More and more libraries are partnering with Archive.org to provide online access to their special collections. With this post we feature some of the fascinating collections made available online by the University of California Los Angeles
“This collection of books by and about Florence Nightingale was a gift from urologist Elmer Belt to UCLA’s Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library in 1958. The gift honored School of Nursing Dean Lulu Wolf Hassenplug for her successful creation of the school in 1948 and her direction of it through its first ten years at the University of California, Los Angeles. The books have a characteristic mid-Victorian appearance; they are not beautiful either in typography or binding but, with content reflecting the influence of Florence Nightingale, they are immensely rich in human value. The collection includes editions of Nightingale’s influential ‘Notes on Nursing’ (1859 and later) and her other publications as well as biographies and tributes.”
“Carte Italiane is a graduate student publication of the Italian Department at the University of California, Los Angeles. Since its inception in the 1979-1980 academic year, the journal has been dedicated to publishing the work of graduate students and professors in the field of Italian cultural studies.”
“In March 1881 the California State Legislature authorized the creation of a southern branch of the California State Normal School in downtown Los Angeles to train teachers for the growing population of Southern California. In 1887, the school became known as the Los Angeles State Normal School. In 1914, the school moved to a new campus on Vermont Avenue in Hollywood. In 1917, the school became the second University of California campus, after Berkeley. On May 23, 1919, Assembly Bill 626 became a law, which turned the campus into the Southern Branch of the University of California. Enrollment at the Southern Branch expanded so rapidly that by the mid-1920s the institution was outgrowing the 25 acre Vermont Avenue location. The Regents conducted a search for a new location and announced their selection of the so-called ‘Beverly Site’—just west of Beverly Hills—on March 21, 1925. In 1927, the Regents renamed the school itself the ‘University of California at Los Angeles’ and the state broke ground in Westwood.”
“Paroles gelées was established in 1983 by its founding editor, Kathryn Bailey. The journal is managed and edited by the French and Francophone Studies Graduate Students Association; fully funded by the UCLA Graduate Students Association; and published annually under the auspices of the UCLA Department of French and Francophone Studies.”
“Children’s literature emerged as a distinct and independent genre only a little more than two centuries ago. Prior to the mid-eighteenth century, books were rarely created specifically for children, and children’s reading was generally confined to literature intended for their education and moral edification rather than for their amusement. Religious works, grammar books, and ‘courtesy books’ (which offered instruction on proper behavior) were virtually the only early books directed at children. In these books illustration played a relatively minor role, usually consisting of small woodcut vignettes or engraved frontispieces created by anonymous illustrators.
New attitudes toward children and their education began to develop in the late seventeenth century, when many educators appealed for greater consideration of children’s distinctive needs and when the notion of pleasure in learning was becoming more widely accepted. By the early eighteenth century interest in children’s literature (and a rise in literacy) led to new markets and a flourishing of new publishers, particularly in England. Innovations in typography and printing allowed greater freedom in reproducing art through engraving, woodcut, etching, and aquatint, although illustrators were still largely anonymous and illustrations confined to frontispieces.”
–Cara Binder
