Current Scope and Uses

In my research, I was under the impression that a particularly eye-catching statue of Mary was purchased by Leonard from Mexico or South America, but staff at Burns informed me that she was grouped in to the collection, but not acquired as part of it originally. I first asked Em if they would be able to expand more on this:

"With that Mary in particular, there are a few things happening. The Liturgy and Life collection is an artificial collection, meaning it is created by archivists out of materials from lots of different places. Originally, this was instigated and overseed by Fr. Bill Leonard, and all submissions to the collection were directed to him. Over time, the collection has continued to grow, including more things that happen to fall within the collecting scope. That black-robed Mary is one of those items. It had been on the BC Art Inventory, which is an internal inventory of an assortment of artistic items across our collections."

Em also noted that Fr. Leonard was, critically, not an archivist by training, and so he wasn't as careful as we would have liked him to be about keeping records of the provenance of individual items in Lit & Life. As a result, much of the information we have about his acquisitions are found in his personal correspondence. 

"My dream is that someday someone will go through and try and reunite the correspondence to the items, but I don't know when that will be."

As evidenced by his papers and material acquisitions, the intent of Fr. Leonard's collecting was to document the shifts in American Catholic practice across the Vatican II reforms, but Em pointed out that there are other, less-obvious angles to look at the Liturgy & Life collection which are even more illuminating:

"It could also be interesting to someone looking at depictions of or devotion to a particular saint, or looking at particular aspects of Catholic material culture. I personally would love someone to take a fiber arts perspective - there are so many gorgeous textiles and embroideries! I also think interest in the collection will increase the farther we get from Vatican II itself. We're only on the cusp of adult Catholics not remembering before the reforms or not being constantly told about them, and there is already an increased interest among younger Catholics in the more traditional, more material-heavy liturgy and devotions."

One of the most outstanding features of the Liturgy & Life collection is its low traffic, with very few scholars pulling printed materials, and even fewer the artifacts (figurines, statuettes, nativity scenes, religious garments, crucifixes, etc.). One avenue the Burns Library is hoping to use in order to stoke interest is in the public-facing education at the Burns. By simply exposing students to these materials, we hope that the frequency of use will increase. Em also did some special work on the collection, all of which made it easier and more understandable for use.

"I actually spent all of summer 2024 with two interns working on better cataloguing the collection! We went through every item to make sure it was accurately described and safely housed, and adding contextual description to the finding aid. Current research traffic or professed interest is one factor in whether we decide to prioritize a collection, but not the only one. We also take into account the physical safety of the materials (are they housed securely?), our intellectual control (do we know what we have and where it is?), potential use (if this were better described would someone be more likely to use it), and personal interests as well. I really wanted to do the work on this collection."