Q: My daughter attends Kennesaw State and she mentioned there is a book museum on campus. Can you tell me about it and where it is located?
A: You are referring to the Bentley Rare Book Museum on the Kennesaw campus. The museum is on the first floor of Horace W. Sturgis Library, which is located in the middle of campus. When you enter the main entrance of the library, the book museum is on the right.
The Bentley Rare Book Museum is the state’s first rare book museum, according KSU’s website, and is the state’s third largest museum-grade rare book collection, behind the University of Georgia and Emory University.
“Students seem to be intimated by the museum. Some faculty are too,” said Tamara Livingston, executive director of Archives, Rare Books and Records Management at KSU. “Once they come in, if they have an interest and curiosity, we will blow their minds.
“We want students to look and touch. It’s not just for scholars.”
The Bentley Rare Book Museum is an important resource for teaching and researching the history of the book, with a focus on the English-speaking world, according the university website.
The museum has a collection of about 10,000 pieces illustrating the diversity of the written and printed word in the English-speaking world, Livingston said.
The oldest work in the museum is a clay tablet, created between 2036-2028 BC. The tablet is a little smaller than your typical baseball card and contains lines of cuneiform, one of the earliest known scripts.
The tablet is in a glass case in the wood-paneled gallery.
“The gallery presents a step-by-step guide to understanding books, beginning with the history of the book, what a manuscript is and an array of books to guide one through the history of the book,” the student newspaper reported when the museum opened in 2017.
The Bentley Museum is open 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Thursday through Friday, is free and open to the public. No reservations are required to visit the museum’s exhibitions. Research visits are scheduled by appointment only.
More information: KSU Sturgis Library, 385 Cobb Avenue Kennesaw, GA 30144 rarebooks@kennesaw.edu | 470-578-6289 rarebooks.kennesaw.edu
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