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Hello. My name is Millie Howie. I'm a writer and I live here in the alexander valley over the years I've written a lot about wine and libraries and now I'd like to take you on a tour of California's wine library. You know in making wine or

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making a library there are certain similarities. The winemaker and the librarian start with the raw material grapes or books. They control the process fermentation or collection development which confers meaning on their end product, the fine wine or the fine library. Both the skilled winemaker and the

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skilled librarian are part artist, part scientists and wholly dedicated to their craft. Both work with found materials and perform their best work when they simply provide a setting in which those raw materials can read their best potential. There are five wine libraries we will visit. Each

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has its own character and style just as wine pairs with food libraries pair with research. And each library was developed to support a certain kind of research. But just as fine wine can be enjoyed without food so the libraries can be enjoyed without the research motive.

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First the oldest and the largest wine library in California is the viticulture and enology collection of the Shields Library of the University of California Davis in its massive, newly redesigned library building. Davis, viticulture and enology collection declares its premier stature among wine libraries. It is the

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only library which has the research libraries group's highest level of collection development. A level five for viticulture and enology. They have 20,000 volumes dealing with wine. That figure includes monographs as well as large back files of cereals. They also have maps printed ephemera labels and archives.

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About one third of the collection is housed in the Department of Special Collections, axel borg. The wine bibliography for for the library describes their collection as similar to a Fieldstone wall. The stones of this wall being the great collections which the library has acquired over a

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period of time. These field stones include the inglenook Winery library, the library of the California State Board of Viticultural Commissioners, the private collection of Count Egon Court and other impressive collections. Another of these great field stones is the archival material of the Bureau of alcohol, tobacco

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and firearms, which provides a rich resource for historians for the period From the beginning of prohibition through the mid 1950s, there are 132 boxes containing B. A. T. F. Material. One of the older items from the Special Collections is a deed in Latin on vellum showing

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the transfer of vineyard property from an individual Senor Lopez to a monastery in Spain in 1278. Another Treasure is a rare delicate book Devi Sir Levin by Jacques Hori. 1549. Perhaps the first book in French online. The library provides reference service to support the university's teaching

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and research functions. Everything is cataloged to university standards arranged on the shelf by L. C. C. And accessible through Melville. The University of California's online catalog contrast the viticulture and enology collections of the Shields Library with the napa Valley wine library and you have this spectacular.

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Next to the subtle the castle alongside the cottage. The napa Valley wine library is something like a fine private library situated in a lovely public library in the country started by James Beard, MfK fisher, Francis Gould and others to preserve the treasures of local history and

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provide an excellent wine appreciation and gastronomy collection. The napa Valley Wine Library is housed in the ST Helena Public Library. The library association buys most of the wine books and keeps them in the public library under an agreement between the city and the association

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to provide the funds to buy the books. The association mounts, tastings, offers wine appreciation courses and publishes a respected quarterly journal Librarian. Patricia Rogers helps provide access to 3000 titles in 6500 volumes. There are several dozen periodical subscriptions in the collection. In addition, the library boasts

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several special features that command our attention, including carefully maintained notebooks on area wineries which include photographs and labels. There are useful vertical files on wine related subjects unique to this library are some well transcribed and indexed oral histories of figures important to napa Valley history. Their

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collection includes many fine old books. There are even some unexpected joys, such as a wine bottle signed by actor and gourmet Charles Lawton. The collection is cataloged accessible through the card catalog and the C. L. S. I. Online circulation system with most of the holdings on

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O. C. L. C. And arranged on the shelf by modified doing numbers. The next wine library on our tour is the library of the Wine Institute in san Francisco. Its library is specifically dedicated to serving the needs of its members and staff Organized in 1934 to

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help those California wineries which had survived prohibition. The wine institute had as its goals to open markets, to educate the public about wine and to impose quality control. In support of this last goal, the Wine Institute served as a clearinghouse for technical information within the industry

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and its library concentrated on technical and marketing aspects of wine. In recent years, the institute refocused its energies towards marketing and legal issues and the collection reflects those changes. A special strength of the collection is the history of the wine industry in California. Leon Adams, author

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of wines of America, helped organize the collection. They have 3000 cataloged books and subscriptions to over 200 periodicals and newsletters. Among the books are some lovely 18th and 19th century French titles from the Sutra collection. They

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have some fascinating files of clippings on individual California wineries and an extensive label collection. During her tenure, Librarian Karen thomas managed the collection which is accessible by special permission of the wine institute holdings do not appear on any Union catalog or biblical graphic utility. The

