Daily Texan Staff
From the outside, it doesn't look like anything special just a boxy, white, seven-story building; but inside, lies a vast array of obscure and hidden treasures.
The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, located on campus on the northeast corner of 21st and Guadalupe streets, is one of the largest research libraries in the country, along with the centers at Yale, Princeton and Harvard. The Ransom Center contains extensive collections of rare books, photographs, manuscripts and works of art. With a broad collection of British works, the center is better known in London than Austin, according to museum officials.
A Gutenberg Bible, one of the world's first books printed on a press with movable type, rests in the center of the Ransom Center's first floor. Johann Gutanberg, inventor of the movable-type printing press, began printing the bibles in 1449 or 1450. It is estimated that 180 copies of the Bible were printed on paper and vellum; 48 of these exist today. Twenty-one are complete in two volumes, including the Ransom Center copy, which is on paper. The center acquired this Gutenberg Bible, which was bound in 1456, in 1978.
The Bible, which is on permanent exhibit, was acquired in 1978 from the Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation of New York. It was the impetus for the general spread of literacy when it was printed.
The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, the UT art museum will occupy the first and second floors of the Ransom Center until later this spring. The Ransom Center will begin renovating its first two floors starting this summer, as the Blanton museum moves to its new building, which is scheduled to open in 2002. Renovation plans include adding three new galleries to showcase exhibits that are currently not on display because of space limitations, a theater and expanded public research facilities. With the renovations, the Ransom Center will also continue to grow and acquire more collections. Among the already impressive inventory are such noteworthy items as the first-edition page proofs of James Joyce's Ulysses and the correspondence letters of Ernest Hemingway.
"We are extremely competitive" said Richard Oram, head librarian. "We have one of the best records of acquiring 19th and 20th century British and American literature."
During the renovation the Ransom Center will host a special year-long exhibit at the LBJ Library and Museum beginning May 3 called "From Gutenberg to Gone with the Wind: Treasures of the Ransom Center," showcasing a broad range of the Ransom Center's holdings.
 Alan K. Davis/Daily Texan Staff Melissa Duvick, left, an education junior, and Angela Rudisill, a government/sociology junior, lean closer to the first-floor display case housing the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center's copy of the Gutenberg Bible Monday. The Ransom Center's Gutenberg Bible is one of only 21 surviving and complete, two-volume copies of the first known book to have been printed on a press using movable type, invented by Johann Gutenberg in the mid-15th century. |
Some professors are expecting the renovations to allow more opportunities for their students to use the research center.
"With the remodeling, the Harry Ransom Center's art collections will be much more accessible and they will certainly be incorporated into our schedules for gallery visits by classes both lower and upper division," said Linda Henderson, an art history professor.
Art history undergraduate survey classes already make frequent use of the center.
"My 301 art history class went to the Ransom Center and saw the world's first photograph,"said Laura Borg, a biology junior. "It was incredible to see how far our society has advanced technologically.
Joseph Nicephore Niepce took the world's first photograph in 1826 from the window of his workroom, which overlooked his estate in Gras, located in east central France. The Ransom Center houses this one of a kind treasure in a dark cubicle to allow viewing of the photographic image recorded on a pewter plate. It can only be seen on the pewter plate at a 30-degree angle in opposition to a source of light.
Harry H. Ransom, the center's namesake, was a former UT president and chancellor during the 1960s. During his tenure, Ransom led the effort to build the Undergraduate Library, the Academic Center and the Ransom Center. Nicknamed "the Grand Acquirer," Ransom inspired the collection of 250,000 rare books, manuscripts and photography collections from many British and American writers and photographers.
Matthew Cochran, a historical musicology doctoral candidate, looked at Max Steiner's musical score from Gone with the Wind in the reading room.
"This is my first time in the Ransom Center," Cochran said. "It's really illuminating to see the original markings on the score."
The center also sponsors 25 fellowships annually to scholars requiring substantial use of its collections, and hosts a variety of events including Poetry on the Plaza, a monthly poetry reading.
In addition to archival and research facilities, the center houses a conservation department to preserve their collection. With 20 conservators on staff, the department is divided into separate laboratories that focus either on books, manuscripts or photos. Their tasks range from using an aspirator to remove mold from old books to constructing tailor-made, acid-free storage boxes.
The preservation of a book written by Charlotte Bronte and her sisters when they were teen-agers illustrates this painstaking process. Its pages, measuring only 4 inches in height and 3.5 inches in width with equally tiny manuscript, had to be specially preserved due to their extreme delicacy.
"To preserve [the pages], it has been washed, deacidified and individually sonically welded into modern Mylar, a highly pure plastic," Oram said.
The center is in the process of digitizing medieval manuscripts for a national database and is working to make its entire collection accessible online in the distant future.
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