Recap: In 2022, twenty-four Minnesota libraries joined together in a commitment to retain over a half-million print books which are scarcely-held in Minnesota. It is called the Minnesota Shared Print Collection. Here is one of the stories from the Winona State share of the collection.
During the summer, Winona hosts the Great River Shakespeare Festival. One of the titles we are retaining in our section on literature is a text by the esteemed Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro.
“But wait!” you say, “The whole point of the retention list is to identify books that are relatively rare in the State of Minnesota. How could an important study by one of the best-known contemporary Shakespeare scholars appear on our list?”
The answer is that the American edition of the book, published by Simon and Schuster, is common in Minnesota. It is not on our retention list, even though we own a copy of that edition. Instead, the copy on our retention list is the British edition, which was published in London. Winona State has both editions.
Shapiro, James. 1606: Shakespeare and the Year of Lear. London: Faber & Faber, 2016.
