Opinion: Don’t waste a golden opportunity to look into the past
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As silly as it sounds now, I admit I was afraid of the Knight Library when I first came to UO. I’m a lifelong library lover, and my childhood was full of weekly trips to my local branch in Portland, but something about the Knight Library felt different. Maybe it was the imposing brick exterior covered in Latin and Bible verses, or maybe it was just because I was a puny little freshman terrified of running into people and places I didn’t know. Whatever the reason, I’m happy to say I’ve overcome my fear and discovered one particularly underappreciated part of the library: Special Collections.
This happy introduction took place last term when I was in a class on the history and importance of reading and note-taking. My professor announced we would be visiting Special Collections to see firsthand how people had processed and recorded information in the past. Even though I’m interested in history, I was expecting a collection of dusty old business records that wouldn’t hold my attention for a minute. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
My classmates and I filed through the cavernous Paulson Reading Room, which looked like it could’ve been a college movie set, and into the much cozier Ken Kesey Classroom. Here, various books and journals were laid out on tables, each more intriguing than the last. As the department’s curator of manuscripts, Linda Long, explained each item, I couldn’t wait to start reading. We only had a small selection of what the archive offered, and I looked at medieval illuminated manuscripts, early 20th-century journals and 1950s children’s books. It was like a buffet for the mind. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard about it before my junior year.
Later that week, we returned and had the opportunity to hold a letter written by George Washington as well as experiment with writing cursive with feather quills and steel nib pens. As we worked on our projects, my classmates requested boxes of old photographs, archived correspondence, and even vintage comic books.
Special Collections had it all, and a cursory glance at their website reveals even more forms of media. Words can’t describe how grateful I am to Long and the other librarians who provided such a unique experience. It was so different from any class activity I had done before and it opened up a whole new part of the library for me. I couldn’t wait to come back.
Out of everything I read that week, I was most excited by the George Allan Dyson papers. This gigantic box contained journals and ephemera accumulated throughout his life, and I read them so intensely that he began to feel like a friend (but in a normal way, I swear). I found his journals from the 1860s particularly striking as he was my age, writing about his life as a miner in Virginia City and San Francisco. Access to such personal accounts brought his story to life and made me feel more connected to that moment in history. It was interesting to discover that we kept notes the same way, filling notebooks not only with diary entries, but also fun facts, news headlines and doodles.
Because I’m me, which apparently includes being afraid of the unknown, I thoroughly browsed the Special Collections website before my visit. I was a bit intimidated by the special rules concerning this department of the library (requesting materials five days in advance, leaving my backpack in a locker, and only taking notes with a pencil). The rest of the library seemed so much more accessible in comparison. However, when I was there in person, the librarians immediately put me at ease. I appreciated that they explained the reasoning behind all the rules, and the extra steps were definitely worth it for all the unique papers I got to read.
Learning about the past through lectures and textbooks is all well and good, but holding a piece of history in your hands raises the stakes. It humanizes the past, full of people just like you and I, in a way no presentation ever will. We’re lucky enough to have hundreds of years of fascinating archival material right under our noses, and we walk past it every day. You could be like me and have no idea it was there or only have heard about it in passing, but one thing’s for certain: Special Collections deserves your attention.