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The Library’s archival,
rare, and special collections section can be reached by taking the single
elevator or stairs in the south-east corner (past the Circulation/Reserve
area) to the lower level where researchers can use materials in the
Wellington County Room. TRELLIS,
the TriUniversity Libraries catalogue, is the primary tool for identifying
and locating materials in Archival and Special Collections. TRELLIS
can be accessed via the public terminals through the Library home page
(http://www.lib.uoguelph.ca), where various electronic resources, such the
rare books in Early English Books Online and Eighteenth Century
Collection Online are also available.
HISTORY
In essence, the chapbook
collection was begun only in 1981 with the acquisition of a small collection
of twenty early Newcastle-upon-Tyne chapbooks that added to an earlier
collection of Brash and Reid chapbooks published in Glasgow which
represented forty-two percent of the total titles. In the succeeding years,
large numbers of separate and bound volumes of Scottish chapbooks have been
acquired.
DESCRIPTION
Although the greatest
strength of the collection is the primary material of the chapbooks
themselves, the library does have all the major and most of the minor
reference material and collections of reprints that have been published.
LANGUAGE
Only English and Scots is
represented in the primary source material, and although critical works in
other languages would be acquired, none are held.
HOLDINGS
More than 500 chapbooks; 31
critical works and collections of reprints.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC ACCESS
All titles are catalogued
and available via the library’s online catalogue. LC classification is used
for all material. A finding aid (2001) is available.
PHYSICAL ACCESS
Rare and archival
collections are open Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m.-4:45 p.m. (4:30 in the
summer).
Interlibrary Loan:
Available except for rare
and archival materials. All of the chapbooks are housed in the rare book
collection except for reprints
Reprography:
Yes, as the condition of the
material warrants, and as the copyright allows.
Reference Assistance:
Yes.
PUBLICATIONS DESCRIBING COLLECTION
Eaves, Pat and Tim Sauer, --
Bibliography of Scottish chapbooks in the University of Guelph Library.
–Guelph, Ont. University of Guelph Library, 1990
Although the term "chapbook"
was not coined until the early nineteenth century, the term designates works
of popular literature sold for a few pence, often by itinerant pedlars or
"chapmen," which were in circulation from the sixteenth to the nineteenth
centuries. They often contained short versions of romance, ballads, and
popular tales such as Jack the Giant Killer and Tom Thumb usually
illustrated with a few crude woodcuts. Books such as Robinson Crusoe and Don
Quixote, The Fables of Aesop, and The Pilgrim's Progress were also abridged
into chapbook form. Few chapbooks before the late eighteenth century were
written with children in mind, but by 1800 chapbooks for children were being
produced in some quantity. These often contained nursery rhymes and
narrated the "tale" or history of such figures as Mother Hubbard and Cock
Robin. Many chapbooks were badly written, and they were often badly printed,
but nonetheless they display a raw kind of energy and excitement. They were
the comic books of their day, and preserved, albeit often in a debased form,
the imaginative literature of England at time when the ideological climate
was hostile to the fantastic.
See The Scottish Chapbook Project
Above is just a few of the chapbooks you'll find
in the library. The books are actually bound collections of a number of
them but the envelopes also contain just single copies some of which are in
a fragile state. You can examine them in this room but note they can't be
removed from the room.
Here is Saltire Chapbook No. 11 entire
End of chapbook
Here is another chapbook... Knight of Elle
And here I'm just taking some pictures of other
chapbooks so you can see some of the title pages
I have added below a few entire
chapbooks in text format so you can read a wee selection of them.
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