The rare book building of the Klau Library at Hebrew Union College holds 436,000 printed books and 2,300 manuscripts. It is the second largest collection of Judaica in the world — second only to that of the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem.

        The Carl Blegen Library at the University of Cincinnati has everything from clay tablets to early volumes on travel and exploration.

Dr. David Gilner, director of libraries for Hebrew Union College reads one of the ancient scrolls. (Dick Swaim photo) | ZOOM |

        Other rare books preserved in Cincinnati range from the early plans for building steamships to Mark Twain books sold as serials.

        In almost every case, the scrolls, books and manuscripts are available for public viewing.

        “Books are for use. It's the first law of librarianship,” says Dr. David Gilner, director of libraries for Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. On Wednesday, Dr. Gilner will open a lecture series dedicated to the art of the book.

        Here's a sampling of where to look for rare books in Cincinnati.

Dalsheimer Rare Book Building, Klau Library
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
3101 Clifton Ave., Clifton
221-1875
Hours (when classes are in session): 8 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday, 1-6 p.m. Sunday. Closed Saturday.

        Dr. Gilner may be the most enthusiastic librarian in the Tristate.

        “We run an active library,” he says. “We like to find ways of making even our rarest materials available to individuals and not charge them an arm and a leg to boot.”

        According to Dr. Gilner, the Klau Library is unique for a research library because it is open to Tristate residents at no cost.

        “In 1875 the entire library could be locked up in a metal box every night,” Dr. Gilner says. “And indeed it was because the books needed protection from the wharf rats that crawled around the riverfront in downtown Cincinnati where the college was.

        “In 1911, we moved to Clifton and the librarian, Dr. Adolph Oko, began a very aggressive program of collecting rare books and manuscripts. In the mid-1920s he was able to acquire a great many wonderful and unique treasures.”

        One of the treasures is the First Cincinnati Haggadah, an elaborately decorated handwritten (or illuminated) liturgy for the first night of Passover. It was made in southern Germany somewhere between 1480 and 1490.

        The library also owns the Second Cincinnati Haggadah, which was executed in Moravia in 1717, and almost the entire collection of manuscripts that survived from the Chinese Jewish community in Kaifeng, China, dating from the mid-17th century.

        (These manuscripts are named according to certain conventions. For example, they can be named for the person in whose collection they are found or a certain library, city or feature. The Cincinnati in these titles came about because they are two very important manuscripts of the Haddadote to reside in Cincinnati. About seven important Haddadote from the Middle Ages exist. Others are the Washington Haggadah and the Sarejevo Haggadah.)

        Other notable manuscripts include a Pentateuch with Haftarot Bible created in the Near East in the 11th century, containing the Five Books of Moses (Torah) and selections from the Prophets and Writings decorated with floral and geometric designs, and a Pentateuch with Haftarot and Megillot (scrolls) Bible dating from 1475 and made in Lisbon. This is one of six Hebrew books bound in medieval leather. The front piece and end panel are made of carpet pages that resemble Oriental rugs. “We got a wall of this stuff downstairs,” says Dr. Gilner. “Texts, illuminated texts, maps — it's a marvelous collection.

        “We have a scroll we acquired a few years ago, done by a contemporary artist, known as the Anita Hill scroll that picks up on the parallels of the treatment of women in the story of Esther and what transpired in the Senate with Anita Hill.”

        But Dr. Gilner admits he's in a tricky position when it comes to showing the rare material.

        “You want people to use them but there are certain preservation requirements. So the college became the first Judaica institution to get a planetarium digital camera from IBM, and for the last five years we have been digitizing the manuscripts and posting them to our Web site.

        “Anyone can visit our Web site (www.huc.edu/libraries/rare/) and download images. We place no intellectual restrictions and only hope people will use the images with good taste and respect.”

        The symbols and imagery from the illuminated manuscripts of the 17th and 18th centuries are used to decorate wedding announcements and other celebratory invitations.

        “It is very common today in churches and synagogues to have variations of liturgy printed out for a special occasion and we can provide illustrations from manuscripts going back 1,000 years.”

Eugene H. Maly Memorial Library
Athenaeum of Ohio
6616 Beechmont Ave.
231-2223

        The Athenaeum has about 31 manuscripts in their collection of 100,000 volumes.

        “The oldest piece is from the 1200s and is the Sentences of Peter Lombard,” explains Sister Deborah Harmeling, library director for the seminary. “It was the theological textbook before Thomas Aquinas wrote the Suma Theologico. All of the manuscripts were printed by hand and are unique in all the world. We have two very lovely Book of Hours of the Blessed Mother, which are very decorative with lovely gold illuminated initials.”

        This highly specialized collection of theology and pastoral counseling is used primarily by faculty and students and is considered, says Sister Deborah, the best in Southern Ohio and one of the best in Ohio.

        “We have things in our collection you won't find in other collections,” Sister Deborah explains. “We have some things in medieval history and Bibles in all sorts of languages. Yesterday I catalogued a Bible in Bengali.”

