The Cover to Cover Collection was developed by Prof. Robert Scholes of the Modernist Journals Project. The goal is to collect and preserve important journals from the Modernist period in complete issues, including covers and advertisements. The impetus for building the Collection was the discovery, as the MJP began searching for issues of journals to include in its digital project, that the vast majority of libraries had routinely stripped covers and advertisements prior to binding, resulting in a gap in the historical record now perceived as significant. It is expected that the Cover to Cover Collection will be added to over time.
There are no restrictions on access, except that the collection can only be seen by prior appointment. Some materials may be stored off-site and cannot be produced on the same day on which they are requested.
Although Brown University has physical ownership of the collection and the materials contained therein, it does not claim literary rights. Researchers should note that compliance with copyright law is their responsibility. Researchers must determine the owners of the literary rights and obtain any necessary permissions from them.
Cover-to-cover collection, Ms. 2009.001, Brown University Library.
The Cover to Cover Collection contains full copies for 69 journals - a total of 224 issues. The collection is not intended to collect complete runs of the periodicals, but rather to provide examples of the issues in their original state with the covers and advertisements intact.
The items are arranged alphabetically by title of periodical.
The collection was donated by Robert Scholes. Many of these issues were collected as individual examples of particular magazines, rather than in an attempt to gather substantial runs of them. Many of them are also fragile, and some are quite rare as well.