But some libraries around the country have begun random checks of their rare-book collections, and nearly every time they find something heartbreaking.

"It probably weighs more than you do," says Daniel Traister, head of the rare-book collection at the University of Pennsylvania.

Libraries that have rare-book collections would also benefit.

In the past, he said, scientists had to peruse their predecessors' work in scrawled entries in ancient field notebooks in rare-book collections.

Christie's will sell Mrs. Engelhard's jewelry on April 12 and her rare-book collection on June 14.

He also left books to the rare-book collection of Harvard's Houghton Library.

It is home to one of the nation's largest and finest medical collections, including historical and rare-book collections.

He was known for gathering much of the library's rare-book collection, and as a friend to several generations of St. Bonaventure students.

I recently went back to the seminary's rare-book collection.

His wife's rare-book collection formed the nucleus for the library at St. John's, the diocesan seminary.