Five floors containing hundreds of thousands of books comprise the Mitchell Memorial Library on the Mississippi State University campus. Quietly tucked away on the third floor is a section rightfully called Special Collections.
This section is home to the university archives, manuscripts and Mississippiana, a collection of “anything and everything having to do with Mississippi,” said coordinator Marja Lynne Mueller.
The Mississippiana collection contains books written by and about Mississippi and its residents.
“There are books about the state and its history-for example, the Choctaw Indians- and books that have been printed in Mississippi,” Mueller said. “The Mississippiana collection is also the depository for all state documents.”
The extent of the collection is something Mueller is quite proud of. “We have one of the larger collections in the state that deal with Mississippi as a subject area,” she said.
Mueller also manages the rare books collection.
“A book is considered rare if there are not many copies in existence because they are either old or of a limited edition set,” she said.
Some books are rare for other reasons, though. “There is a Thomas Hardy book with a letter inside from his secretary explaining to a friend that Hardy could not respond to his letter because of illness,” Mueller said.
One book has a note from its author tucked in its pages. Some books have unusual illustrations, such as encyclopedia of American wood that has actual wood veneer chips on the pages.
Just over 600 books comprise the manuscripts division of the Special Collections. These books contain many local records and documents. “We are very proud of the Rice family papers, which are a large set of plantation records from Oktibbeha county,”said Manuscripts Coordinator Mattie Sink.
“About one-third of the manuscript books deal with the Civil War, which are popular here,” she said.
Another valuable asset to the collection is the University Archives. The archives contain papers of all the MSU presidents, university catalogs, and all of the student publications, like The Reveille and The Reflector. “Some early issues of the Reflector are missing because in its early days it was a literary magazine,” said Dr. Michael Ballard, archivist and historian in charge of the University Archives.
There is also an extensive collection of vertical files in the archives. These files contain newspaper clippings on different aspects of the university, such as alumni, buildings, colleges, and departments. “This is a great research tool for students. A lot of speech students use the archives for speeches on the history of MSU traditions and buildings,” said Ballard.
“And of course there are football films,” he added.
“The vertical files are great resources for term papers,” said Mueller. “Scholars sometimes need a quick piece of information for research and the vertical files are the fastest way to access that information.”
The Special Collections section of the library is available for public use, but in order for students to use these materials, they must register first.
The first time a student goes to the Special Collections section, he or she can fill out a registration form, show an ID card, and then be put into the database. After that, the student needs only to sign in to use the materials.
“We make students register for security reasons and for usage information,” Ballard said.
“The advantage of registering is the students are then able to use anything in the collection, from the least to the most rare,” Sink said.
The Special Collections department is open weekdays from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and is located on the third floor near the John Grisham room.