Scotland

Though Special Collections holds books on Scotland and by Scots from many collections, the main Scots-focused one came as a gift from R. Douglas Stuart, a resident of Lake Forest, in 1966: a library of books on Scotland, Scotiana, acquired from James Thomson, Hyde Park, Chicago. The donation came the year after the Donnelley Library was opened, and many books from this collection were held in the new in 1965 "Treasure Room" of walnut-paneled bookcases with wire-mesh openings in the doors. The collection was comprised of ca. 2,000 volumes, mostly from the 18th C. to the 20th C., with an occasional highspot earlier. These are listed in the library's catalog as well as in OCLC's Worldcat, but the character of the holdings can be sampled in the 2004 exhibition catalog, One Hundred Rare and Notable Books.... One of ten groups of books by topic in this catalog is Scotland. The earliest is a history of Scotland by John Lesley, 1527?-1596, illustrated with what apparently is the first printed map of Scotland. Other books in the catalog relate to travels and writings by Scots, art by Scots, and 19th C. photographs of western Scotland, near Glasgow and Paisley. The collection contains a number of family and clan histories, as well as local and regional histories.

Mr. Stuart was the son-in-law of former president the Reverend Dr. James G. K. McClure, a descendant in this country too of Scots-Irish immigrants, in McClure's case to New York state in the 1700s.

Arthur H. Miller

May 24, 2010