This came in from another mailing list
Of possible interest in case there are any books like this that were
confiscated during the occupation from Greek libraries and archives
<<< If you would like to contact him directly about this, his email is
jmcspadden(a)unr.edu.
<snip>... he is more than happy to have the word spread to booksellers and
librarians.>>
So feel free to forward this to anyone who might have useful information.
June Samaras
===========================
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Jon Munster <jon.munster(a)munsterbooks.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 21, 2019 at 3:22 PM
Hello all,
I was recently contacted by James McSpadden, who is an Assistant Professor
of History at the University of Nevada, Reno, about a book that we have
listed for sale. This started a fascinating conversation regarding the
huge amount of material that was obtained by the U.S. in Europe following
WWII and brought back to be placed in American institutions. I'm sharing
here the segment of the conversation in which Dr. McSpadden explains the
project he has been working on. If you would like to contact him directly
about this, his email is jmcspadden(a)unr.edu. I have let him know that I
would be sharing this information with the ExLibris members, and he is more
than happy to have the word spread to booksellers and librarians. He has
sent me photos of examples of the stamps and penciled markings in books
that were brought from Europe, which I cannot post here, of course, but I
have included his comments on the markings in some of the books he has at
the end of his explanation of his project.
At any rate, I thought that many of you would be interested in what he is
working on:
"Just to elaborate more on my project, I’m interested in the post-WWII
influx of European books brought to the US, particularly through the
Library of Congress’ Mission to Europe. You might know this already, but
after World War II, the Library of Congress sent a small team of American
librarians to occupied Europe and brought back over two million individual
books, pamphlets, films, audio recordings, and issues of magazines or
newspapers for distribution to America’s research libraries. Universities
received the bulk of this material; I know that Harvard—where I was a
graduate student—got over 58,000 items, but these books were distributed to
almost 200 universities and libraries across the country including Duke,
Iowa State, Michigan, Columbia, Stanford, the Colorado School of Mines, the
Hoover Institution, etc. This all happened from about 1946 to 1949. Since
then, many libraries have deaccessioned books and the Library of Congress
held duplicate sales in the 1950s that introduced many of these books to
the used book market.
Turning back to the books themselves, some of the books brought by the
Library of Congress to the US can be troubling in terms of provenance—and
more historically interesting to me—when you look at the ownership stamps
in them. A number are from the SS, the German Wehrmacht, Hitler’s deputy’s
library, etc.—and they have the stamps and bookplates to prove it. However,
rather than all two million items being Nazi propaganda, lots of the books
were first stolen by the Nazis from their enemies—socialists, Jews,
competing right-wing parties, etc.—and then accessioned into Nazi
institutional collections. These collections, which included the books
stolen by the Nazis, were then carted off to the US by American soldiers
and librarians. In trying to understand the scope of this collection
project, I have tracked down some of these books at Harvard, Yale,
Columbia, Berkeley, the Hoover Institution, as well as online with
GoogleBooks. Many of the books with troubling provenances from Michigan and
Berkeley have even been digitized by Google and are available online at
Hathi Trust. For example, the University of Michigan has this book
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015026648751?urlappend=%3Bseq=9
which was the property of the Jewish B’nai B’rith Association in Prague
before it ended up in the Nazi Archives and came to the US. These doubly
confiscated books are the most interesting to me, and the only way to see
where these books came from is to flip through the first few pages and
examine the stamps in them.
I’m interested in pairing the individual histories of these books with a
larger history that I can glean from archives. For example, I’ve spent time
in the Library of Congress’ archives, where I found the records for the
initial seizure of a lot of these books—when librarians wrote to military
officers asking to confiscate collections they stumbled across in occupied
Germany and Austria, from example. I’ve also located evidence in German
archives of socialist collections the Nazis intended to steal (with a list
of all their books) and then I found individual books from those
collections in American libraries. I found agreements between the State
Department and West Germany to return collections—specially the socialist
trade union collections—to Germany in the 1950s that were not completely
returned because many of the books had already been distributed around the
country. I also found evidence that libraries at Princeton, UPenn, and
elsewhere objected to receiving confiscated books on principle, so their
books were sent to Harvard and the New York Public Library instead. I also
know that a lot of these postwar European books were directed through
the Offenbach Archival Depot in Germany and then to Jewish Cultural
Reconstruction in the US. From there, many also went to university
libraries or entered the used book market. For instance, I found a book of
translated Yiddish poetry at Harvard that was in Alfred Rosenberg’s
anti-Semitic research institute but previously had belonged to a “Moritz
Israel Kulp,” who Yad Vashem lists as a victim of the Holocaust.
