CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Just in time to celebrate the UVA School of Medicine’s Claude Moore Library’s 50th anniversary, a medical school archivist has discovered rare medical books thought to have been lost in the 1895 Rotunda fire. Amanda Greenwood was doing one of her preservation sweeps of the vaults and has become very familiar with the collection. She started to notice “some interesting markings” in some of the books, and she knew some colleagues in the law library, and also small special collecctions, had had some similar discoveries. There are also three UVA alumni who have done a lot of research and scholarship.
“Based on their scholarship, and also help from our colleague across Grounds, I was able to go through the books and confirm through the markings, the stamps, the spinal labels that these books did survive the Rotunda fire,” Greenwood said.
Library Curator and Manager of Historic Collections Meggan Cashwell said many of the books are not in English, some are in French, Italian, etc. But found at least two books signed by Dr. Robley Dunglison, who was the first professor of anatomy and medicine at UVA.
Cashwell said it’s always fascinating to see how drastically medical science has changed over the past 200 years. “The wonderful thing about our collection is it’s extremely robust,” Cashwell said.
“This is a very small sampling of our rare book collection. We have about 300,ooo volumes in our collection that date back to 1493 and go all the way into the early 2000s.”
Greenwood all the books are in pretty good condition with some that have some darkening on the bindings.
“There books were made out of really strong materials a long time ago. They are really materials that are supposed to be touched, supposed to be used, opened and studied with.”
Cashwell said the vault the books are kept in are closely monitored climate controlled rooms where they keep very close track of temperature and RH levels.
“It’s something that the first curator, Joan Klein, came up with and brought to being and something we value today,” Caldwell notes.
“These books have survived for so long already that Amanda and I have to be very good stewards of the collection during our respective tenures here, as well, and ensure their longevity for the future.”
Cashwell and Greenwood said there are several ways these books may have survived. The three alumni scholars have letters on which they’ve published an article about the sections of the Rotunda they think were salvaged from the fire, and have pieced back together what they think the library looked like at the time. Also, during the fire, there were students who dragged the marble Jefferson statue that stands in the Rotunda today out of the burning building on a mattress, and some students also pulled out some bookshelves. And being it’s a library, some of the books may have been checked out.
Greenwood started discovering these markings back in May, they have since been confirmed, and she doesn’t think they’ve finished finding books preserved from the fire.
Some of the books preserved are on exhibit now in the Claude Moore Library for faculty, students, and the public by appointment, to see. Click here for all library information.
