ANN ARBOR—From Scotland to Germany and from Illinois to New Jersey, pamphlets regarding or urging anarchism in some form have been printed. The University of Michigan’s Special Collections Library has systematically been collecting and cataloging such pamphlets for its Labadie Collection since 1911.

And now more than 220 of these publications are available and searchable online.

The materials currently digitized are a very small part of a much larger collection of items from books, films, letters and photos to posters, flyers, buttons, audio recordings, newspapers and magazines.

“With increasing interest in research on anarchism at all levels,” said Julie Herrada, a senior associate librarian in the U-M Special Collections Library.” From scholars to social justice activists, these texts will be accessible to users worldwide, thereby expanding our collective knowledge and understanding about this important, but often misconstrued, element of political philosophy.”

Aldred

Guy A. Aldred in the Dock of Bow Street Police Court – London 1909

Photograph: Daily Mirror

The pamphlets now available were chosen for the digitizing project in call number order, rather than by level of intellectual or historical significance. This is the latest effort in a program to make this material more easily accessible. The pamphlets were first cataloged in 1982 with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities using local subject headings and call numbers. Later the pamphlets were added to the U-M Library’s online catalog Mirlyn, making them much more widely accessible.

“It is our intention to eventually digitize the remainder of the pamphlets as time and resources permit,” Herrada said.

Special Collections Libraryhttp://www.hti.umich.edu/l/labadie/