University of Guelph Library
Carl Linnaeus' Species Plantarum.
Rare Books Holdings
- Agricultural History Books
- Apiculture Books
- Culinary Books
- Foulis Press Books
- History of Veterinary Sciences
- Jacobite Collection
- Pioneer Collection
- Scottish Chapbooks
Online Rare Books
The Library's Archival and Special Collections is home to more than twenty thousand rare books that range from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. Collections of rare or specialized books are valuable to researchers and students.
What makes a book rare in the McLaughlin Library? Many older books are notable for their significance in terms of subject matter, their scarcity, the imprint or date of publication (age), perhaps their physical characteristics, condition or binding, or even ownership or association (a book or collection may have been signed or annotated by a particular author or collected by a notable person in a subject field). Of course, these factors are subjective and the designation as "rare" sometimes is bestowed in terms of market value!
Although age is not necessarily a determining factor, most of our rare books were printed before 1850, with Canadian imprints usually extended to 1900. There are always exceptions, but these are limited in number. One collection, on John Galt, is related to the foundation of Guelph in 1827 and contains a number of twentieth century items.
Over the years, Guelph has developed particular areas of interest. There are many Scottish history books and collections on Scottish emigration, Scottish chapbooks, the Jacobites, Scottish religion (especially the Disruption period), and most notably the Foulis Press collection — books printed by the Foulis brothers, Robert and Andrew in mid-eighteenth century Glasgow. Notable works on agricultural history and veterinary medicine are, of course, focal points.
The holdings on apiculture are quite extensive and consist of more than 800 rare items. There are more than three hundred books related to the history of veterinary medicine and significant holdings in botany, horticulture, gardening, and landscape architecture before 1900. The general history of agriculture equipment and everyday rural living, especially in Canada, is well represented. Culinary books are also featured and our Canadian cookbook collection has expanded rapidly in recent years. Catalogue access to rare books by authors, titles, and subjects is provided by the online catalog, Trellis.
Digital rare book collections are also available, thus presenting the possibility for researchers to utilize the precious holdings of many libraries. The value of digitized books is the ability to search extensively and print particular pages or sections that pertain to research.
Early English Books Online (EEBO) provides digital access to more than 100,000 literary and historical classics via the internet. The dates of coverage are 1475-1700. This collection is followed by Eighteenth Century Collection Online (ECCO), the digitized pages of more than 100,000 English and foreign language books, pamphlets, broadsides and other ephemera published in the United Kingdom and the Americas between 1701 and 1800.
For Canadian resources before 1900, Early Canadiana Online is in process of providing primary historical mateials from a broad range of disciplines. The Canadiana, EBBO and ECCO full-texts are available to current registered faculty, staff and students of the University of Guelph. Depending on your method of accessing this database you may be asked to authenticate yourself as a member of the University of Guelph. There is additional information available on Early Canadiana Online, EBBO, and ECCO, along with instruction on searching and printing.
Digitized rare items can also be retrieved through Google Book Search and the Open-Text project of the Internet Archive. The University of Guelph Library contributes books to this later project because all works are published prior to 1923 and therefore not copyrighted. It is often possible to locate and download or print a text without having to have recourse to a subscription. Information on searching rare books online via the Internet is also available.