Stanford Report, June 3, 2009

Hooked on books: Stanford students get awards for their essays on collecting

What is the use of hoarding books—those "fragile, papery materials that could easily be ruined with one casual slosh of a coffee cup"?

But Ruth McCann, who wrote those words, became an addict. And while most addictions are far from profitable, hers has garnered her a $2,500 first prize with Stanford's Byra J. and William P. Wreden Prize for Collecting Books and Related Materials.

The prizes, awarded on June 1, are offered every two or three years. The contest is open to all Stanford students in a degree program. Contestants must supply not only a thoughtful and inspirational essay but a bibliography as well, augmented with explanations of how they plan to alter or expand their collections.

McCann confessed that her "prejudice against delicate things sprang quite naturally … from my parents' insistence that any Old Items they acquired be sturdy, if not useful."

"I held on to this familial scorn for the ephemeral until my fondness for books—and one book, in particular—pushed me into the vast and addictive world of 'rare books,' a world in which I am still a fresh, though eager, initiate," McCann wrote in her essay, "Finding and Keeping Olivia," describing her passion for collecting printed editions of Bloomsbury author Dorothy Strachey's Olivia.

Judges for the award, which is funded by the Wreden endowment and administered and awarded by the Stanford University Libraries, come from the local Stanford or Bay Area community of collectors, bibliophiles, dealers, librarians and academics. This year's panel included John Crichton, San Francisco antiquarian bookseller and past president of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America; John Mustain, rare books librarian and classics bibliographer at the Stanford University Libraries; and Stanford alumni and collectors Mary Crawford, Bruce Crawford and Paul Saffo.

Stanford alumnus William Wreden led a distinguished career as an antiquarian bookseller in Palo Alto and maintained long friendships with Nathan van Patten and subsequent Stanford librarians. Byra Wreden, a lifetime collector of the works of Kate Greenaway, was a founding director of the Associates of the Stanford University Libraries in 1973.

McCann was not the only one to profit from passion. When sophomore Joshua Aidan Dunn learned that a plumbing problem flooded the archives of the GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender] Historical Society in San Francisco, he realized his own copies of some rare periodicals might be the only ones left in the world. "The importance of private collections, even small ones like mine, hit me like it never had before," he wrote. He was awarded the $1,000 second prize.

Freshman Robbie Zimbroff, who received special mention, not only collects works by and about John Steinbeck but also has already published an article in English Journal on using primary, archival sources in high school instruction.

Studying Steinbeck's often neglected early works, he wrote: "There were brief moments when I imagined myself inside the author's mind; my slowly growing collection provided a tangible closeness to Steinbeck that paralleled my mental explorations."