Baltimore Poetry Library comes to Langsdale

In the Winter of 2015, the University of Baltimore’s Klein Family School of Design became the new home of the Baltimore Poetry Library, the largest independent collection of poetry in the Baltimore metropolitan area.

In an effort to expedite campus-wide transparency, Langsdale Library recently partnered with the Baltimore Poetry Library to catalog the impressive collection consisting of thousands of volumes of poetry. 

Cataloging the collection will provide a proper accounting of what is in the collection, identify unique titles not yet available at Langsdale, and it will allow it to be searched online. The purpose of which will allow the collection to be accessible to the UB community and wider Baltimore community interested in special collections and poetry titles.

This process is currently underway, with approximately 10% of the titles cataloged. Due to the large and comprehensive nature of the collection, it is estimated that the project will be completed within a year and a half. That is a lot of poetry. The searchable WorldCat List of current titles and their contents can be found here.

Currently, a sampling of the Baltimore Poetry Library is on display in Langsdale Library. An assortment of handmade books, zines, and broadsides serve as examples of the broad definitions that “book,” and “poetry” can take. While some pieces are Xeroxed and glued together, there are also perfect bound collections from local and regionally diverse small presses.

 

Read the press release to get a better sense of what the collection includes and its broader purpose. To access the collection, contact Lyndsay Bates (LAP 107, lbates@ubalt.edu, 410.837.6038). It is located in UB’s Liberal Arts and Policy building, room 303.