Dear colleagues,
I am happy to update you on the Menil Collection Library’s recent digitization efforts.
We now have 48 of our exhibition gallery guides catalogued and digitized in OCLC (they can be viewed in our OCLC Discovery interface here:
https://menilcollectionlib.on.worldcat.org/search?databaseList=638&queryString=kw%3Agallery+guide+AND+au%3AMenil+Collection+%28Houston%2C+Tex%29)
We have also created digital surrogates of two of our most important rare books, which will join Manet’s illustrated edition of Edgar Allen Poe’s
The Raven, that the Metropolitan Museum of Art generously scanned for us. These two are the first two captured entirely in-house as we pilot our digitization efforts.
They are:
The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, vbi hvmana omnia non nisi somnivm esse docet, atqve obiter plvrima scitv sane quam digna commemorate of 1499:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/menillibrary/Hypnerotomachia+Poliphili.pdf
and
Poems on various subjects, religious and Moral,
by Phillis Wheatley, of 1773; thought to be the first published, printed book by an African American:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/menillibrary/PhillisWheatley.pdf
Our records for all of these items have been uploaded to OCLC and the gallery guides and
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili will be contributed to the Getty Research Portal.
If any of these would fit in your collections, please feel free to derive them.
With thanks to Lauren Gottlieb-Miller, Assistant Librarian; Consuelo Gutierrez, Digital Assets Manager; Margaret McKee, Imaging Services Specialist; and Caitlin Young, Summer Intern for their hard work making this possible.
All best,
Eric
Eric M. Wolf
Head Librarian
The Menil Collection
1511 Branard Street
Houston, TX 77006
(713) 525-9426