``The University Library Collection of 3,500 Volumes was dramatically increased in 1918 through a donation from a Stratford resident. John David Barnett collected books and pamphlets all of his life and more than 40,000 volumes were presented to the university. This donation became the foundation of the library and among other things contained one of the most extensive Canadian Collections on Shakespeare``.
Although this is a particularly extreme example of someones generosity, it is not uncommon for individuals to donate their collections in the name of research and education. The university has accumulated over 7.7 million various works during the last century. Despite donations being a very useful and beneficial means of collecting material there are other ways, some I found very interesting.
I had the pleasure last week of meeting the newest faculty member in the ARCC here at Western. The man was hired on to the universities faculty in order to expand our growing collection. What I found most interesting is two fold, 1. The ways in which many of these materials are obtained and 2. some of the types of material we actually have. First of all, as I mentioned already donations make up a very useful part our collection. Buying and trading are often very common as well but can be quite expensive. There are also book auctions which sometimes have very important works. What I found to be particularily interesting is this notion of going through peoples treasure chests in old houses when they have passed on. This has proven to be beneficial aswell.
Second of all, I was surprised to find that we here at Weldon have the first ever original printed copies of Le Voyage as well as Darwin`s On the origins of species. That is pretty unreal, to hold books as influential as those in your collection, and especially in your hand, is truly significant. My question/comment then is with today's digital world, what impact will this have on works such as this? Do they lose their significance? Does anyone care anymore about these works of art. There is a lot that went into making these books that are sometimes 500 years old and to me they can very much be considered Art. Despite their being digitized I still feel as though the real artifact is what embodies its worth.