BYU Special Collections houses unique treasures

By Tanner Taguchi (18)

PROVO -- The Harold B. Lee library is 665,000 square feet. Not many students have seen every nook and cranny it has to offer. Far below the library you see when you walk through the doors lies a cave of wonders, L. Tom Perry Special Collections. Within its halls are endless corridors filled with treasures beyond imagination. Books, manuscripts, and photos unlock a whole new level of discovery.

Curator of rare books at the library, Maggie Kopp, explained the advantages of using the relics found in special collections.
“You get a feel of reality… there are certain things you can see from an original that you can’t see from Wikipedia," she said.

“Special collections” originated in the late 1950s and has not stopped growing since. It grows by buying antiques from book dealers and receiving donations from others. It has grown to more than 300,000 antique books and letters from all parts of the world. All kinds of books from America and Arabia to China and Scandinavia are kept within the long hallways of special collections. The variety of the artifacts is not limited to geography, but also the vast space of time. The oldest artifacts kept in special collections are cuneiform tablets from ancient Mesopotamia.

All artifacts not on public display in the lobby are kept in a temperature-controlled, fire- protected, off-limits safe room. No gem of history should be lost because of crime or accident. That is why BYU has an endowment fund in place to purchase new books and other equipment. The income of this fund changes from year to year and has been classified as sensitive information. However, we do know one artifact can cost anywhere from $5 to $500,000. Very expensive pieces are bought sparingly as to keep within the budget. With some much time and money going into getting these books the department wants as many students to read them as possible.

Maggie Kopp said, “ We want to encourage anyone to come read here [Special Collections]… with the books in the normal library there are thousands of copies, but here our books are one of a kind.”

The current public displays include “Literary worlds: Illumination of the mind” which celebrates great writers through out history. Highlighting the works of famous authors such as Dickenson, Stevenson, Carol, Alcott, and many others. The most famous antiques are an ancient Egyptian papyrus, an original Gutenberg bible, a first edition of many famous books, and the original scores to “Gone with the Wind” and “KING KONG”

“We must never forget the lessons of history for if we do we must remain as a little child forever.” -Aristotle