Archives: Special Collections
The Library and its Collections
After graduation, there are no professors in life. But, if the skills and techniques have been learned, and the desire is there, a man can continue to educate himself...Let him learn to use a reference library by looking upon and using his college library for what it really is - a storehouse of knowledge that is open and available for the asking.
-Arthur A. Houghton, Jr., From a speech at Alfred, NY, October 21, 1954
History of the Written Word
The Library of Corning Community College was dedicated in honor of Arthur A. Houghton, Jr. Mr. Houghton was the President of Steuben Glass Works, the Curator of Rare Books at the Library of Congress, President of the New York Public Library, Manhattan, and President of the Board of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was also a rare book collector. His interest in some of the finest examples of book production can be found in the Arthur Houghton Rare Book Library at Harvard University.
One of the outstanding gifts Mr. Houghton donated to Corning Community College is the special collection of books that make up our History of the Written Word Collection.
The History of the Written Word Collection illustrates the history of the written word from ancient times to the present. Highlights from the collection include:
- Papyrus, circa 100 B.C.E to 800 A.D
- Manuscript leaves on parchment from the Middle East and Europe that date as far back as the 1200s.
- Examples of early printed books (Incunabula) from the mid 1400s through the 1500s.
- Herodotus' History of the World, 1524
- Piny's History of the World, 1601
- Raleigh's History of the World, 1614 (see photo)
- Plays from Shakespeare's Second Folio, 1632
- First editions of novels by Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman, Washington Irving, Florence Nightingale, and Charles Darwin.
- Collection of fore-edge paintings.
