Page 9 - 2018 Fall Newsletter

A 16th-century hymnal from a monastery was front and center in the
vault. The massive leather-bound book contains handwritten songs.
Saffell said other books span such subjects as English, literature, art
and history.

Special Collections also holds works of authors and novelists.
Noteworthy journalists in the collection include Grace Halsell, who
wrote for the Star-Telegram, said Lisa Peña, a library specialist who
works in Special Collections.

“We don’t necessarily have certain subjects,” Peña said, “and things
have kind of spread out over the years to include more and more
collections.”

One of the librarian’s personal favorites is Civil War letters from the Detail of the 17th-century Mixson-Colquitt Gradual, which is
Love family of Fort Worth. “To me, that is a really neat reflection of among the rare books in Special Collections. It was donated by Dr.
history, of a Fort Worth family,” she said. “It’s a lost art of writing Catherine Colquitt in memory of her parents, former TCU faculty
letters.” Betsy and Landon Colquitt and in honor of Linda and Keith Mixson.
Photo by Mark Graham
Academic researchers and TCU classes comprise the main visitors to the collections, though it’s open to the public as
well. So far in 2018, more than 500 visitors have used the archives, the most Peña said she has seen in her 20 years at the
university.

A robust digital catalog makes most of the collections
viewable online, but, Saffell said, some historical items
are best seen in person.

She said the library’s archivists are precise in what they
choose for inclusion in the university’s collections. “There
are appraisal questions,” Saffell said, “not monetary but
the informational value.”

Special Collections will take anything of historical or
academic value, but the library’s archivists have a pointed
interest in Fort Worth natives, especially TCU graduates.
In paraphrasing the often-repeated words of Horned Frogs
who have donated items to the library, Saffell said many
Western Union telegrams tell about Dave Brubeck concert stops at TCU and offer their personal artifacts with this reason: “I got my
elsewhere in 1958. The scrapbook is part of the Special Collections. start going to TCU. That’s where I would want my papers
Photo by Mark Graham to be.”

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