Category Archives: Collection Development/ Reference

New Acquisition of Les Illuminations

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In recent years, Fondren has been building an impressive collection of livres d’artiste to support the university’s visual arts department. While American artists have been the primary focus, we have increasingly been collecting works by European and international artists. Our most recent acquisition is by the French artist Fernand Léger, consisting of fifteen original lithographs illustrating a selection of poems from Arthur Rimbaud’s Les Illuminations. From a total edition of 395 copies, Fondren’s is one of 25 on vélin teinte lourd paper and includes additional signed lithographs. You can find more information about this work on Princeton University’s Graphic Arts Collection website.

Collection Management & Development Council, September 2017

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10am – Fondren 410

Agenda:

  • Update on Hurricane Harvey-related library damages
  • Discussion of need to document requests for digital-only library copyrighted content (for framing a future discussion re need to support developing content area)
  • ILL data & probable developments
  • Knowledge Unlatched 2017 open access proposal (Goetz)

Please contact a member of CMDC if you have questions or want further details.

13 Years of Shepherd School Concert Programs Now Online

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More than 2,300 recital and concert programs of Shepherd School performances are now available online in the Rice Digital Scholarship Archive.

A collaborative project encompassing several of Fondren’s departments, the digitized pamphlets cover 13 years of performances presented by the Shepherd School of Music, dating from 1983 until the Spring of 1996. Having reached this project milestone, the library will continue work on Shepherd School programs dating from the Fall of 1996 onward.

Shepherd 3    Shepherd 2
Shepherd 1
The Rice Digital Scholarship Archive is the repository of the university’s intellectual output. Most materials come from Rice faculty research, electronic theses and dissertations, and digitized collections of rare or unique books, images, and manuscripts. Along with the Shepherd programs, the Archive also contains the audio from approximately 340 Shepherd School concerts and recitals, ranging from 1975 to 1983.

 

New Music Acquisitions

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Cartier's L'Art du Violon

The Library recently acquired two rare French violin treatises. The first is Jean-Baptiste Cartier’s L’Art du Violon, originally published in 1798. Fondren’s copy is an expanded third edition from c. 1803 and is bound in beautiful marble boards. Grove’s music dictionary describes the importance of this treatise: “This imposing volume  contained a comprehensive selection of sonatas and single movements composed by Italian, French and German masters of the 17th and 18th centuries. Cartier included both manuscripts and early editions, and he salvaged a number of masterpieces from oblivion.”

 

Corrette's L'Ecole d'Orphee

The second acquisition is a much rarer item and the only known copy in a library outside of Paris. Michel Corrette’s L’Ecole d’Orphée Méthode Pour Apprendre facilement a jouer du Violon dates from 1738 and was the most advanced method on violin playing to appear in France up to that time. Corrette would go on to write a number of additional treatises on string playing, and this particular book, which details both French and Italian styles of playing,  provides valuable insight in the historical methods for playing the violin as well as the development of the instrument and its repertoire.