Special Collections

Learning about the special collections section of the library was very interesting, and the woman who was teaching us all about the different books was also very inspiring because she seemed that she cared a lot for what she did.  She told us that some of the books were up to 4,000 years old, and Mizzou also has some original copies of books that can't be found anywhere else!  I thought it was neat that people had to use parchment to make scrolls- which was made out of goat skin.  You could tell because the parchment wasn't smooth and a little discolored because of the different pigments in the skin of the animal.  One of the more interesting books that the woman talked about was an old Latin grammar book.  Again, each page was different because it was made from animal skin.  The binding was made of pig skin and it was still very sturdy and preserved.  I noticed that the pages were very thin and fragile so you had to be careful when flipping through.  I noticed red ink on some of the first letters of the sentences, we don't see that anymore today so I thought that was different.  A little odd, but the book had an older smell to it, which is normal.  The cover had cool designs on it, and inside on the different pieces of parchment you could see holes where the author would align the sentences so it would look straight.