Heading Out to Oz

“In May I began describing, photographing, and re-housing a discrete collection of posters within the Ludlow-Santo Domingo (LSD) Library collection,” Rachel Parker writes on the blog of the Houghton Library at Harvard. “Tackling the Ludlow-Santo Domingo Library poster collection has been exciting, in part because of the descriptive challenges in title creation.”

Elsewhere the library explains, “The Ludlow-Santo Domingo Library is the world’s largest private collection of material on altered states of mind.” Which is to say, “The 50,000-plus-item collection documents psychoactive drugs and their physical and social effects.”

One suspects the initials LSD don’t just stand for Ludlow–Santo Domingo, even if the collection was produced by “Julio Mario Santo Domingo Jr.’s acquisition and integration of the Fitz Hugh Ludlow Library of San Francisco in 2001.”

The Houghton library blog credits the poster above to “James McMullen” at an unknown time. That artist spells his name James McMullan. Another website credits it to “The Push Pin Graphic, Issue 52 (1966).” (Seymour Chwast authored a 2004 book looking back on The Push Pin Graphic, and some poster-reprinting websites carelessly credit the image to him.)

In other news, I’m heading out to OzCon this week.