PRESTIGIOUS GIFT OF BOOKS
Oberman collection would enhance UA's library stature

by Paul L. Allen
Tucson Citizen, October 12, 2002, 1B

   The late Professor Heiko A. Oberman's posthumous gift to the University of Arizona—a library of more than 10,000 volumes, many from the 16th and 17th centuries—would add dramatically to the prestige of the university's Special Collections.
   But first, UA must comply with a stipulation that came with the donation: endowment of a faculty chair in Oberman's name, to be filled with a world-class scholar to continue Oberman's research and teaching in the Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies.
   Susan C. Karant-Nunn, who succeeded Oberman as director, said the division hopes to raise $2 million in endowment funds to provide $100,000 a year in interest to offset salary expenses for such a scholar. The kickoff program for that drive is scheduled from 1 to 3 p.m. tomorrow at the Special Collections wing at the Main Library on campus.
   "We sent out invitations, but if there are other people interested in coming, we'd be delighted to have them," she said. "We'll have a video we've put together of clips on Oberman's life, and some old books from his collection will be on display."
   Oberman, a Regent's Professor of history, died in 2001. He was born in Utrecht, Holland, and often commented that his earliest memories as a child were of the Jewish refugees who passed through his family's house.
   His father later served a prison sentence for harboring the refugees.
   The professor also was an ordained minister in the Netherlands Reformed Church and was among the first nine UA faculty members honored with the Arizona Board of Regents' honorary title of Regents Professor. Popular with students as well as administrators, he was chosen best professor on campus by the student body in 1989.
   He was an enthusiastic writer himself, having written or edited 36 books. Among them were his best-known work, "Luther: Man Between God and the Devil" and "The Roots of Anti-Semitism."
   Oberman left behind what is described as the largest collection of late medieval and Reformation books remaining in private hands in North America. Many of the books were printed in the 1500s, 1600s and 1700s, some of them within 50 years of the advent of printing.
   Many of the books are written in German, Latin, Dutch and French, as well as English, and Oberman, fluent in those and several other languages, collected them from all over the world.
   Roger Myers, librarian and archivist with Special Collections, said the addition of the Oberman library would "dramatically enhance" the stature of the UA Library on the national scene, because some of the books involve are among only about a half-dozen in existence anywhere. Most such rare volumes are owned by the more prestigious institutions of learning.
   Myers noted that Oberman was studying not only the religious evolutions after the Middle Ages, but also the much bigger questions of the formation of Europe, the anti-Semitic movement, questions of the relationship between church and state and urbanization.
   "This collection dramatically increases sources available in the state of Arizona for the formative era of modern Europe," Myers said. "Scholars who will come from other universities to see them otherwise would have had to go to Harvard, Princeton or Yale. There are less than 10 copies of some of them in North America, and many of those are in private theological libraries."
   Because UA is a land-grant college, the collection will be open to the public.
   "If they were to go to a private library, you'd probably have to go through several meetings before you even got in," Myers said.
   Karant-Nunn said Oberman came to UA in 1984, leaving an 18-year career at Tübingen University in southwestern Germany. There, his stature was such that there was a large institute in his name, with many faculty members and a building named for him. Before that, he had taught at Harvard.
   Five years after Oberman's arrival, UA created the Division of Late Medieval and Reformation Studies at his behest, and it has attracted doctoral students from around the country.
   Of UA acquisition of Oberman's library, Karant-Nunn said, "I believe that for the well-being of the university and the Tucson community, this is the thing to do. I think you would't want his library to be sold to Harvard or another college that wants it, wouldn't want his connection to the university to just fade away."
   Myers said of the collection, "Any university can buy a piece or two, books like these, but this is a collection of quality, assembled over a lifetime by someone who knew exactly what he was looking for."

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