Monthly Archives: December 2014

Patrick Frazier Political and Social Movements Collection

In addition to his day job as Reference Specialist at the Library of Congress, Patrick Frazier worked as a freelance writer and photographer. He assembled an impressive collection of broadsides, flyers, handbills, photographs and posters. The collection covers all of the major political and social movements of the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s including civil rights, gay and lesbian rights and feminism as well the anti-nuclear and the Vietnam War protests. The focus of the collection is the Washington, DC area.

Poster2               Poster3

Dorothy A. and Charles A. Moore Jr. Japanese Woodblock Print Collection

Dorothy A. Moore earned her MA (1959) and EDD (1970) from American University and is a generous donor to campus. Along with her husband, Charles, she built a diverse collection of Japanese woodblock prints.

In the spring of 2014, she donated forty-eight Ukiyoe and Shin-hanga prints by a variety of artists including Chikanobu, Konubu Hasegawa, Hiroshige, Kaoru Kawano, Kunichika, Kuniyoshi, Tomikichiro Tokuriki, Toyokuni, Utamaro, and Yoshitoshi. The subjects are as diverse featuring bathing scenes, Kabuki performances, landscapes, the Meiji government, and samurai. An exhibit of works from this collection is planned for the spring semester.

kiyonaga bath alone

Rare Book Conservation

In the spring of 2014, AU Library hired Matt Johnson, from ECS Conservation, to perform an assessment of the Artemas Martin Collection in particular the books that were published prior to 1700. He identified a number of books that would benefit from boxing or conservation treatment.

The first two works were sent to ECS Conservation in August and returned from the lab earlier this month. Here are before and after pictures of our copy of Billingsley’s 2 volume Euclid’s Elements of Geometry published in 1570:

After                               Before

Billingsley After           021edited

Both the conservation assessment and the treatments were paid for with proceeds from AU Library’s Roger Brown Preservation Fund. In September, AU Library held a fund raising event in support of our initiative to get as many of the books on the list conserved as possible. The monies raised at our September event will be used in 2015 to cover the costs of conservation treatment of additional items from the Martin Collection. For more information on this initiative, please contact the University Archivist at archives@american.edu.