Lilly Library houses rare materials

Printed in 1455, the Gutenberg Bibles are the oldest books in the Western world.

There’s a copy of one of these rare Bibles available to students in the Lilly Library, which receives only 4,000 visitors each year.

“The Lilly Library is the home to rare books, manuscripts and collections,” said Rebecca Baumann, reference associate at the Lilly Library. “The rarest and most expensive books come here.”

The Lilly Library was built in 1960 to house the extensive collections of J.K. Lilly. At the time it was opened, it consisted of his 20,000 books and 17,000 manuscripts.

Today, this collection has grown to include more than 400,000 books, 8.5 million pieces of manuscripts and many more pieces of history.

Many of them are original and can’t be found elsewhere in the world, according to the Guide for the Lilly Library Documents.

“The Lilly is good for anyone working on a project who needs a primary source,” Baumann said. “For example, you could check out the biography about Sylvia Plath that everyone reads, or you could come here and use something not everyone has, like her childhood drawings.”

A collection of Sylvia Plath’s works and other items from throughout her life is one of the main displays available in the library right now as a parallel to the Plath symposium earlier this month.

Not only is the Plath collection one of the most used in the library, it’s also one of the largest in the country, second only to the collection at Smith College in Massachusetts, Plath’s alma mater.

The other major display currently available is the collection commemorating the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, Baumann said. The collection consists of letters, battle plans and political cartoons.

This collection has also been made available online as well, becoming the first exhibition to be both in the library and online.

According to the Guide, all of the resources available at the library are open to everyone.

“It’s completely open to the public, you don’t have to have any affiliation to be able to use the library,” Baumann said.