Our Rare Books, Our SMC: An Exhibit of Items Held at Saint Mary's College

Connecting the Past and Present

The past can feel so distant from us, and so removed from our daily concerns. In our work in the Rare Book Room in the spring of 2024, however, we were struck by how the books we encountered, these time-traveling objects from distant temporal and geographical locations, demonstrate how humanity and human conceptions of the world have remained unexpectedly constant. It’s oddly comforting to know that the past has dealt with many similar problems as today, even as they’ve approached these topics from their own social, geographical, and historical contexts.

Books can be physically seen and touched, allowing you to participate in the pastness those objects represent. You can come to understand the story of the book and how it has moved through time to, fortuitously, reach our Rare Book Room. In our explorations, students were particularly struck by how, since they weren't "required" to read all the books we explored, they suddenly became more interested in reading them, since working with these rare items transformed into an act of self-initiated discovery.

Before this semester, many students had primarily learned about the past through textbooks. Working with archival material, however, can provide an unfiltered view of the past, as rare books are historical objects in their own rights, offering both textual evidence of past cultural, political, and social concerns and material evidence of book production techniques and practices. While it can be hard to understand the relevancy of history from textbooks, students commented, seeing these books allows you to participate in the past and see the connections between ourselves and prior generations in a direct, tangible way.

 

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