Ancient papyri and Erasmus’ bible
The University Library’s treasures
Door Jacques Malherbe
By Jacques Malherbe
Jacques Malherbe
‘Well, you said you were interested in maps’, says Sharon van Dijk, as she places a large, dull-coloured book on the table. The collections specialist at the University Library’s department of Special Collections deftly lifts the parchment cover to reveal the vibrant primary-coloured pages within.
In vivid reds and shimmering blues, the original hand-painted pages of one of the very first atlases tell the story of Europe’s view of the world in 1571. South America is a blue blob, squeezed onto the map. Africa’s interior is a canary yellow blank space. The 450-year-old book brings this history to life; its colourful pages not what you’d expect to find behind the blank cover. Much like Special Collections, there is more to it than what meets the eye.
This treasure is kept in an unassuming reading room on the third floor of the University Library. You’d never guess if you didn’t know, as only a small sign above the door tells you this is not a regular study space.
But when you cross the threshold, you immediately sense the difference. Coats, bags, pens, and water are all prohibited. Special pillows are available so the researchers who study the items don’t damage the spines or soft covers. Because this is where the university’s collection of ancient papyri, handwritten manuscripts, rare books, and documents are kept, all under the care of curator Adrie van der Laan and his team of specialists.
Teaching and research
Their charges range from Greek documents, dating from before Christ, to books of poetry which are hot off the press. It encompasses almost three thousand years of human history.
Still, there are a lot of misunderstandings about Special Collections. ‘People don’t realise what we do here’, Van der Laan says. ‘People think this is a museum department.’
People think this is a museum department
It’s a sore point for the team. The department was established less than a year after the university itself, in 1615, to care for works and keep them available to researchers. ‘From the start, we’ve been here for teaching and research, and that’s still what we do’, says Van der Laan. ‘Our first job is to make these documents accessible, and then we do all kinds of things like digitising them, restoring them, publishing about them, cataloging them.’
‘Teaching and research’ does not just mean professors and PhDs, though. All students, staff and even members of the public are welcome to request an item from the collection. ‘I’ve heard about students who think they are not allowed to come here’, says Van Dijk. ‘But you can just come in and handle items yourself. You don’t have to stare at an object behind glass.’
Stand-out items
Although in conversation Van der Laan and Van Dijk use the everyday language of ‘documents’ and ‘items’, they are both well aware that the treasures in their vault are anything but ordinary. There is the copy of the New Testament, once owned by humanist scholar Erasmus, which, when opened, reveals the spidery handwritten annotations of Martin Luther. ‘That makes our copy unique’, says Van der Laan. ‘And we have a story to tell about it.’
There are the Greek papyri from Roman and Byzantine times, some still guarding their secrets many centuries later. ‘We know that one of them is a letter about a mummy’, says Van Dijk, ‘but we still don’t know what a lot of them are.’
Even amongst accumulated riches of four hundred years of collecting, some items stand out to Van der Laan. ‘This is one of my favourites’, he says, picking up a leather-bound book of Cicero’s philosophy no bigger than a modern Penguin Classic. ‘In fact, this book has been the property of two of Groningen’s great intellectuals, Wessel Gansfort and Regnerus Praedinius. It’s a historic sensation to hold this book now and know I’m holding something that those two held and carried and read.’
I’m holding something that Gansfort and Praedinius held and carried and read
However, it’s not just ancient manuscripts and books that are part of the Special Collections. ‘It’s really anything you can’t take on loan from the building. And sometimes that means it’s very new’, he says.
To illustrate the point, Van Dijk picks a slim volume bound in a beautiful violet cover with shimmering scarlet pages. ‘It is Russian poetry with New Year’s wishes for 2025’, she says, ‘written by exiled artists.’ It is one of only 175 copies in the world, printed in Groningen.
High-tech
The unassuming department is deceptively high-tech to ensure the items are kept in the best condition possible. From the vault’s strong room, which keeps the internal oxygen level between 15 and 18 percent – too low to keep a fire burning – to the ever-increasing digitised collection.
Our books may be old but our research tech is modern
A new project comes in the form of linked open data. This seeks to create a machine-readable database of thousands of documents which can be mined by researchers in an attempt to make new connections in support of their research.
Currently, the letters of the university’s founder, Ubbo Emmius, are being digitised. This will allow researchers from around the world to search for terms in the 400-year-old letters using a controlled vocabulary in order to find new information about the Groningen intellectual. ‘They can simply be downloaded and used by researchers for all kinds of big data projects’, says Van der Laan. ‘Our books may be old but our research tech is modern.’
Story of humankind
Still, in an era of increasing budgetary pressure on universities, one might wonder why it is important to devote so many resources to collecting, cataloging, and conserving these documents.
For one thing, researchers are not only studying the content of the documents for new insights. The physical pieces themselves are also of great interest to scholars. ‘We have books that have been annotated and they are unique’, says Van Dijk. Researchers use personalised annotations to find out more about how individuals used everyday items, and what that might tell us about their lives. ‘The annotations allow you to reconstruct the story of the book.’
For Van der Laan however, the true value of the collection lies not only in research, but in its greater human value. ‘We’re here to facilitate research of course, but we also tell the story of humankind. Of what people are.’