Collections
Collections:
The current collection development policy dictates areas of interest, which include focus on international mountainous regions, and on mountain craft, equipment, expeditions, safety and rescue, survival, accidents and risk behavior, climate and weather, history and mountaineering clubs, avalanche, volcano and glacier study, environmental conservation, mountain medicine, art, biography, cartography, travelogues, ethnology, fiction and poetry, geography, geology, socio-political study, mythology, natural history (especially above timberline), philosophy and religion.
The AAC collections range from 16th-century bound volumes to 21st-century items, with the bulk originating from the 19th and 20th centuries. The focus of all collections is on the history and practice of human exploration and recreation in all mountain regions.
Rare Books - The Rare Books Collection of the AAC includes several significant contributions to mountain scholarship. The Central Asian Library includes 30,000 rare and scarce volumes with an emphasis on mountain exploration in Tibet, Nepal, India, and China. It also includes the Yoshizawa Collection of 2,000 Japanese-language volumes, which extensively documents Japanese exploration in the world's mountainous regions. The John M. Boyle Himalayan Library's mission is to collect every book printed about expeditions to the Himalayas 8,000m peaks, with every effort to acquire signed first editions, as well as every other edition published, in every language available. The Henry Montagnier Collection features 19th century books on the Alps. This collection was expanded by AAC collection efforts to include bound volumes spanning the 16th to 21st century, and every region of the world.
New acquisitions are funded in part by endowments specific to the collections, as well as by donation. Rare books are non-circulating but are available to the public during library hours. Discovery tools include the on-line catalog and finding aids. Use is supervised by the librarian on duty. Patrons view books in the library reading room, are provided gloves, book cradles and book weights as appropriate and are instructed in proper handling of fragile items.
Circulating Books - The AAC holds approximately 20,000 books available in open stacks to members and the general public during library hours, 5 days a week, from noon to 5pm or by appointment. Members may check out these materials either on site or by mail. Books date between 1900 to present. Main subject areas include current and historical guidebooks for rock climbing, ice and snow climbing, exploration and adventure, ski mountaineering, travel narratives, mountain cultures, languages, natural science, high altitude survival and medicine, environmental conservation, juvenile materials, fiction and poetry, fine art, and photography. New acquisitions are funded through the library budget, by in-kind and direct donations. The catalog is available online at: http://www.americanalpineclub.org/americanalpineclublibrary
Photographs - More than 140 photograph collections are stored in the Rare Book Room. Like rare books, these materials are available to the public on site, during library hours. Highlights of the collection include several hundred photographic prints by Vittorio Sella (1859-1943), one of the first to carry heavy cameras and 30 x 40 cm glass plates into remote areas. He accompanied the Duke of Abuzzi's 1909 attempt on K2, as well as earlier expeditions to the Caucasus, the Rwenzori, Africa, and to the St. Elias Mountains, Canada. His photographs of this area were highly praised by Ansel Adams. The AAC collection holds photographs of the Tetons by Adams, as well as by his friend Bradford Washburn. In 2008 a private donor presented the AAC with a permanent loan 175 of Washburn's personal favorites of his own work.
The collection also includes thousands of glass-, acetate- and polyester-based transparencies, sheet film negatives, prints and stereo photographs, along with lantern slide and modern slide projectors. Slides are especially significant because they were often used in expedition presentations at AAC gatherings as well as at the Explorer's Club, the British Alpine Club. In many instances the notes from these presentations are preserved in personal correspondence in the AAC archives. The photographs of less well-known photographers are also significant in that they document such things as glacial recession and other environmental features, clothing and gear used in a particular period, as well as persons and places related to various adventures. The AAC's first digitization project, started in 2008, has been making climber and historian Harish Kapadia's color slides of the Indian Himalayas, spanning the 1970s to 2003 available on-line.
Film - The American Alpine Club (AAC) Film Collection is comprised of 79 reels of regular 8mm, Super8 and 16mm film, dating from the mid-1920's to the 1980's. The bulk of the collection (49 of the 79 reels) is 16mm film, most of which is in stable condition. Most of the films were determined to be unique originals or rare copies which complement the Library's books, journals, photographs and papers documenting mountain climbing history. One element of the AAC Film Collection is The J. Monroe Thorington 16mm collection. Thorington was an ophthalmologist, mountaineer, author, photographer and was AAC President from 1941-43 and editor of the American Alpine Club Journal (AAJ). The films held by the American Alpine Club document mountain climbing, including several first ascents in the Canadian Rockies from the mid-1920s to mid-1930s.
Archives -American Alpine Club Archives document a singular method of exploration of the American West, and exploration of the mountainous regions of other countries by Americans. This exploration resulted in the naming, surveying and mapping of peaks, and contributed to an understanding of human response at high altitudes in terms of physical and mental endurance of extreme conditions. Many personal papers include descriptions and correspondence regarding the political nature of expeditions that ventured into areas that were generally "closed" to Americans, or that were far beyond typical tourist destinations. Mountaineering clothing and equipment was designed for these expeditions as well, leading the way for use not only in mountain climbing but in other survival situations, such as war.
The AAC membership represents some of the most adventurous and dedicated Americans of the 20th and 21st century, with unexpected connections to America's most significant institutions. Institutional records include minutes, financial records, correspondence (both personal and official), committee files, publications, clippings, membership applications, expedition reports, photographs, audio and video recordings, scrapbooks and ephemera. There are approximately 150 separate collections of personal papers donated by AAC members and noted mountaineers which include letters, manuscripts, journals, scrapbooks, photographic materials, and ephemera. The archive also includes vertical files with a date range of 1902 to the present, including clippings, catalogs, pamphlets, maps and ephemera.
Magnetic and Digital Media - The Library holds over 500 instructional and action videos and DVDs available for check-out to members or for viewing on-site. Many videos can be considered archival as they had limited print runs, and in many cases are not available via mainstream video rental. Oral histories and interviews in a variety of formats have been contributed by John Meek, Robert W Mason and Clare Crawford-Mason, and Stanley Boucher, among many others. Oral histories can be accessed via the library's blog.
Serial Publications - The AAC Library contains approximately 580 serials collections, including a complete set of The Geographical Journal (1893-present). The Library participates in a journal exchange program with 130 active mountaineering clubs around the world, and holds defunct and hard-to-find journals as well.
Maps - The library holds several thousand maps. These maps are available to the members and the general public during library hours and are arranged by geographic location. Dates span the 16th century to present, and include maps that are hand-drawn or printed by a variety of methods, and may include hand-made notations used in describing routes. Maps are housed in the Rare Books Room, in the Reading Room and in the circulating stacks. Maps are also included in pockets in a large number of bound volumes.
Realia (Artifacts) - The Realia Collection includes approximately 6,000 artifacts, many of them rare and scarce, illustrating the history of climbing equipment and technology, as well as artifacts acquired by climbers during expeditions to various regions throughout the world. Objects include a bear-skin backpack, a significant collection of gear ranging from alpenstocks to modern devices, and tentsand clothing made of a variety of fabrics, from canvas to nylon to Gore-texTM, which, as a collection, highlight the role of textile innovation in outdoor activities.
Framed Artwork and Documents -The collection includes a number of framed items on paper and paintings. Highlights include two 4'x6' oil paintings by French artist and mountaineer Gabriel Loppé (1825-1918) depicting the alps and a 4'x6' oil painting by American painter Colin Campbell Cooper that may have been created on-site in the Indian Himalayas in 1915.