Want to learn about the “Estonian character” by exploring the novels of A. H. Tammsaare? Are you interested in the Latvian Name Day tradition? Or are you simply looking to brush up on your Baltic history? The Ethel K. Smith Library has the place for you.
On Friday, the University dedicated the Baltic Reading Room in the EKS Library. The former group study room now holds more than 1,400 volumes of works by Baltic authors and about the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania). Over time, the collection is expected to grow to 4,000 volumes.
“Initially, we weren’t sure if we would even get 1,000 books,” says Keith Lassiter, director of the EKS Library. “It’s going to be a good-sized collection.”
Dr. Joseph Ellis, a political science professor focusing his research on Estonia, brought the idea of creating the room to Lassiter, who had previously expressed a desire to get more off campus traffic to the library. “Keith, without flinching, said, ‘Sure. Let’s do it,’” Ellis says.
Ellis began contacting Baltic studies colleagues he’s gotten to know over the years, and pretty soon, the collection started growing. He spent an hour or so on Zoom with Liisi Esse, a librarian at Stanford University, which, he found out, had extra copies of several volumes. “Before you know it, 26 boxes of books from the Stanford library are at the back door of the Ethel K. Smith Library,” Ellis says.
While speaking at an Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies conference, he mentioned his quest for books, and Ramunė Kubilius, a librarian at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, answered the call, sending boxes and boxes of Lithuania-related books.
The library has received reference books, history tomes, children’s books, guidebooks and novels. Ellis and Lassiter expect the donations to continue coming in.
“According to the University of Washington, if we had 4,000 volumes, we would be the fourth-largest collection in the country,” Ellis says. “That’s what we’re aiming for.”
Cataloguing all of these items have fallen on Kory Paulus, the collectionmanagement librarian. She has employed several students to help her with the project, which is far from straightforward. She says books with an ISBN are “super easy to catalogue,” but many do not. Slotting those books into the correct category is time-consuming, with Paulus forced to do translations to determine who the author is and to pick out all the relevant information. She decided to take care of all the lowhanging fruit first.
“It’s a challenge,” Paulus says. “That’s an understatement. At one point, I asked my students to pull all the books that are easy for me to catalogue, so the ones left are harder.”
It’s been a good learning experience for the students, who have not only affixed stickers to books and shelved them but have run translations for Paulus, who says she can now catalogue in five languages and has done associated research projects.
“I didn’t put a single sticker on these books. I just catalogue them and have taught them how to do the rest of it,” she says. “I’m more like the project manager and am the one putting it in order and into perspective.”
That includes creating displays of items she’s found tucked away in donated books. In one book donated by Kubilius, Paulus found a letter from Kubilius’s father, who at the time lived in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany, discussing his future since there was real danger of returning to Lithuania during the Soviet occupation. Copies of the letters are on display in the library (Paulus sent the originals back to Kubilius by certified mail).
After finding several Name Day cards in some Latvian volumes – presumably used as bookmarks – Paulus assigned a student to write a research paper about the history and significance of Name Day. The cards make up one of several special displays that sit alongside the books in the collection.
“It’s been so much fun,” Paulus says. “It really has. When I find something really cool, I email Dr Ellis and tell him, ‘Guess what I found!’”
With the largest collections of Baltic books located on the Northeast and the West Coast, Ellis is hoping to provide a worthy nearby collection where scholars in the Southeast can do research. It also provides the University with a distinctive resource to offer. Friday’s dedication, and a Baltic studies workshop that accompanied it, drew scholars from around the country. One attendee even flew in from Sweden.
“As a side benefit, it sort of gives Wingate a little recognition,” Lassiter says. “Our focus is on health sciences, but here we are with a very unique and what’s going to end up being a very sizable historical collection.”
First published: https://tinyurl.com/5chydf8r
Chuck Gordon