Wednesday, June 12th - Kings College Maughan Library

We were invited to see materials from the Foyle Special Collections Library at the Kings College Maughan Library. The Maughan Library collection contains 200,000 items from the 15th century onwards and is about 90% print materials. They have some very rare and unique items, some of which are stored in a secure area and can only be used in the reading room. The collection covers a vast amount of topics including botany, history, languages, medicine, music, and theology. The collection is open to students and staff of the college, as well as members of the public as long as they register.

The collection has accumulated from a variety of sources (which may account for its vast subject matter), including the historical library of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the former library of linguistic scholar William Marsden, the former library of historian and holocaust survivor H.G. Adler, records from St. Thomas’s medical school, and the former library of scientific polymath Sir Charles Wheatstone.

Some highlights from the materials they showed us included:

• The 18th century charter of Pennsylvania signed by Benjamin Franklin. It was interesting to hear about the process of getting the signature verified.
• A book from 1776 from publisher Thomas Payne, in which he hand wrote the scandalous parts so he could not be prosecuted as the publisher.
• Autographed books from Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs.
• 18th century Jacobite bible with a letter hidden in the back.
• 1930’s anti-Nazi notes which people snuck into Nazi meetings to use as crib notes for counter points.
• Anti-Semitic children’s books from Germany.

I felt a particular nerdy kinship with the librarians there as they also showed us examples of their MARC records for certain items. They were the first library to do this and I really appreciated that they had given a lot of thought into what our particular group would find interesting. They also talked about the challenges of having hate materials in the collection and the balance between censorship and education. Right now they have the materials available for research but not on the open shelves.

Visit the King's College Maughan Library website here