The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library is a library in the University of Toronto, constituting the largest repository of publicly accessible rare books and manuscripts in Canada. The library is also home to the university archives which, in addition to institutional records, also contains the papers of many important Canadian literary figures including Margaret Atwood and Leonard Cohen.
The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections was founded in November 1955 by the Chief Librarian, Robert H. Blackburn. Blackburn hired Marion E. Brown who was working in the special collections department at Brown University. Brown's first responsibility was to deal with the items that had been accumulating since 1890. Some of these items in the collection included medieval manuscripts, early printed books, and special volumes of later periods that had been presented by Queen Victoria to the university. Between the accumulated items and items found in the stacks of the main library, there was enough to open up the Rare Book Room in 1957. [1]
The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections and the University Archives didn't have a permanent home until 1973 when the Thomas Fisher Rare Book library was opened. The library is named in honour of Thomas Fisher (1792–1874), who immigrated from Yorkshire, settled along the Humber River in 1822, and became a successful merchant–miller. In 1973 his great-grandsons, Sidney and Charles Fisher, donated to the library their own collections of Shakespeare, various twentieth-century authors, and etchings of Wenceslaus Hollar. Since the opening of the library, it has grown to approximately 740,000 volumes and 4,000 metres of manuscript holdings. [2]
The Fisher building was designed by Mathers and Haldenby, Toronto with design consultant Warner, Burns, Toan and Lunde, New York. It forms part of a complex with the John P. Robarts Research Library for the Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Claude Bissel Building which houses the Faculty of Information. [3]
Richard Landon, the director until his death in 2011, [4] organized two or three exhibitions of rare books and other materials annually.
Among the collection's items are the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493), Shakespeare's First Folio (1623), and Newton's Principia (1687). Contrary to widespread internet claims, [5] [6] the library does not have Darwin's proof copy with annotations of On the Origin of Species (1859); the library does however have annotated proof sheets of: The Power of Movement in Plants , [7] The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals , [8] and The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom . [9] Other collections include Babylonian cuneiform tablet from Ur (1789 BC), 36 Egyptian papyrus manuscript fragments (245 BC), and Catholicon (1460). [10]
The Robert S. Kenny Collection resides in the library. This immense collection of books, documents, and other materials pertaining to the radical and labour movements, particularly in Canada, contains approximately 25,000 items collected by Robert S. Kenny, who was a member of the Communist Party of Canada. The Canadian section, which has 382 books and 768 pamphlets, was acquired by the library from Kenny in 1977. The international section of the collection was donated by Kenny in 1993.
In addition, there is a collection of etchings by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–1677) from the collection of Sidney Thomson Fisher. The collection consists of etching plates, original prints and published works by Wenceslaus Hollar. [11]
The library has a collection of 500 Valentines. [12]
In April 2018, it was announced that the library had acquired the oldest English-language book in Canada, and its 15 millionth item, known as the Caxton Cicero , which was printed in 1481 by the Englishman William Caxton. [13]
The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library is the rare book library and literary archive of the Yale University Library in New Haven, Connecticut. It is one of the largest buildings in the world dedicated to rare books and manuscripts and is one of the largest collections of such texts. Established by a gift of the Beinecke family and given its own financial endowment, the library is financially independent from the university and is co-governed by the University Library and Yale Corporation.
The John P. Robarts Research Library, commonly referred to as Robarts Library, is the main humanities and social sciences library of the University of Toronto Libraries and the largest individual library in the university. Opened in 1973 and named for John Robarts, the 17th Premier of Ontario, the library contains more than 4.5 million bookform items, 4.1 million microform items and 740,000 other items.
Margaret Adele Fairley born Margaret Adele Keeling (1885–1968) was a British-born Canadian writer, educator, and political activist. From 1936 until her death, she was a member of the Communist Party of Canada (CPC). She was deported from the USA for her politics and there is a park named for her in Toronto.
Wenceslaus Hollar was a prolific and accomplished Bohemian graphic artist of the 17th century, who spent much of his life in England. He is known to German speakers as Wenzel Hollar; and to Czech speakers as Václav Hollar. He is particularly noted for his engravings and etchings. He was born in Prague, died in London, and was buried at St Margaret's Church, Westminster.
Robert "Bert" S. Kenny was a member of the Communist Party of Canada, and a collector of books, documents, and other materials pertaining to the radical and labour movements, particularly in Canada.
In library science, special collections are libraries or library units that house materials requiring specialized security and user services. Special collections can be found in many different organisations including research libraries, universities, colleges, schools, national libraries, public libraries, museums, art galleries, archives, historic houses, cathedrals, subscription libraries, learned societies, hospitals, companies and monasteries.
