John Davis Barnett donated over 40,000 books and thousands of pamphlets, the largest single gift ever received by a Canadian library, to the University of Western Ontario in August 1918 and became Western's first librarian. Barnett's goal was to provide the nucleus of a national library, and so the donation was received with the understanding that his books would be available to everyone.
These are 5 volumes created by J.D. Barnett to track and organize books he acquired. Barnett's collection process was extensive and thorough. Almost every book he collected and donated contains his signature, his bookplate, and a number corresponding to a journal entry.
The accession journals organize books by subject headings, and include the author's name, book title, publisher, date of publication, dimensions of the book, notes about binding and condition, and the number assigned to the book.
Barnett uses abbreviations and codes to note location (e.g., T = Toronto; B = Boston; L = London), date (e.g., /31 = 1831), and binding (e.g., 1/2 b = half bound; fb = full bound; cursive lowercase Ls = limp vellum).
This is a hand written copy of a classic naval text, as well as other content, by a student at Christ's Hospital, one of the oldest boarding schools in England, founded in 1552. According to a scholar researching the history of the school, approximately 1000 of these manuscripts were created, all unique, and only about 60 are still known to be in existence worldwide.
This is a hand written list of titles contained in Bishop Hellmuth's personal library. It was purchased by Barnett in 1895, at the sale of the Bishop's library, as stated in Barnett's inscription in the book.
This is a hand written, two volume set, that is likely a scholar's notes on his readings, lectures, and other thoughts and information on the area of Jewish Antiquities. It has been written in code, which appears to be a combination of Pitman short hand, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and English.
