Nancy Down (left), interim director of the Ray and Pat Browne Library for Popular Culture Studies, and Library Dean Lorraine Haricombe show some of the library's vast collection of mystery works.

Mystery writers to honor HBO, Vanity Fair and BGSU

For those who’ve visited the William T. Jerome Library, it’s no surprise that the Mystery Writers of America will honor BGSU at the 58th Annual Edgar Awards.

Stacks and stacks of spy thrillers, detective novels, pulp magazines, manuscripts and letters written by America’s finest mystery masters are preserved on the library’s fourth floor for close inspection by students, faculty and visiting scholars.

It’s one of the largest popular culture library collections of its kind. And, at the Edgar Awards on April 29, the Ray and Pat Browne Library for Popular Culture Studies will receive a Raven Award for “commitment to preserve mystery fiction through a formidable and constantly growing collection of detective mystery novels and manuscripts.”

“It is very rare that libraries are recognized, so this is a wonderful, significant award,” said Lorraine Haricombe, BGSU dean of libraries. “It’s an honor that recognizes the commitment, preservation and collection efforts of everyone over the years who has been associated with the library and made it regionally, nationally and even internationally known. We hope the award will inspire more people to seek out the collection,” the dean added.

Home Box Office (HBO) and Vanity Fair magazine also will be presented special awards by the association this year. HBO will receive an Edgar Award for its role in producing groundbreaking crime series such as “The Sopranos” and “The Wire.” Vanity Fair and its editor, Graydon Carter, will receive a special award for extensive, on-going coverage of true crime.

Mystery Writers of America is the world’s leading organization devoted to the crime genre. More than 700 authors, publishers and editors are expected to attend this year’s awards dinner at New York’s Grand Hyatt Hotel. Winners of the 2003 Edgar Awards for the best work in a variety of categories, including best novel, short story, young adult, television episode teleplay and motion picture screenplay, also will be announced at the event.

Bowling Green is often called the birthplace of popular culture studies. The library collection was created in 1969 to support growing interest in the study of American everyday life. Last fall, it was renamed in honor of scholars Ray B. and Pat Browne, whose visionary efforts launched the campaign to preserve and provide access to materials documenting American popular culture.

The research library has grown principally through donations. Its strengths include materials related to popular fiction, performing arts and entertainment, graphic arts and mass communications, sports, travel and recreation; teen culture and counterculture; folklore, wit and humor, science fiction, adventure and murder mysteries.

The mystery-detective fiction collection contains the works of all major authors in the genre, including classic sleuth stories, hardboiled private eye novels and spy thrillers. Unique serial resources include 8,500 pulp magazines in which stories by such writers as Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Normal Daniels were first published.

The E.T. Guymon detective fiction collection alone contains more than 1,600 books, literary manuscripts, photographs and materials relating to the Baker Street Irregulars as well as authors Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Vincent Starrett and August Derleth, among others.

Holdings also include 43 letters of Ellery Queen and manuscripts by Ruth Rendell (Barbara Vine) and Marcia Muller; juvenile series fiction, including the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, and a unique collection of vintage paperbacks, including early Avon, Black Knight, Popular Library and Fawcett Gold Medal mystery paperbacks.

There also are ghost stories. The Invisible Ink Collection, donated by Chris Woodyard, author of the “Haunted Ohio” series of ghost stories, contains more than 1,400 volumes.

Bowling Green Librarian Nancy Down, interim director of the popular culture library, won’t place a monetary value to the collection, but she does have some personal favorites. Marcia Muller’s manuscripts and the letters of Ellery Queen are both interesting and valuable, she said, because the materials “enable the reader to see the extent of research and creativity that comes to play as the manuscripts evolve toward publication.”