Celebrating Tolkien's 50 Years at Marquette

On June 7, 2007, Raynor Memorial Libraries celebrated the 50th anniversary of the acquisition by cataloging the 1,000th item in the secondary collection that supports research in Tolkien's literary manuscripts.  The "millennial item" was Matthew Dickerson's Ents, Elves, and Eriador: The Environmental Vision of J. R. R. Tolkien (University Press of Kentucky, 2006).  "More than 10,000 pages of J. R. R. Tolkien's manuscripts naturally form the intellectual heart of the Marquette collection," explained archivist Matt Blessing, "but the secondary collection offers scholars, especially students, the tools to dig deep into Tolkien studies."

Preserved in the Department of Special Collections and Archives, the J. R. R. Tolkien Collection's development has involved the efforts of many units.  The Libraries' acquisitions staff often help curators by locating hard-to-find materials.  Technical services librarians have cataloged 684 books, 274 serials, 64 dissertations and master's theses, and 41 audiovisual items.  Staff from access services greet several hundred researchers and fans annually, who visit Raynor Library to examine the collection.  On a daily basis, interlibrary loan staff provide access to many print materials within the Tolkien Collection.

The Tolkien Collection has also benefited from the generosity of Tolkien scholars and enthusiasts. 
S. Gary Hunnewell, for example, is a student of Tolkien “fandom” who has worked with Marquette archivists for over 25 years.  Hunnewell (a.k.a. Hildifons Took) has amassed a collection of 120 fanzines that are international in scope.  He has prepared detailed bibliographic descriptions and regularly loans the items in his collection to Marquette for microfilming.  The late Taum J.R. Santoski also donated many rare materials, including the oldest item in the collection:  J.R.R. Tolkien’s A Middle English Vocabulary (Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1922).

In 2003 Marquette University purchased a major secondary collection of Tolkien materials from the late Grace Funk.  A former librarian, Ms. Funk began developing her collection of Tolkieniana in the early 1980s and continued adding to the collection until just a few days before its acquisition by Marquette University.  A skilled collector, Funk routinely consulted and traded with other collectors, and she attended major conferences about Tolkien and fantasy fiction.  Now open to researchers, the Grace Funk Collection's arrangement and description helped Marquette surpass the millennial milestone.

• Three Tolkien manuscripts are included in the Field Museum and Newberry Library's exhibition Maps: Finding Our Place in the World,” Nov. 2, 2007-Jan. 27, 2008
• 2004 conference proceedings: The Lord of the Rings, 1954-2004
• Grace Funk Tolkien/Fantasy Collection: online descriptive inventory
• J. R. R. Tolkien Collection: online descriptive inventory/finding aid

For more information please contact Matt Blessing, Department of Special Collections and Archives, at (414) 288-5901 or Matt.Blessing@marquette.edu