Baylor University: Arts and Special Collections Research Center

The Arts and Special Collections Research Center hymnody collection includes circulating and special collections materials with several notable subgroups. The Travis and Margaret Johnson Collection includes hymnals in a number of languages representing approximately forty religious groups or denominations. The circulating hymnal collection contains approximately 400 nineteenth- and twentieth-century hymnals. Approximately 750 hymnals are in various noncirculating special collections. American oblong tunebooks; shape-note hymnody; gospel hymnody; camp-meeting and revival hymnody; Sunday school movement. No formal collection development policy, but try to collect as broadly and currently as possible to complement Baylor's Church Music Studies program. Hymnals included in the rare and special collections are also represented in John Minnear, An Annotated Catalogue of the Rare Music in the Baylor University Library (Master's thesis, Baylor University, 1963) and supplements which followed in 1969, 1972, and 1980. In fall 2002, Baylor acquired the hymnal collection of Harry Eskew Hymnology Collection includes over 2300 hymnals, tunebooks related to shape-note tradition, early Sunday school, and gospel hymn collections. Rare items include a first edition of William Walker's Southern Harmony (1835) and Walker's Fruits and Flowers (1873). Dates of publication range from the eighteenth to twenty-first centuries, and includes a number of Baptist titles. Additional hymnal collections include the Michael D. Williams Collection with nearly 600 hymnals and the Boyd Smith Collection (from California Baptist University, Riverside, CA) with over 200 hymnals. The various collections represent the full spectrum of religious groups and denominations with a strong representation of Baptist materials. Date range: 16th c.-present