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OK, so it's not all work

July 21, 2008 As I mentioned, I was out at Kent State the other week visitng Carolyn Brodie, Greg Byerly and some of the other folks in the SLIS program.

Last time I was there I got to visit their usability lab, which uses high-tech software to measure eye movements as you browse the web--the lab has been used by a number of vendors and libraries in developing products. 

This trip I got to see something equally cool but completely different: the Marantz Collection. This is a picture book collection of over 21,000 volumes that the school received back in 2007. It was developed over the past 40 years by Kenneth and Sylvia Marantz, and I think goes right up to the present. Kenneth is professor emeritus of art education at Ohio State while Sylvia is a retired school librarian. They are both book reviewers and authors.

What's remarkable isn't just the collection's size and scope, it's how it's arranged: by illustrator, not by author. All the books have the same call number (700 something) but--for you librarians out there--they are 'Cutter-ed' by illustrator.And since these are review copies--and have never circulated (you know, no grubby little hands all over them) they're in pristine condition.

It's really kind of an extraordinary thing to have so many picture books arranged in this way; you just want to spend the day browsing through the collection. It reminds you how much the physical location--what's next to what--can make you think differently about a book...or an illustrator, for that matter.

The school is in the process of creating a space for the collection that will allow for display as well as research, it will open this fall. It will be adjacent to the Reinberger Children's Library Center, a sort of "laboratory" youth library for library school students (with over 8,000 volumes and other material)--but that's really another story altogether.

Posted by Brian Kenney on July 21, 2008 | Comments (1)