Dear Rare Reader,

Welcome back to campus! It’s so refreshing to walk into work and see so many new (and familiar) faces.

For students, instructors, and staff at the University of Utah, the Marriott Library is foundational to campus life and learning. Of course, it’s the place you go to regroup after long lectures, check-out that computer charger you forgot at home, and stop for a quick caffeine boost in between classes (thank you, Starbucks!), but with all the countless spaces, events, and services the library offers, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the library is here, first and foremost, to provide you with the information you need to be successful. And at the heart of that mission has always been the library catalog.

As we all get back into the swing of things, we here in Rare Books thought it might be helpful to look back into the vault and explore how the library’s first catalog came to be. Along the way, you’ll learn a little about the history of the library and learn how to search today’s catalog for rare books, so we can continue meeting our mission of putting history into your hands.

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On November 11 of 1850, just a few months after Mormon Pioneers three-year anniversary of entering the Great Basin, the University of Deseret (the University of Utah’s precursor) officially opened its’ doors.  Only two months earlier, on September 9^th, was the State of Deseret admitted into the country by US Congress as the Territory of Utah. Suffice it to say that becoming a continental territory was not the desired outcome of Brigham Young who had spent 1849 lobbying Congress to grant Deseret statehood, but despite the loss, he wasted no time accepting the title of Utah’s first Governor and set out establishing the essential institutions that would mold the Utah Territory into the utopia he imagined.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a library was amongst the first initiatives Young embarked on. An avid supporter of literacy and education more broadly, Young had long encouraged his followers to bring their libraries with them as they travelled West. Despite his advocacy, the reading material that arrived was not what Young had anticipated. “Gentile fiction” and family bibles came in high numbers but Young desired practical tomes, on matters like government and agriculture/ Luckily, as part of the territorial agreement, Congress allotted $5,000 (The equivalent of nearly $215,000 in today’s market!) to the purchasing of books.

Young soon tasked Dr. John M. Bernhisel with buying the initial books that would make up Utah’s first Territorial Library. A longtime member and supporter of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Bernhisel proved to be incredibly influential in the fight for Utah’s statehood. Not only was he amongst the first group to travel to Washington D.C. in 1849 petitioning congress for statehood, but he would also go onto become the territory’s first official delegate in 1851, representing the interests of the Mormon community to the nation’s leaders.

On October 3^rd, 1850, Bernhisel left the Salt Lake Valley and set off for New York where he would curate the first iteration of Utah’s Territorial Library. It wasn’t long after he arrived that he sent out an advertisement to the “authors, editors, and publishers of the United States” asking for book donations to supplement the $5,000 worth of books already purchased.

Though more bibliographic research can be done into the books Bernhisel acquired and brought back to the Salt Lake Valley, what we know for certain is that the Territorial Library’s first (and last) catalog was printed by Brigham Hamilton Young, Brigham Young’s nephew, in October of 1852.

In it, William C. Staines, who would become the territory’s first official librarian on January 27^th of 1854, does make mention of the donated books that Bernhisel was able to acquire, noting that they aren’t listed in the catalog at hand but will be printed in the 1855 edition. Interestingly, the 1855 catalog was never printed, despite the manuscript being held by the Church Library—leaving us with yet another historical conundrum.

The Territorial Library was open until 1891 when its’ contents were divided between Utah’s Law Library and the University of Deseret’s library. At the time, John R. Park was the president of the University, which would become the University of Utah just a year later in 1892.

Catalog of Books in the Library of the University of Deseret Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Steam Printing Establishment, 1875 University of Deseret Z664 S3 A3

Park had already spent a great deal of effort developing the fledgling University’s library. On 1874, he put his own library of nearly 3,000 volumes on loan to the students of campus and in 1875, the University of Deseret’s first library catalog was printed, namely composed of Dr. Park’s volumes.

Obviously, the University of Utah’s modern catalog looks very different now than it did in the late 19^th century, and its digital form is just one example of that evolution. Another is the breadth and variety of materials held within the library. No longer is the library solely a repository of contemporary books but a home to various music formats, audio recordings, videos and movies, and every other medium that makes up our vast cultural zeitgeist today.

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While the Rare Books Department comprises  just a small portion of the much larger ecosystem that is the Mariott Library, the items found in our collection tell the stories of how we got to where we are today, as this post hopefully illustrates. In celebration of those stories and the value they hold, we want to show you how to locate rare books within the Marriott’s catalog, so that you too can learn and tell the stories of our shared cultural histories.

• Step 1: Go to the Marriott Library’s Catalog @ lib.utah.edu
• Step 2: Beneath the permanent search bar choose the “Catalog” toggle button
• Step 3: Conduct your search using vague topical language. For example, if you were conducting research on the rise of the library movement in the United States, a great starting search term would be “libraries.”
• Step 4: Once you have conducted your search, shift your attention to the “facets” selection on the left side of the screen. From there, look for “Collection” and click the drop-down button.
• Step 5: To narrow the search down to rare books, select the following options: Request at Special Collections Desk: Rare Books, Request at Special Collections Desk: Rare Books Oversize, ARC Request at Special Collections Desk: Rare Books. Once you apply those filters, you will be searching all the books within the Rare Books Collection that make some mention of your original keyword in their records. You can then go onto refine your results further using the other facets on the left-hand side of the screen.

Once you have a book you’re interested in. come make an appointment to see it in the reading room using this link. We are open Monday-Friday from 10am-4pm and, as always, would love to see you. Cheers for now, Your loyal Rare Books Team