        They also have a Graduale, a book of music used in the Catholic mass made up of four chants for the chorus, dating to 1528 with additions in 1756. The book is written with large letters and musical notations, some elaborately illuminated in gold.

        “We also have books that were printed before 1501 called incunabula, from the Latin which means "in the cradle.' They were printed before the invention of movable type.

        “Our most famous is the Nuremburg Chronicles, which were done in 1492. It is a history of the world from the beginning of time to 1492, with lots of illustrations of what people thought the world looked like back then.”

        The library requires users to register and obtain a library card before viewing the texts. First-time users should come between 9 a.m. and noon or 1-5 p.m. to receive an initiation tour of the stacks. For the most rare material, an appointment with Sister Deborah is required.

The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County
Rare Books and Special Collections Department
800 Vine St., downtown
369-6957
Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, 1-5 p.m. Sunday

        “We have 45,000 rare books and a special collection of Lafcadio Hearn, who was a journalist for the Enquirer and Commercial in the 1870s,” says Sylvia Verdun Metzinger, manager of the rare books collection.

        “We have a very large collection of Bibles and an extremely large collection of dictionaries — we have the 10th largest collection in the country. We're also strong in Faulkner, Dickens, Hemingway, Maugham, Twain and Steinbeck.”

        The library holds about 20,000 photos of steamships and a large collection of books on Ohio River commerce. The collection is especially strong in Cincinnati and Ohio River Valley history and culture, the discovery and exploration of the Western Hemisphere and artists' books.

        There is also a large postcard collection, a rare complete copy of John James Audubon's Birds of America and the “Fontayne and Porter Daguerreotype,” a panoramic view of the Cincinnati riverfront taken in 1848.

        “We do have some bound illuminated manuscripts, but it is not something we actively collect,” Ms. Metzinger explains. “They are used most often by art students trying to write papers.”

        Most important among the library's religious collection is Office for the Dead, a 15th century illuminated set of prayers in Latin on vellum in red and black Gothic print. (Back then, vellum, a fine parchment, was made from animal skin.) Musical score is square notation on red four-line staff. The first leaf is illuminated with arabesques, a medallion portrait and initials.

        There is also a French Book of Hours circa 1420 in Gothic script on vellum, with 15 miniature paintings decorated in color and gold. A 17th century Book of Hours by Antoine de Villars, written in French and Latin, includes a calendar of new moons and first days for the years 1700-1709. Illustrations include Louis XIV on a pedestal, the Crucifixion, the Ten Commandments being given to Moses, St. Mary Magdalene at prayer, angels and other allegorical figures.

Carl Blegen Library
Archives & Rare Books Department
University of Cincinnati
556-2113

        “We have everything from clay tablets to modern first editions,” says Kevin Grace, assistant head of archives. “Our focus is on certain 18th century subjects, British literature, the history of the book, early travel and exploration and a Native American collection — in total about 30,000. We are open to the public, but have closed stacks, of course.”

        Of the illuminated manuscripts, the Hours of the Virgin, with Calendar is outstanding. It was created in Limoges, France, in the fourth quarter of the 15th century, written in Gothic script. It includes 10 large miniature paintings in arched compartments with fully illuminated borders, and eight smaller initials decorated with figures. The headings are in red, blue and black and the book is bound in red velvet.

        There is also a Bible from Florence in the 1400s written in black and red letter with the page numbers and paragraph initials decorated in red and blue. The library's collection also includes palm books from Nepal and Tibet.

        “We consider this a teaching collection as much as a research collection,” says Mr. Grace.

Other rare book collections

        Here are other libraries that have important religious texts.

        Cincinnati Art Museum
        953 Eden Park Drive
        639-2995
        Hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Wednesday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday; noon-6 p.m. Sunday.

        CAM has a copy of the Quran from Saudi Arabia in the Ottoman Period, 1555. It's written in Arabic script and bound in Moroccan leather, which has been tooled, stamped and gilded.

        McDonald Memorial Library, Xavier University Libraries
        3800 Victory Parkway
        745-3881 circulation; 745-4808 reference
        Hours: noon-1 a.m. Sunday; 8 a.m.-1 a.m. Monday-Thursday; 8 a.m.-7 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday

        The McDonald Memorial library has several distinctive Bibles. The Biblia Latina (Latin Bible) from 1479 was produced on vellum in Venice by renowned printer Nicolas Jensen. The prologue contains a letter written by St. Jerome to a Roman patrician woman on the historic books of the Old Testament.

        Another Latin Bible was made in France in the middle of the 14th century on vellum and bound in brown calf on wood covers in the 16th century. There is also a Gregorian chant dating from the 14th century that contains the liturgical music and Latin texts used in the chant.

        Cathedra Basilica of the Assumption
        1140 Madison Ave., Covington
        (859) 431-2060, Ext. 204.
        Hours: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday; 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday

        The Evangelium circa 1950 is a collection of chants especially used for holy days such as Easter and Christmas. The Cathedral Museum's copy is composed of hammered gold inlay with semiprecious stones and cloisonne enamel. The interior is illuminated with color and gold leaf.

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