We just wanted to let friends of BYU Special Collections know about an upcoming lecture this Thursday, October 3, at 11am in the Education in Zion auditorium located in the Joseph F. Smith Building (B-129 JFSB). Professors Fred Woods and Jay Buckley will be speaking on a book they just published on Eli Wiggill, and early Latter-day Saint from South Africa. The L. Tom Perry Special Collections in the HBLL are proud to house the original 4-volume autobiography of Eli Wiggill, donated in 2018, and which was digitized in 2022, available at :

https://cdm15999.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15999coll31/search/searchterm/eli%20wiggill%20autobiography.

Please come join us this Thursday at 11am to hear some amazing stories and learn more about one of the Church’s 19th Century pioneers in Africa.

This new exhibit explores the circulation statistics from the BYU Library on Latter-day Saint authors. It reveals which books were the most popular for the last 15 years and which books are still popular today.

The exhibit runs through August.

The IKEA manual in your junk drawer might not seem like fine literature, but it’s part of a genre that’s existed throughout human memory. In this exhibit, we’ve highlighted thirteen examples of how-to texts, starting from 1603 and going through the 21^st century.

Early instructional texts were written by hand and contained instructions on practical matters. They were also unlikely to contain images; if pictures were included, they were hand-drawn. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century made it easier to produce instructional texts, and a wider variety of topics could be covered. In the modern era, the scope and medium of instructional texts has changed drastically. Detailed images could be included in instructional texts; this started with technologies such as woodcuts and block prints but eventually shifted to photographs.

Though this genre has been established for a long time, the digital age has caused another shift in instructional texts. It’s more likely to see instructions transmitted online, whether in a YouTube video or a WikiHow article. It’s also easier to find specific and detailed instructions, as anyone can create a video or write a blog post online. This increased accessibility is great, but it comes with a price—if anyone can write instructions, it’s more possible that misinformation will spread. As time passes, it will be interesting to see how the genre of instructional texts continues to evolve.

“The History of How-To” is on display in the Special Collections reference room throughout the months of August and September 2024.

“The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul,” said Elder Uchtdorf in 2008. As children of

Heavenly Parents, to create is to share in our divine heritage. And yet, too often, many of us feel we are not creative. That is not true, believes Ed Catmull of Pixar. To him, creativity is nothing more than problem-solving. Yes, it can be emotional and difficult, but if we are addressing it, thinking about it, and engaging with others, that is a creative act.  

For the last 50 years, one of the most accessible and universally understood means of creation has been the LEGO or plastic brick. Initially created in 1949, LEGO comes from the Danish phrase leg godt, which translates to “play well” in English. Why are these pieces of toy so crucial to creation? Because there is no limit to how they are used or for what they are used, there is no wrong way to create with them. Whether you follow instructions or prefer to “freestyle,” you create something as uniquely designed as you are when you connect two bricks together. “We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter [or brick] into our hands and mold it into something of beauty.” 

Sculpting as an art has long been a central form of religious devotion in many cultures. Historically, artists have used stone, metal, or clay to bring their worship to life and inspire others. In this new century, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have begun participating in brick-sculpting to create and express their devotion and worship of Jesus Christ. The expression of faith often centers on our most holy places on earth where one can commune with God and His Son, the temple.  

However, all these creations, no matter how big or small, how exact or imperfect, started with a problem to solve: “What do I want to build?” and became an action of creation by connecting one brick to another. 

We are grateful to our leading LEGO artists, Dave Jungheim (Salt Lake City Temple, Salt Lake City Tabernacle, Joesph Smith Memorial Building, Temple Square Assembly Hall, and Book of Mormon), Jenn Raine Smart (Image of Christ mosaic) and Jackson Wehrli (Washington DC Temple and Second Comic of Christ mosaic)

If you would like to read more about the exhibit, follow the links below:

LDS Living
BYU Communications
The Church News
The Deseret News
Studio5 with Brooke Walker

If you have AR/VR glasses such as an Apple Vision Pro try these panoramic views of the LEGO boards for an immersive experience.

A new exhibit highlighting tourism in Yellowstone National Park from 1890 to 1920 is now open through July. The three cases of materials on display feature brochures, promotional pamphlets, and several postcards documenting the park’s rise in popularity and how the boom of visitors was accommodated.

Here is more information from the exhibit curators: “Yellowstone National Park has captured the public’s imagination since the first descriptions of its marvels were published in the nineteenth century. Visitors have flocked to the park hoping to experience those wonders for themselves. Those wishing to see the natural beauty of Yellowstone National Park for themselves in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries generally made the trip by means of an organized tour, staying in either permanent camps or hotels. Thomas Murphy wrote that the hotel tour ‘is a little more expensive, and appeals to the traveler who dislikes the slight inconveniences of a canvas tent bedroom.’ But in the camping parties there was more ‘freedom and hilarity than in the hotels and the camping parties perhaps enjoy themselves more thoroughly than the hotel guests, … this would be natural, for they have a larger proportion of young people.’

Tourism and Yellowstone are synonymous. Guidebooks and brochures played an outsized role in drawing people to Yellowstone and continue to influence how visitors view the park. The Shaw & Powell Camping Company described the park ‘as’ a national pleasure resort.’ They also wrote that the first superintendent, Nathanael P. Langford, had ‘devoted his energies to opening up this great reserve, then in its primitive state, and great credit is due him for his persistent efforts and good results in building roadways and making other needed improvements which have greatly to the comfort and pleasure of tourists.’ Regardless of whether tourists opted to travel with the camping companies or stay in the park’s hotels, Yellowstone was a deeply American experience in which the natural landscape featured prominently.”

While you might expect that Victorians were fond of sweet and sentimental valentines, you might also be surprised that they sent valentines that we might consider sour, mocking, or downright rude! This valentine from the BYU Library collections, which dates from the 1840s, ridicules both the sickly appearance and general bookishness of the stereotypical Victorian bookkeeper (someone like Bob Cratchit from A Christmas Carol). So-called “comic valentines” like this usually targeted people’s perceived faults and foibles, looks, or social roles.

This and other examples of valentines cards dating from the 1840s through 1880s are on display this month in Special Collections reference area. You can also see an example of the forerunner of the valentine card, the “valentine writer” — published verses which could be copied into a DIY valentine greeting.

January 8 marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Victorian author Wilkie Collins, whose thrillers like The Woman in White and The Moonstone still capture readers with their plot twists and sympathetic characters. To celebrate, the Special Collections Reading Room features a small exhibit of first editions of these two novels as well as other books and short stories by Collins. “Sensational Stuff: The Writing of Wilkie Collins” will be on display for the month of January.

Over the past 150 years, the “Dear Santa” letter has made its way deep into American culture and can be found hiding in BYU’s Special Collections in the form of handwritten letters, music scores, children’s books, and more. The items in this exhibit reveal the different roles Santa has played and some of the desires Americans have projected onto him over time.

Through this exhibit, experience the merriment and longing of Christmases past and reflect upon what writing letters to Santa and the Christmas season means to you.

The exhibit was entirely curated by the students of the Intro to American Studies class (AM ST 303), including Megan Bailey, Samuel Call, Alyse Frogley, Maren Hamilton, Wyatt Johnson, Cole Nisson, Richard Scott, Abigail Shelton, and Hailey Weight.

The exhibit will be on display through the end of 2023.