Our Growing Collections

Edited by ROLAND BAUGHMAN
 

T
 

^^5 HE DEPARTMENT of English is very acutely aware
of the value of literary manuscripts and correspondence
in the appraisal of literature, and of the need for original
materials at Columbia. It has a special committee which, along with
the Department of Special Collections, has been looking out for
these materials. It has been looking especially to the Columbia
faculty and friends for contemporary literary documents that will
be of present or future importance as the foundation of research
into the literature and culture of this age. Such documents may be
drafts or completed manuscripts of creative literature, corrected
proofs with author's changes, critical opinions, letters from or to
authors or from the files of publishers and agents. The project
has already produced important results. Mr. Padraic Colum, for
example, has given the first draft of his play. The Balloon, con¬
tained in three notebooks; Professor Vernon Loggins has de¬
posited the typed manuscript of The Hawthornes; and Mr.
Vivian H. S. Mercier has presented ten letters to him from vari¬
ous literary personages. Nearly everyone so far approached has
enthusiastically faUen in with the idea.

JVlr. Edward Sagarin, who has for many years been connected
with the cosmetics industry, recently presented to the Columbia
University Libraries his personal collection of rare books relating
to the history of perfumery and cosmetics. The ninety-one vol¬
umes in Mr. Sagarin's gift include early books of secrets, perfume
and cosmetics formularies, modern studies of natural and syn¬
thetic materials used in the manufacture of cosmetics, and works
on distillation, odor, and beautjr hints.

Mr. Sagarin's gift augments and complements Columbia's fine