We may not have time travel, but we have the Special Collections

A mixed media image including a photo of a Special Collections box with an illustration of the author of this story pouring over files from a box. — Photo and illustration by Elijah Tan

I was anxious taking my first-ever step into the Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center in the Regenstein Library. I could see a few people in the reading room through the glass, poring over rare books and manuscripts that could be decades or centuries old. They looked like they were there to undertake serious, rigorous research. I was there to see cool stuff.

My mission was to gain access to the papers of Dr. Chandrasekhar, a Nobel-Prize winning astrophysicist who had predicted the existence of black holes. As an astrophysics student and a lifelong space nerd, I was eager to read records of his correspondence to understand what he might have been like as a person.
Several days later, I shared my experience of nervousness with Catherine Uecker, the Director of the Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center. “Access is one of our driving mandates here in Special Collections,” she assured me. “We don’t, as you’ve learned, ask you why you want to see Chandrasekhar’s papers. We just let you see them.”

I am so grateful they did. I recall sitting back in my seat in the reading room in awe, stunned at a particular piece of correspondence between Dr. Chandrasekhar and his wife, Lalitha. In this letter written on 17 January 1930, he remarks to his wife that not everybody can be a Dirac or Bohr—other giants in physics whose legacies loom large. It is an eminently humble statement, a recognition of his own limitations. This is Dr. Chandrasekhar, relatively early in his career. He does not know yet that he will become a giant in his own right. It is moving to get a glimpse of this Dr. Chandrasekhar, not the Nobel Prize winner with his legacy cemented, but a young researcher carving out his way in the world. I will never get to shake Dr. Chandrasekhar’s hand, but I do feel I had an encounter with him that day.

“Everybody cannot be so great or so successful as Bohr, Dirac or Rutherford…”

“Everybody cannot be so great or so successful as Bohr, Dirac or Rutherford…”
Dr Chandrasekhar’s letter to his wife Lalitha, January 17 1935

“You held Chandrasekhar’s papers—We call him Chandra—knowing that they were in his hands at one point, and that's a pretty amazing feeling,” Catherine said to me. “I still have that feeling of wonderment when I hold an object that I know a historical figure held in their hands as well.”

To illustrate her point, she turned to a nondescript orange box beside her. As she explained what was inside, my jaw dropped. It held a book written by Galileo Galilei, a polymath from the 16th century who paved the way to our understanding that it was the Earth that orbited the Sun, not the other way round.

A page from The Assayer by Galileo Galilei, 1623

Il Saggiatore (The Assayer), Book by Galileo Galilei, 1623

Most strikingly to me, certain pages featured Galileo’s handwritten notes, where he had corrected errors in the text of his own book. As I traced the ink with my finger and imagined Galileo’s pen moving along the same path, the thick, opaque wall of time that separated me from this 16th century icon suddenly turned paper-thin.

Illustration of Galileo writing in a book and the author of this article reaching out to touch the book — Illustration by Elijah Tan

Sharing the Gift of the Special Collections

I am not the only one to have benefited from Catherine’s determination to share this wonder with others. Through Catherine’s efforts, a visit to the Special Collections has become a standard feature of many Humanities Core Curriculum classes, a requirement that most undergraduates fulfill in their first year of college. Many of these courses have classical literature like the Iliad as part of their assigned reading, and the Special Collections is home to centuries-old manuscripts of these texts. “Most often, students think they're looking at a facsimile at first,” Catherine shared. “The moment that they realize that this is the real thing and this thing is several hundred years old, that's a pretty amazing moment.”

A slew of initiatives ensure that the richness of the Special Collections is always accessible to faculty, staff, students and the general public. The exhibition gallery right beside Special Collections hosts three exhibits a year, bringing books and manuscripts from the Special Collections to life. An ongoing process of digitizing the collections is also widening access for visitors who may not be able to make the trip to the University of Chicago.

But nothing comes close to handling these documents with your hands, and you can only do that in the Special Collections reading room. The reading room is available by appointment to visiting researchers and the public, but faculty, staff and students can walk in at any time to access the room (pending available seats). “I usually start every class session I teach stressing to students that they are welcome to come anytime they would like,” Catherine said. “They don't have to come for a special reason or a class or an assignment. If they just would like to see something, they can.”

Inside the special collections reading room, a young woman has historic documents laid out in front of her and a laptop open as well — Photo provided by the University of Chicago Library

Never-ending Discovery

I asked Catherine if she has picked up any favorites in her 24 years at the Special Collections. “I don’t have a favorite,” she replied. “We just have such a vast collection that it's impossible to say that you've laid eyes on every single thing.” The Special Collections hold about 72,000 linear feet of manuscripts—more than the distance of a half-marathon. “I guess my favorite part of the job is the constant sense of discovery,” she concluded.

