was no accident, in keeping with Heiko Muhr, map metadata and curatorial specialist. The French counted the Wendat as beneficial allies, and the map’s creator — seemingly Jean Bourdon, the primary engineer-in-chief and surveyor of New France (the North American swath that the French colonized) — selected for the map to convey this imaginative and prescient.
Krabūan phayuhayāttrā sathonlamāok samai Somdet Phra Nārāi Mahārāt: čhamlō̜ng čhāok tonchabap nangsư̄ Samut Thai khō̜ng Hō̜samut hǣng Chāt (Royal Procession within the Reign of King Narai: A Copy from Authentic Palimpsest within the Nationwide Library Assortment)
South/Southeast Asia Library
At first look, it’d appear to be a normal ebook. However if you open the quilt, its true magnificence is revealed. In a leporello, or folding ebook, tales spill throughout the peaks and valleys of lengthy pages, pleated accordion type. Krabūan phayuhayāttrā, a Thai leporello manuscript within the collections of the South/Southeast Asia Library, depicts a royal procession held through the reign of Narai. Within the mid- to late seventeenth century, Narai dominated the Ayutthaya Kingdom, the precursor to trendy Thailand. Virginia Shih, curator for the Southeast Asia and Buddhist research collections, acquired the ebook “by serendipity” on the Bangkok Worldwide Guide Truthful in 2018. The leporello is a replica of the unique, which is preserved within the Nationwide Library of Thailand, and whose vivid visuals are copied from mural work at Yom Temple in Ayutthaya.
