UMass Amherst Libraries
UMass Amherst Libraries playing cards, USA, 2016
Like an earlier pack, British Political Images, produced by the Bodleian Libraries in 2010, and distributed to benefactors, donors and Friends of the Library, this pack, produced in 2016 by the University of Massachusetts, Amherst Libraries, was similarly created in appreciation of the financial support of their donors. But unlike the Bodleian pack which displays images from its collections, this pack looks almost like an annual report – not dissimilar to the pack published by the Tulsa City-County Library System in 1983.
Each card illustrates one of the many ways the libraries fulfilled their mission in 2015 to support teaching, learning, research and community engagement. Details of activities, achievements and statistical data are provided on each card against different coloured backgrounds (black suits) and a white background (red suits). The Director of Libraries, Jay Schafer, appears of the king of hearts.
The main library is the W.E.B Du Bois library. This is a tall 28-storey building (see the card back), and on the roof is a falcons’ nest. For years, UMass Amherst has taken care of these falcons, and they have now become part of the community. This explains the fact that the two jokers are falcons wearing a jester’s cap.
Above: UMass Amherst Libraries playing cards produced by the University of Massachusetts, Amherst Libraries, 2016.
By Peter Burnett
United Kingdom • Member since July 27, 2022
I graduated in Russian and East European Studies from Birmingham University in 1969. It was as an undergraduate in Moscow in 1968 that I stumbled upon my first 3 packs of “unusual” playing cards which fired my curiosity and thence my life-long interest. I began researching and collecting cards in the early 1970s, since when I’ve acquired over 3,330 packs of non-standard cards, mainly from North America, UK and Western Europe, and of course from Russia and the former communist countries.
Following my retirement from the Bodleian Library in Dec. 2007 I took up a new role as Head of Library Development at the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to support library development in low-income countries. This work necessitated regular training visits to many sub-Saharan African countries and also further afield, to Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh – all of which provided rich opportunities to further expand my playing card collection.
Since 2019 I’ve been working part-time in the Bodleian Library where I’ve been cataloguing the bequest of the late Donald Welsh, founder of the English Playing Card Society.
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