Her remarks resonated with me. Although I came in earlier that week to see Dr. Chandrasekhar’s papers, I had been curious to see what else I could find. At the computer that sits inside the Special Collections, I typed in a few more search terms into the Special Collections’ online catalogs. I hit the “Request” button on any item that interested me.

illustration of the author of this article typing on a desktop computer while rays of light from the computer shine over his face — Illustration by Elijah Tan

That is how I ended up on a detour through old administration records for the University during World War I. I rifled through records of academic deans and chairs reporting the exact number of men of draft age in their department, who might be activated for the war effort. They had prepared these memos to forecast the effects of the draft law on instructional manpower. In these pages, I learned about the men who might be called up—their names, whether they were married, and the number of dependent children they had. It was a chilling window into a dark period of history, but I was glad to have stumbled across it. It felt precious to remember, and I closed that box with a renewed appreciation for life.

"It is clear that the new draft law as proposed by the government will materially affect a number of our instructors. Steps are being taken to protect the instructional staff of the colleges against too sudden disintegration, but the success of these attempts cannot at present be predicted. Meantime it seems wise to"

Memo from James R. Angell, Vice-President of the University of Chicago, August 16 1919

Stewarding the Collections for Present and Future Generations

When they are not revealing their secrets to curious visitors in the reading room, the materials of the Special Collections live in closed stacks with a controlled environment to facilitate their preservation. Some books, like the one written by Galileo that Catherine had brought out to show me, have a private home—they come in enclosures like the orange box to give them further protection. If they require significant repair, they make a trip across the bridge to the Conservation Laboratory at Mansueto Library, where professional conservators are more than up to the task. “Some of books and manuscripts are already hundreds of years old, and they have lived through years without air conditioning and everything else,” Catherine said. “But our primary goal with preservation is to maintain the current condition as much as possible.”

Sometimes, preserving a particular piece can be challenging. By way of example, Catherine pulled a large grey box from the trolley beside her. She set it down on the table between us with a surprisingly loud thud. “It’s as heavy as it looks,” she said, “because it is a book made out of concrete.”

On right left, an illustration of the author of this article watching Catherine dropped the concrete book on the table. On the right, a photograph of the concrete book.

Illustration by Elijah Tan; Photo by Jason Creps, Argonne National Laboratory

As I looked at the slab in disbelief, Catherine explained that I was looking at Concrete Book #83, an artwork by Wolf Vostell in the medium of concrete that encases a book inside of it (or so we think).

“It is a challenge because you can even see here the concrete is sort of crumbling and disintegrating, slowly but surely.” She pointed to smaller chunks and particles of concrete that had broken off inside the grey enclosure that housed the slab. “We try to limit how much we handle it, which helps. So, in situations like this, we try to identify ways that we can limit the stress on the materials.”

She closed the cover on the concrete slab and lifted it carefully back onto the trolley. Before this day, the idea of a concrete book had been decidedly out of the bounds of my imagination. I cannot help but wonder just how many more gems lie within the walls of the Special Collections—items I would not even think to request. But what I have seen assures me that there is no rush to excavate them all. They are well taken care of by a vigilant team, and their intricate details will endure the test of time.

The Steady Guides to a Vast Ocean

Towards the end of our meeting, I ask Catherine if there was anything else she would like to share. “I think that we have an amazing staff,” she replies. “And we are all devoted to our work and the collections and making them accessible to both visiting researchers and to classes, and it's just really kind of an exciting place to work.”

There are a multitude of people who make every visit to the Special Collections a seamless one, including: the archivists who write the finding aids that explains what exactly lies in each box; the graduate student assistants and accessions manager who process new materials that come in; and the members of the conservation team who ensure visitors decades later will see the same materials in the same condition as we enjoy today. Learning about all the people who work behind the scenes is a rich addition to my direct interactions with the front desk assistants, who guided me in navigating the item request process online and brought out box after box of papers to satisfy my curiosity. If the endless documents that fill the closed stacks are a vast ocean, the staff of the Special Collections are cartographers and navigators to any curious visitors wishing to explore.

Illustration of the author of this article sailing out to sea in a paper boat with Galileo at the helm and birds in the shape of open books flying overhead — Illustration by Elijah Tan

I foresee myself returning to the Special Collections, in the same fashion as I might take a walk after a particularly full lunch. I wonder what—or who—I might encounter in these pages next.