Rare book collections
Whipple Library rare book collections include the oldest and most valuable materials in the Library, some of them dating back to the late 15th-century beginnings of printing. Our rare book collections support departmental research and teaching, and may be consulted by anyone with a genuine research interest (please see the Library's admissions policy). Whipple rare book collections can also be viewed through the Library's programme of exhibitions, which are also made available online. Rare book related workshops and seminars are available to HPS students during each academic year. See our Whipple Library Books Blog for details of rare book related news, events, and featured items.
From Deleuze's Histoire et description du Muséum Royal d'Histoire Naturelle (1823)
The Library's foundation collection of 1,300 rare books was donated to the University by Robert Stewart Whipple in 1944. Since the Department's inception in the 1950s, Whipple's foundation has been augmented to the extent that the Library now holds more than 10,000 rare volumes relating instruments, science and medicine.
The Library is fortunate in having received through donation a number of important collections: the Sleeman and the Steward Collection of books of chemistry and physics, the collection of books presented by George Parker Bidder (books of biological sciences from the nineteenth-century onwards), and some of the books originally presented to the Cavendish Laboratory by James Clerk Maxwell.
Three incunables have been added to the two contained in the initial Whipple bequest: a collection entitled Scriptores astronomici veteres, including Firmicus Maternus' De nativitatibus (Venice: Aldus Manutius, 1499); a volume containing Sacro Bosco's Sphaericum opusculum [Sphaera mundi], Regiomontanus' Contra Cremonensia in planetarium theoricas delyramenta disputationes, Peurbach's In eorundem motus planetarum accuratissime theoricae (Venice: Erhard Ratdolt, 1482); and Solinus' Polyhistor, sive De mirabilibus mundi (Venice: [Joannes Rubeus Vercellensis], 1498).
Making the collection accessible
The Whipple Collection has been fully catalogued, using the information which Whipple recorded in a notebook and a card catalogue. Detailed records have been added to the online Newton catalogue. The Whipple Library recognises the need to preserve its unique cultural heritage for future generations.