About the Ricker Library of Architecture and Art
The foundation for the Library's architecture and art collections was laid by the country's first college graduate of architecture, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign professor Nathan Clifford Ricker (1843-1924), who in 1873 purchased several important architectural treatises and folios. As his personal collection outgrew his office space, first a room, and then an entire wing of the Architecture Building were assigned to house the collection. By that time, his collection included not only the folios, but also a photographic collection and several rare first editions. In recognition of this founding role, the University's Board of Trustees in 1917 authorized the Library to name the unit in Professor Ricker's honor.
Today, the collections of the Ricker Library of Architecture and Art include more than 120,000 volumes and 33,000 serials (some housed in the Library's main book stacks) 35,000 microforms, and a small but burgeoning collection of videos and CD-ROMs. The Ricker Library also provides access to several important electronic databases. The holdings cover the fields of architecture, architectural history, art, art history, museum studies, and art education. Related collections exist in the City Planning and Landscape Architecture Library, the Communications Library, and the Rare Books and Manuscript Library.
Collection Highlights
- The art and design collection includes both general and special period works on the history of art, monographs on artists, sculpture, painting, drawing, photography, crafts, museology, art education, graphic design, industrial design, and prints and printmaking. The unit has an extensive holding of exhibition catalogs from all time periods and geographic locations.
- The architecture collection includes landmark titles in architecture, history and theory of design, historic preservation, professional practice and management, structures, and monographs on architects and building types. The unit maintains a particularly strong collection of information on current practicing architects.
- The Ricker Library has a major collection of catalogues raisonnés on important artists, architects, and sculptors, and endeavors to buy both current and out-of-print editions.
- Among the unit's treasures are several large portfolios dealing with Frank Lloyd Wright, complete runs of rare nineteenth-century architecture and art journals, and Ricker's own translations of more than thirty classic works on architecture.
- Ricker Library has a subscription to the entire Cicognara Library on microfiche. The Cicognara collection, housed in the Vatican Library, represents the 5,000 books on art and related subjects assembled by the eighteenth-century patron of the arts, Count Leopoldo Cicognara (1767-1834).
- Thanks to a unique cooperative agreement in the 1950s with the Art Institute of Chicago, 31 microfilm reels dealing with midwestern architectural drawings were filmed under the auspices of a microfilming project sponsored jointly by the Art Institute's Burnham Library and the University of Illinois.
Endowed Funds
In 1988, the Ricker Library began to create a collection of books about residential architecture, thanks to a gift from architecture alumnus John G. Replinger in memory of architecture alumnus Albert O. Bumgardner.
Ricker Library currently has six endowed funds: the Albert H. Nemoede, the Frederick W. Salogga (FAIA funds), the Profesor Harold A. Schultz (in honor of his dear friend and colleague, Profesor Allen S. Weller), the Etta Mae Arntzen, the Helen M. Reynolds, and the Anthony Petullo funds. These monies are used to buy items in new or burgeoning areas of instruction and research that the Ricker Library cannot, presently, purchase from state funds. Each item purchased from an endowment fund is designated by a bookplate. See below for examples of current bookplates.
If you are interested in making a donation to Ricker Library, please contact Jane Block, Architecture and Art Librarian, by phone at (217) 333-0224, fax at (217) 244-5169, or email block3@uiuc.edu .
