Longtime friend and supporter of University Libraries Rick Layman has donated his extensive Julian Barnes collection to the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.
Featuring multiple editions of Barnes’ novels, including the detective novels he wrote under the pseudonym Dan Kavanagh, as well as copies of magazines and journals in which he published, the collection is a complete set of Barnes’ publications. It’s a valuable addition to the Irvin Department’s holdings, says University Libraries Director of Rare Books Michael Weisenburg, both because it complements other notable Irvin Department collections and because it helps point the way to the department’s future.
“It can be easy for special collections to become ossified,” notes Weisenburg. “This collection gives us a contemporary author to showcase and a contemporary example of how to do bibliography and textual scholarship. So it’s a model for future collections. We are always actively trying to think about the future of special collections, and this collection helps us figure out what that future is.”
Layman says those, like himself, who make use of special collections can also be particularly valuable benefactors of them. “I believe that scholars have a primary responsibility to preserve important research materials,” he explains. “That is particularly so in the case of full collections that lose their contextual value when broken up. The value of a well-curated collection far exceeds the sum of its parts, and such collections can both promote and enhance further scholarship, providing essential worth to research library holdings.”
The Irvin Department is widely known for its collections of recent and contemporary American writers, such as Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Updike, and the Barnes collection adds a notable contemporary British writer to the mix. Perhaps best known for his novels Flaubert’s Parrot and The Sense of an Ending, which won the 2011 Booker Prize, Barnes has published 19 novels, three story collections, a number of essay collections and a memoir.
The donation, says Weisenburg, is a reflection of Layman’s commitment to supporting USC’s special collections and his recognition of the value of making literary treasures more available to the public than they would be if they remained in private hands.
“Rick always saw the Barnes collection as something he was building for the larger community, not just for himself,” Weisenburg says. “Once the collection was complete, he decided it was time for it to come here.”
Layman himself sees the collection as an access point into many of the most important literary themes of our times. “I regard Julian Barnes as a literary master,” he says. “He is a polymath whose novels, short stories, and essays treat subjects ranging from human psychology to science, medicine, authoritarianism, food, music, and art, all with a cross-English Channel sensibility and Cambridge-infused intelligence. I believe that a chief purpose of literary collecting is to preserve and champion writers of his achievement, and I am gratified to make his full cannon and associated materials available in the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.”
That, Weisenburg says, is in keeping with Layman’s longtime relationship with the Irvin Department: “Rick has been really generous to us, both with his time and his financial support. He gives freely of his knowledge and expertise, he supports scholars in residence, and his donations to the department have allowed us to acquire things that we wouldn’t have been able to purchase for ourselves, which has made our holdings richer and more contemporary. He’s truly an all-around supporter, a friend of the library in the full sense.”
That philanthropic support has had significant impact, Weisenburg says: “We have some unexpected collections here at the University of South Carolina because of Rick Layman and other collectors like him. Their gifts and legacy have shaped the identity of our special collections. And Rick continues to influence both our holdings and our identity moving forward.”