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wine collections of California State University Fresno have a split personality in the Rogue departmental library of the Viticulture and Enology research Center. There is a nothing fancy working technical collection. While in the special collections of the Henry Madden library, there are some of the finest pre

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prohibition works on wine. The viticulture and enology materials in the Special Collections Department were largely assembled by a private individual Roy Brady and acquired by CSU Fresno in 1968, Brady was a mathematics professor at Illinois Tech in 1947 when he bought his first wine book, a

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copy of Frank Schoonmaker, American wine, which formed the nucleus of his spectacular collection of wine books and memorabilia, you know, and rent the bus on the way home on the l uh I stopped to buy a bottle of wine and we recommended five. And so uh

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we drank the wine and read the book that evening. That was the beginning of everything. The Department of special collections at Fresno under Ron Mahoney has since added to the collection which consists of approximately 1500 books, 2000 pamphlets and other non book items. 900 wine merchants

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catalogs, 200 volumes of periodicals and 200 restaurant wine lists. 70% of the titles listed by L. H. Bailey and his bibliography of early American books on wine are represented as well as titles Bailey missed. The remarkable depth of the collection is evidenced by two editions of

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an important early work Bacho in Toscana by Francesco Redi. There are some wonderful ephemera including correspondence, photographs and prints. An example of the ladder is a 17 ft long folded print depicting a Swiss wine festival. Another charming side light is a collection of sheet music

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with a wine theme. Most of the books are cataloged and these holdings are reflected in the library's card catalog and in O. C. L. C. The classification is Library of Congress. Like other special collections, the materials do not circulate nor are they available on inter library

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loan. Qualified researchers may have access to the materials by going to Fresno. The other half of the split personality of the wine collections at CSU Fresno is in the viticulture and Enology Research center. CSU Fresno prides itself on having a very practical and hands on viticulture

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and enology department U. C. Davis graduates may have the theory and management down but Fresno grads know where the hoses go in a winery. The viticulture and enology research center or VE. R. C. Reflects the spirit of practicality. V. E. R. C. Was started by Professor

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Vincent Petrucci and he is their present director librarian. Barbara koller manages its library spartan and functional. V. E. R. C. Is supported entirely from contributions from alumni. There are approximately 500 books including PCS and technical reports and subscriptions to about 50 periodic als. The library is

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used by students and faculty and by local industry. The collection is cataloged by Library of Congress classification. There are plans for a new, much larger facility. The er sees holdings are accessible through Elsie and available for inter library loan. The Sonoma County Wine Library is the

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new kid on the block among wine libraries in California. This brash upstart has learned something from all its sister institutions. If Davis is the academic pinnacle of wine libraries and CSU Fresno Zvi er see the essence of a pared down practical library, then Sonoma County's is

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somewhere in between with both a practical, working technical library for the area's wine industry and the general collection that has depth and resonance. Also, the Sonoma County Wine Library shares napa's dedication to history and some of the Wine Institute's coverage of wines marketing and legal issues.

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The idea for the library germinated in 1974 with the formation of the Russian River Wine Road, a promotional group of area wineries. It flowered in 1988 with the opening of the library as part of the new Healdsburg Regional Library. The Sonoma County Wine Library is supported

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in part by the area's wine industry and run by the Sonoma County Library Because it serves as a business and technical library. The library puts a major emphasis on periodic als the most current source of information. There are more than 70 current subscriptions to magazines and

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journals covering all aspects of wine, from microbiology to marketing. The book collection is even more impressive. There are more than 2800 volumes representing some 1800 titles covering all aspects of wine. Even before the wine library opened, it had acquired the prestigious 1000 volume library of the

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vintners Club in san Francisco. Among the treasures in the collection is the 1656 law quotes limiting and settling the price of wine quotes passed by one of Oliver Cromwell's parliaments. The library continues to add treasures to this collection, Robert Shannon's practical treatise 1805 is such a

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recent addition, supplementing these lovely old historic books are many technical works, modern tex technical manuals, marketing surveys and proceedings of symposia. There is a growing pamphlet file and two cd rom databases. The collection is cataloged and available online through the county library's New dynamics online public

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access catalog. The holdings are reflected on O. C. L. C. Both Simmons is the librarian directly in charge of the wine library. There are three other full time librarians in the Healdsburg library and all can give excellent help in the wine library. Reference help is available

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every hour. The library is open. The collection is arranged on the shelf by expanded dewey decimal classification. All books not reference or rare circulate and are available for inter library loan. So those are the wine libraries of California. They're yours to explore and enjoy. So here's

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to those most civilizing of influences. Books and libraries