Collecting Nevada: Millions of pieces on display at UNR's Library Special Collections

A Samarian bought a boat. He exchanged money for the boat and collected a receipt. The receipt, an inch-and-a-half by inch-and-a-half inch piece of red clay, records the event.

The clay tablet containing pictographs of the Samarians' transaction, completed 4,000 years ago, is one of millions of pieces kept in the University of Nevada, Reno's Library Special Collections.

Worth millions of dollars, it could be said that Special Collections is one of the state's finest museums, except it's really a research facility at home atop the stacks of the library on the third story of the Getchell Library and tucked in a back corner with the Black Rock Press.

Robert Blesse is head of both and smiled like a kid at Christmas talking about the jewels hidden away in the toe of his stocking.

Inside the collection of collections are a grouping of rare books including "The Popes of Rome" printed in Florence in 1467.

The book - now worth several thousand dollars - once sold in England for 40 pounds. The history is written in Latin and was printed on a press using hand-set type, but decorated by hand with gold leaf scrolling and colored rubricated letters.

Also in the collection are: the first directory of Nevada from 1862, a first printing of the report of John C. Fremont's travels to Oregon and a copy of Cicero's "Cato Major or his Discourse on Old Age" printed in Philadelphia in 1744 by Benjamin Franklin.

"This was considered by Franklin to be the finest book printed in his shop," Blesse said.

In addition to the rare book collection, the department has received donations or purchased more than 10,000 linear feet of manuscript materials, has more than 100,000 historic photos of Nevada, 8,000 historic maps and 10,000 architectural drawings, including those of Frederick de Longchamps who designed as many as seven Nevada courthouses including his twin South Carson Street buildings - the former Carson City courthouse and the Hero's Memorial.

The nearly two miles of manuscript materials "is mostly primary source material," Blesse said. "It comes from letters, diaries and congressional papers."

The papers of soon-to-be retired Sen. Richard Bryan will one day join those of former Sen. Paul Laxalt, Sen. Harry Reid, the late Sen. Alan Bible and those of former Rep. Barbara Vucanovich.

"He's an alumnus," Blesse said. "He looked at both UNR and UNLV and chose UNR as the repository for his congressional papers."

The collection's largest grouping is on Nevada and contains one of the first printed copies of the state constitution.

"It is the history of the development of the region from when it was the Utah Territory to the present," he said. "We only collect research material and our collection is non-circulating."

Materials housed in special collections are not available through the library itself because of their format. Many are photographs, oversized books, maps and architectural drawing or are of great value.

The Nevada and the Great Basin Collection contains the photographic collections of Dr. James Herz, a third generation Nevadan and founder of the Reno Orthopedic Clinic, a collection of Washoe Indian photos from Winona James and a first-edition (1883) printing of Sarah Winnemucca's "Life Among the Piutes" that was signed and dated in March 1884 by Winnemucca.

The Great Basin Indian Collection is an extensive group of materials dealing with the anthropology, archeology and ethnohistory of the Great Basin.

It includes a 300,000-entry lexicon of the Northern Paiute and Shoshone languages by linguist Sven Liljeblad, contemporary grammars, dictionaries, texts, scholarly studies and other rare 19th century items printed in Great Basin languages.

James' collection includes a number of photos of the Washoe at Lake Tahoe.

"People don't think of the amount of time the Washoe spent at Tahoe," Blesse said showing pictures of the Washoe in the trees and fishing at the lake. "Like any great fisherman he's caught a big trout. He's got a big smile on his face and is showing it to her."

Blesse said the library's collection gets "a lot of use, but people generally think about the historic society or the state archives. Once they realize who we are then they'll come here. We get a lot of use by faculty, staff and students."

Guides are published for each of the collections within the collection and are available on the Internet. The photo collections will soon be scanned into electronic files and will be available in that format as well.

"We already have a searchable data base," he said. "It's always exciting when someone calls from Cincinnati. It makes me think, 'This actually works. People use it.'"

ON THE NET

UNR Special Collections:

library.une.edu/specoll