The Pepperdine Libraries recently acquired several important additions to the teaching collections in the Boone Special Collections and Archives, located in Payson Library on Pepperdine’s Malibu campus. The acquisitions include the first American edition of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, as well as the first edition of Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad, Twain’s first full-length work. In addition, the Libraries have also acquired the first edition of Thomas Merton’s The Ascent to Truth, a volume on sea anemones by leading Victorian marine biologist Philip Henry Gosse, an example of fore-edge painting on a book of nineteenth-century poetry, and the seventeenth-century British book that first introduced Descartes to the English-speaking world.
“Our acquisitions this year represent the breadth and depth of the teaching that takes place at Pepperdine,” said Dean of Libraries Mark Roosa. “We are so pleased at the enthusiastic response we received from our faculty when we solicited their thoughts on these materials. The new acquisitions will deepen our teaching collections and allow us to support student learning at Pepperdine in more robust and diverse ways.”
With thirteen library locations, the Pepperdine Libraries serve nearly 8,000 students and 800 faculty at Pepperdine University’s campus sites in Southern California, Washington, D.C., and abroad. The Boone Special Collections are located in Payson Library, Pepperdine’s main campus library in Malibu, California. Payson Library reopened last fall after a 15-month, $22.4 million renovation. Influenced by Spanish Revival architecture, the new building design honors tradition while addressing 21st-century needs for digital integration and flexibility to accommodate diverse learning styles. The new additions range from a high-tech makerspace to expanded study areas that seamlessly integrate traditional setups with more informal seating configurations. More information can be found at library.pepperdine.edu.