The two photos of the Handbuch der Verfassung und Verwaltung, originally in
Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess’ office’s library, show a plethora of German
stamps on the title page and then on the reverse is “111” in pencil at the
top left and a blue stamp that I know to be from the Library of Congress
(sorry that photo is blurry). The blue “3” stamp—sometimes it’s also black
or purple—indicates this book was transferred to the LoC from another
federal authority, and the pencil mark is the catalogers’ subject
classification. I found all this in the archives, but 111 corresponds to
JE-JV in the LC classification system, or “Constitutional History.” The
pencil LC numbers and stamp are actually the telltale signs that a book
went through the LC process for distribution to other libraries. I’m
attaching a photo of another book from Harvard with similar pencil marks
and the Ex Libris of the Nazi treasurer, as well as a book originally in
the KaDeWe lending library, which was owned by Jewish business partnership,
this book was taken by the Nazis for their archive. I’m also attaching UC
books with the penciled numbers I mentioned."
=================-
June Samaras
KALAMOS BOOKS
(For Books about Greece)
2020 Old Station Rd
Streetsville,Ontario
Canada L5M 2V1
Tel : 905-542-1877
E-mail : kalamosbooks(a)gmail.com
www.kalamosbooks.comhttp://kalamosb.alibrisstore.com/http://www.antiqbook.com/books/bookseller.phtml/kal
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Siebach-Larsen, Anna <annasiebachlarsen(a)rochester.edu>
Date: Thu, Aug 1, 2019 at 8:46 AM
Dear colleagues,
The International Society of Medievalist Librarians welcomes your
participation in our sponsored session at the International Congress on
Medieval Studies 55 May 7-10, 2020. Please distribute widely!
Thanks,
Anna and Julia
*So You Want to Be a Librarian: the paths, possibilities, and the pitfalls
of careers in LIS (a roundtable)*
*Sponsored by the International Society of Medievalist Librarians*
Organizers: Anna Siebach-Larsen and Julia Schneider
As the crisis of the tenure track job market deepens, students, faculty,
and career centers are increasingly searching for non-TT career
possibilities for medievalist graduate and undergraduate students, with the
library profession often near the top of the list. This panel discussion
will address what a career in library and information sciences might
actually look like for medievalists, whether it be in metadata, rare books
and special collections, public libraries, digital scholarship, outreach,
collection development, and more. Panelists will discuss the practicalities
of career development, the realities of the job, and the potential
difficulties and the opportunities that medievalists might encounter on
this path.
Participants might describe their own career path and their positions,
and/or reflect upon individual and structural forces at play in shaping
careers in LIS, and/or discuss the practicalities of the LIS job market and
how LIS careers are discussed and introduced to medievalists as part of
their career formation and trajectory. We will leave significant time for
discussion among participants and members of the audience.
The International Society of Medievalist Librarians is dedicated to
supporting the work of medievalist LIS professionals. Membership is open to
all, whether they are members, advocates, or interested in the profession.
Please send proposals to Anna Siebach-Larsen (
annasiebachlarsen(a)rochester.edu) and Julia Schneider (jschneid(a)nd.edu)
by *September
15, 2019.*
Anna Siebach-Larsen, Ph.D.
Director, Rossell Hope Robbins Library and Koller-Collins Center for
English Studies, University of Rochester
annasiebachlarsen(a)rochester.edu
--
June Samaras
KALAMOS BOOKS
(For Books about Greece)
2020 Old Station Rd
Streetsville,Ontario
Canada L5M 2V1
Tel : 905-542-1877
E-mail : kalamosbooks(a)gmail.com
www.kalamosbooks.comhttp://kalamosb.alibrisstore.com/http://www.antiqbook.com/books/bookseller.phtml/kal