The Yale University Library is the library system of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Originating in 1701 with the gift of several dozen books to a new "Collegiate School," the library's collection now contains approximately 14.9 million volumes housed in fifteen university buildings and is the fourth-largest academic library in North America.
Abraham Aharon Price was a renowned Torah scholar, writer, educator, and a community leader in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was one of the city's most influential rabbinic figures.
Stillman Drake, an American historian of science who moved to Canada in 1967 and acquired Canadian citizenship a few years later, is best known for his work on Galileo Galilei (1569–1642). Drake published over 131 books, articles, and book chapters on Galileo. Including his translations, Drake wrote 16 books on Galileo and contributed to 15 others.
Hans Peter Kraus, also known as H. P. Kraus or HPK, was an Austrian-born book dealer described as "without doubt the most successful and dominant rare book dealer in the world in the second half of the 20th century" and in a league with other rare book dealers such as Bernard Quaritch, Guillaume de Bure and A.S.W. Rosenbach. Kraus specialized in medieval illuminated manuscripts, incunables, and rare books of the 16th and 17th centuries, but would purchase and sell almost any book that came his way that was rare, valuable and important. He prided himself in being "the only bookseller in history...to have owned a Gutenberg Bible and the Psalters of 1457 and 1459 simultaneously," stressing that "'own' here is the correct word, as they were bought not for a client's account but for stock."
The University of Toronto Libraries system is the largest academic library in Canada and is ranked third among peer institutions in North America, behind only Harvard and Yale. The system consists of 39 libraries located on University of Toronto's three university campuses: St. George, Mississauga and Scarborough. This array of college libraries, special collections, and specialized libraries and information centres supports the teaching and research requirements of 215 graduate programs, over 60 professional programs, and more than 700 undergraduate degree programs. In addition to more than 12 million print volumes in 341 languages, the library system currently provides access to 150,467 journal titles, millions of electronic resources in various forms and almost 30,000 linear metres of archival material. More than 150,000 new print volumes are acquired each year.
The William L. Clements Library is a rare book and manuscript repository located on the University of Michigan's central campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Specializing in Americana and particularly North American history prior to the twentieth century, the holdings of the Clements Library are grouped into four categories: Books, Manuscripts, Graphics and Maps. The library's collection of primary source materials is expansive and particularly rich in the areas of social history, the American Revolution, and the colonization of North America. The Book collection includes 80,000 rare books, pamphlets, broadsides, and periodicals. Within the other divisions, the library holds 600 atlases, approximately 30,000 maps, 99,400 prints and photographs, 134 culinary periodicals, 20,000 pieces of ephemera, 2,600 manuscript collections, 150 pieces of artwork, 100 pieces of realia, and 15,000 pieces of sheet music.
Richard Broke Freeman was a zoologist, historian of zoology, bibliographer of natural history and book collector. Known professionally as R. B. Freeman, he compiled comprehensive reference works on Charles Darwin and on P. H. Gosse. He was “a meticulous scholar” and a “brilliant bibliographer” who showed “a genuine modesty about his great erudition.” "It is darkly rumored among antiquarian booksellers that R. B. Freeman once missed a completely unrecorded and absurdly rare 1859 second issue of the first edition of The Origin of Species", a reviewer wrote in the Times Literary Supplement, "but this is also said to be the only mistake he has made during a lifetime of persistent scholarship and imaginative detective work in libraries, bookshops, sale-rooms, the attics of country houses and the trunks of the great-aunts of great men."
The Thomas J. Watson Library is the main research library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and supports the research activities of the museum staff, as well as outside researchers. It is located in the Met's main building, The Met Fifth Avenue.
The Navy Department Library is the official library of the United States Department of the Navy. Located at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., it is a part of the Naval History and Heritage Command.
The holdings of the Islamic Studies Library, a branch of the McGill University Library, stand together with those of the Robarts Library of the University of Toronto as the premier library resources in Canada for research on the Islamic world and among the most important collections in North America.
The Rare Book & Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (RBML) is located on the 3rd floor of the University Library. The library is one of the largest special collections repositories in the United States. Its collections, consisting of over half a million volumes and three kilometers of manuscript material, encompass the broad areas of literature, history, art, theology, philosophy, technology and the natural sciences, and include large collections of emblem books, writings of and works about John Milton, and authors' personal papers.
Thomas Fisher (1792-1874) is a road builder, land developer, Squire, and Etobicoke Township pioneer. He immigrated from Yorkshire settled along the Humber River in 1822 and became a successful merchant-miller. His mill located at King's Mill was acquired in 1821.
Agnes Dunbar Fitzgibbon Chamberlin was a Canadian artist living in Ontario.
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