SHREVEPORT – Take a look, it’s in a book.
While the more than 200,000 volumes in the James Smith Noel Collection contains untold knowledge in its tomes, the current exhibit is about items left in these books.
Titled “Ephemera: Remnants of Society,” this exhibit explores things left behind in books, either on purpose or by accident.
From embossed leather bookmarks obtained at the 1904 World’s Fair to a ticket to the 1924 Rutgers-Cornell football game (50 cents for reserved seating), the exhibit highlights items catalogers documented while logging various books in the Collection.
CREDIT: Kylie Richter/LSUS Media Relations
Ephemera includes items like cards, advertisements, ticket stubs – even love letters.
“We often find these items tucked away in books for safe keeping, and then they are forgotten,” said Martha Lawler, director of the Noel Collection. “Now they can be seen again, and the pleasure they once gave experienced anew.”
The exhibit also features the books in which the items were found.
The picture of the likely French soldier was found in a book about the Palace of Versailles.
A newspaper article about Elvis lived inside a book about songwriting.
While Lawler and her crew didn’t display anything too personal or too fragile – like flower petals – the collection does have a physical therapy report from the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for a soldier who was experiencing shoulder pain.
The exhibit takes whimsical turns in advertisements for milk chocolate shaped like a milk jug, advocating for chocolate from the local druggist store as fit to eat for breakfast or dinner.
A nod to Shreveport’s past can be found with an invitation for a Selber Bros. Department Store guest to a July 4 fireworks spectacular, which featured a band.
The high-end store was an anchor of downtown throughout much of the 20th century (founded in 1907) and persisted into the 1980s.
“When we catalog books, we also catalog any ephemera that comes with them,” Lawler explained. “We record the item, what book in which it’s located, and the page on which we found it.
“We have multiple filing cabinets of ephemera arranged by category. I think it’s interesting finding these pieces, and you think about why this was saved or why it’s in here.”
The exhibit in the Noel Collection runs through May 29.
The Noel Collection is one of the largest private collections of antiquarian books, prints and maps in the United States that span more than 100 different subject areas.
It’s located on the third floor of the Noel Memorial Library on LSUS’s campus with tours that can be arranged from 8-4:30 p.m. on weekdays.
Contact Lawler via email at [email protected] or visit the Collection’s website at jsnoelcollection.org.