ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 5 4 0 / C&RL N e w s A cquisitions “Strengthening Library R esources.” T he funds will be used to support the first year of a pro­ p o se d th ree-year p roject to convert to m a­ chine-readable form th e 10,873 unconverted m anuscripts an d University Archives catalog records. Two previously unrecorded manuscripts by poet Emily Dickinson have been acquired by Amherst College, Massachu­ setts, for its Special Collections in the Robert Frost Library. One is an unpublished letter, tenta­ tiv ely d a te d to 1858, to Dickinson’s sister-in-law Susan in which the poet embeds a short poem and refers to her withdrawal from social life. The second manuscript is a new variant of a well-known poem beginning “The feet of people walking home.” In this version, D ickinson has w ritten the poem as a letter, presumably also to Susan. The two manu­ scripts, acquired from a private collection, join the collection already at Amherst, which con­ L aw ren ce W elk a n d h is a c c o r d io n , cir c a 1938.tains approximately half of Emily Dickinson’s known manuscripts. Tw o Jack London manuscripts have been acquired by th e H u n tin g to n Library from Christie’s auctions in N ew York. T he first, ac­ quired in D ecem ber 1991, is a four-page, d e­ tailed autograph letter w ritten in 1902 to the editor o f the Youth’s C om panion answering spe­ cific questions about the content o f L ondon’s celebrated short story “To Build a Fire” prior to its publication. The second, p urchased in June 1992, consists of 42 pages o f autograph w ork­ ing notes for London’s 1908 novel Adventure. The manuscripts join the m ore than 30,000 lit­ erary m anuscripts, letters, photographs, docu­ m ents, scrapbooks, an d broadsides comprising th e H untington’s London Collection. A large collection of Lawrence W e lk m em ­ orabilia has b e e n donated to N orth D akota State U n iversity, Fargo, by W elk’s family and the W elk G roup, Inc. The gift includes more than 15,000 musical arrangem ents used o n the L aw rence W elk telev isio n show , all o f the ban d lead er’s office furniture, photographs, and scrapbooks of his early days. The university will actively acquire additional W elk-related materials in the future including artifacts, oral interviews, and personal papers. Welk died at the age of 89 in May 1992. The A le x a n d e r F la n ig a n H y m n o lo g y Collection has b een acquired by the Library of R eform ed T h e o lo g y S em inary, Jackson, Mis­ sissippi. Flanigan w as a dockw orker in Belfast, Ireland, w ho spent much of his life collecting Chris­ tian hym nology totaling about 1,800 volumes, over 300 periodicals, and som e archival materials. The col­ lection is predom inantly British, b u t other northern E u ro p e a n title s are in ­ cluded, particularly Scan­ dinavian. A century and a half of Bristol history has become part o f th e Archives and P erm anent Collections of the Main Library at R oger W il li a m s U n iv e r s i t y , B ris to l, R h o d e Is la n d . Some 150 volumes of back issues o f the Bristol P hoenix dating back to the 1830s w ere deposited at the library in May af­ ter Bristol’s Tow n Hall could no longer hold the collection. A num ber o f manuscript groups from the A uerbach Collection w ere recently acquired by the Bancroft Library at the U n iv ersity o f Cali­ fo rn ia , B erk eley. H erbert S. A uerbach, son an d n ep h ew of the founders o f the Auerbach Company, one o f the great mercantile com pa­ nies of Salt Lake City an d the far West, amassed a collection o f books, manuscripts, maps, and pictures o f the O ld West w hich w as partially sold off after his death in 1945. The rem ainder o f the collection held back by the family was recently put u p for sale an d acquisitions by the B ancroft include the un p u b lish ed autograph mem oirs o f b o th Samuel H. A uerbach and his w ife Eveline Brooks Auerbach; rem iniscences by early residents of Rabbit Creek, California September 1992 / 541 (now La Porte), and Herbert S. Auerbach’s notes based on interviews w ith pioneers still living in the 1920s; and a group of Brannan family correspondence—num bering 103 letters— cen­ tering on John Brannan, the seafaring older brother of San Francisco’s Sam Brannan. The Bancroft Library has also acquired a collection of pictures focusing on the East Bay Firestorm that occurred on O ctober 20, 1991. After a call for contributions, the library received prints in a variety of formats from over 50 indi viduals. The images will be made available for research at the library and an anniversary exhi bition of photographs from the collection is planned for O ctober 1992. ­ ­ A large collection of drawings and other materials by architect John H. Howe have been given by the artist to the Northwest Architec­ tural Archives of the U niversity o f M innesota- Twin Cities. Howe w as b o m in Evanston, Illi­ nois, in 1914 and studied under Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin for 32 years. He moved to Minneapolis in 1967 and practiced there until his retirement this year. The collection includes docum entation for virtually every project, built and unbuilt, since 1967, as well as several ex­ ecuted while Howe w as at Taliesin. These con­ sist of renderings in colored pencil and ink with a c c o m p a n y in g se ts o f w o rk in g d ra w in g s (plans), specifications, and photographs. ■ Private treasures in a public library The Pantuhoff Collection, recently donated to the Slavic & Baltic Division of the New York Public Library by Col. John Bates (US, retired), is an amazingly diverse collection o f Russian and G erm an cultural artifacts, books, and art­ works. A member of the Russian nobility, Bates w as b o rn O leg O leg-ovitch Pantuhoff in St. Petersburg in 1910. A fter e m ig ra tin g to America, he becam e a high- level officer in the army dur­ ing W orld War II. Bates’s love o f Russian cul­ ture is evident in the m ore than 300-item collection that bears his family name. Among the books, a copy of Mikhail Lomonosov’s D revnaia Rossii- s k a ia is to r iia o t n a c h a la Rossiiskago n a ro d a do kon- c h in y velikago k n ia z a Iaro- slava I ili do 1054 goda (A n­ The G rand D uke Vladimir Aleksandrovich ( 18-í7 —1909).cient Russian History fr o m the Origin o f the Russian People … Until the Year 1054) is the oldest, published in St. Petersburg in 1766. One of the greatest rarities is an engraved book published in 1771 entitled Opisanie Iiarusalim a (A Description o f Jerusalem) and written by the m onk Vasyl Hryhorovych Barsyki. P hotographic m aterials include a com ­ memorative photo album com piled for the members of the First Rifles Regiment by a lieu­ tenant in the Guard. It features photos of Tsar Nicholas II, his w ife Empress Mariia Feo- dorovna, his uncle G rand D uke Vladimir Aleksandrovich, and Tsars Aleksander II and I I.I The collection also contains new spapers from the time of the 1917 revolutions includ­ ing Izv e stiia No. 8 d a te d March 3-4, 1917, containing an op en letter from Nicholas II announcing his abdication of the throne, an d Pravda No. 171 (November 10, 1917) containing the famous revolu­ tionary “Dekret o zemle” (“Dec­ laration about the Land”). Russian illustrated materials include an 18th-century set of engravings by master Mikhail Ivanovich M akhaev (1729- 1770); a set of ten hand-colored etchings depicting the Imperial capital in the mid-19th century; a “St. Geoige’s Award” ceremo­ nial sword inscribed with the name of its recipient; and over 30 icons and other items of religious art in bronze and enamel, some of which have been dated to the 17th century. T he G erm an m a te ria ls in c lu d e m any unique items relating to Nazi Germany and som e relating to Hitler himself, including books with Hitler’s ex-libris and diplomatic and personal letters.—B enjam in Goldsmith, New York Public Library ■