Considering an Irish great on St. Patrick’s Day
UB’s James Joyce archive aims to share its collection with the community
Published March 17, 2021
BY MICHELLE KEARNS
Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with some local Irish facts and news: GSE alums working at the University at Buffalo’s James Joyce Collection of the work and artifacts from the famous Dublin poet, novelist and avant-garde innovator, want to get the word out that when COVID restrictions lift, they will re-open and help people visit the North Campus collection.
There, GSE information science program alumna Leslie Feldballe, MLS ’10, helps manage the collection that includes Joyce’s writing, canes, passports, portraits and books signed by the likes of Ernest Hemingway and W.B. Yeats.
Feldballe’s favorite: Joyce’s century-old round glasses. They connect to her love of historic artifacts.
Getting the word out about one of the world’s best Joyce collections is part of Feldballe’s daily work: Making sure it is accessible with easy-to-find records is, she said, a key mission. “If nobody can find it, there’s no use in having it,” she said. “We have so much material ... We’re not trying to hold on to it and keep it secret.”
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The James Joyce Collection came to UB in six installments. Covering the entire span of his artistic life, the James Joyce Collection is the largest Joyce collection in the world. Read more
One of the Poetry Collection’s more than 150 archival and manuscript collections, the UB James Joyce Collection comprises more than 10,000 pages of the author’s working papers, notebooks, manuscripts, photographs, correspondence, portraits, publishing records, important memorabilia, and ephemera, as well as Joyce’s Paris library.
“If nobody can find it, there’s no use in having it. We have so much material ... We’re not trying to hold on to it and keep it secret.”
Leslie Feldballe, MLS ’10, Cataloging and Metadata Librarian
UB Libraries