Discover Special Collections

The Stephen O. Murray and Keelung Hong Special Collections holds a beautiful and very large “Antiphonale” probably dating from the 15^th century. It was donated in 1951 by the E.K. Warren Foundation, but little else is known about the manuscript except that marginal notations suggest it spent a portion of its life in a Spanish monastery and was probably copied for the Benedictine Order of the Catholic Church. An “Antiphonale” is a collection of liturgical chants surrounding the Psalm verses appropriate to the day of the Church year. The chants would be sung in unison by the choir in alternation (antiphonally) with the officiant who would chant the Psalm verses. You can listen to six verses of the Advent hymn, “Conditor alme siderum,” which precedes the antiphons in this manuscript. It was probably sung daily at or near the opening of the service and the hymn is still in use today; the most common translation is “Creator of the Stars of Night.”

One of a handful of surviving copies of Shadows from the walls of death; facts and inferences prefacing a book of specimens of arsenical wall papers (Lansing, 1874) by Professor Robert C. Kedzie, a physician turned chemistry professor who for many years taught at Michigan Agricultural College is held in Stephen O. Murray and Keelung Hong Special Collections. Appointed to the first State Board of Health for Michigan, Kedzie wrote of the deaths that resulted from wallpaper tinted with arsenic (Paris green). Kedzie cut up 80 rolls of wallpaper containing the deadly arsenic-green and produced 100 copies for distribution to state libraries along with his scientific conclusions. The copy in Stephen O. Murray and Keelung Hong Special Collections has been conserved and the wallpaper specimens encapsulated to protect staff and patrons.

Originally started in 1962 as a Catholic literary quarterly by Edward Keating, Ramparts soon became associated with the New Left of the 1960's under the influence of such editors as Warren Hinkle, Robert Scheer, and James F. Colaianni. Ramparts was an early critic of the Vietnam War publishing the first national article denouncing the use of napalm and exposed the CIA use of American universities including Michigan State for training Vietnamese security forces. Indeed, one of the most famous Ramparts covers pictures then Vietnamese First Lady Madame Nhu as an MSU cheerleader as part of an expose regarding the cooperation between MSU and the CIA that occurred during the 1960's. Ramparts also provided a venue for discussion of the arts and culture including contributions from poet Allen Ginsberg, reporter Hunter S. Thompson, and John Lennon.

The Provenance Project at the MSU Stephen O. Murray and Keelung Hong Special Collections is an ongoing effort to systematically catalog marks of ownership and marks of use in rare books here at Michigan State University. A team of library employees and volunteers documents and studies the copy-specific features of these rare books, such as bookplates, owner signatures, bookseller’s notes, library markings, unique bindings, handwritten annotations, and more. A detailed provenance record can shed light on the world outside of our books, giving us crucial insight into the habits of readers, the popularity of particular works and genres, as well as the history of the book and the book trade.