Well, we've done it. We've finally produced a mega-episode. And what better topic to go all epic on you than the outsized at the University of Minnesota Libraries? Our guest this episode is Tim Johnson, Curator of Special Collections and Rare Books & E. W. McDiarmid Curator of the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota Libraries. Tim gives us a nice history of the  and the beginnings of the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the university, which was made possible through a number of personal relationships. It includes the additions from the collections of James Iraldi, Philip Hench, Edith Meiser, John Bennett Shaw and Allen Mackler that have contributed to the basis of the vast and varied items that number more than 60,000. We discuss much about the collections, including the challenge for a curator of books / librarian when it comes to looking after objects that go far beyond the printed page, as well as the changing nature of donor relations with respect to special collections. But we would have been remiss if we didn't spend time on John Bennett Shaw, BSI ("The Hans Sloane of My Age"), who was affectionately known as The Grand Acquisitor and who had all of the collecting discernment of a vacuum cleaner. Tim opines on what's next for collectors and the Collections alike, and gives us a hint as to what to expect as far out as 2016. If you're a researcher or just a curious Sherlockian, there is much available to you, either on a visit to the library or to their site online. Scott shares a tale of collecting woe - a long sought-after treasure disappears in the blink of an eye. What's a collector to do? We head way back to an early edition of the Baker Street Journal - 1946, to be exact - to find our inspiration in "De Jure Inter Gentes" (Vol. 1, No. 3).

Links:

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at 79. Hear our interview with him on .

at the University of Minnesota Libraries

Tim's blog:

On Twitter:  (Tim),  (Norwegian Explorers)

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