History of the Collection
Correspondence between Oberlin College Library and Mr. June indicates the collection was donated in installments between the years 1961 and 1965.
The initial paper inventory was done by Julian S. Fowler, the former Library Director (1927-1955), and at the time a volunteer at the library. Fowler put together an exhibit of the collection that was displayed in the Carnegie Library in March of 1965 and published two articles on the collection; one for the Oberlin Alumni Magazine in March 1965 and the other for the summer 1965 issue of Ohioana. The collection also had a brief mention in College and Research Libraries in March 1965. Since this time, however, the collection has lain mainly dormant in Special Collections.
In 2003 an effort was organized to track down all parts of the original donation. The manuscripts and ephemera were known to exist in Special Collections and were quickly accounted for, as were Fowler's notes and correspondence. The oldest published materials had also never left Special Collections. Of the considerable number of books transferred to the circulating collection, a few were found to now be missing and may be gradually replaced. Those that remained have now rejoined the rest of the collection, as have the many uncataloged pamphlets (mostly government documents) and several monographs that were also discovered in Special Collections and which were not part of the original donation. There are now only a few items from Julian Fowler's original calendar that remain unaccounted for, but these are more than offset by an addition number of titles, also discovered to be from Mr. June, that were never mentioned in Julian Fowler's initial collection inventory. It is possible these were donated later. Furthermore, to June's original gift have now also been added numerous early titles relating to the War of 1812 that have been discovered in Oberlin College Library's vast 19thcentury holdings.