LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ – Rider University has received a three-year, $95,300 grant from The New York Community Trust – John Robert Gregg Fund to continue the preservation work and to develop Web-based access to the Louis A. Leslie collection of shorthand materials.

Bequeathed to Rider in 1983 by the late Louis A. Leslie, one of the world’s foremost shorthand authorities, this notable collection is housed in Franklin F. Moore Library on the Lawrenceville campus.  Dr. Leslie had spent more than 50 years collecting shorthand materials from around the world.  The collection contains every shorthand system ever invented and hundreds of systems that were unsuccessful but influenced by later authors.

This project builds on earlier work funded by the John Robert Gregg Foundation ($24,000 in 1985 and $31,000 in 1998) that has facilitated cataloging and organization of materials, improving the housing environment, as well as conservation and preservation work.  The goal is to create an image-based Web site that will be broadly available and facilitate scholarly research.

“We are very excited to soon be able to extend intellectual access to the many rare and often unique items contained in this fantastic collection of shorthand materials,” said F. William Chickering, Dean of University Libraries at Rider.  “We appreciate the generosity that the John Robert Gregg Fund has extended to us over the years.  It has allowed us to carefully preserve these historical materials.”

The Leslie collection includes shorthand versions of the Bible, a 1743 edition of The Book of Common Prayer in Weston’s method of shorthand, and books inscribed in shorthand by such noted authors as Sir Isaac Pitman and John Robert Gregg.  There are also complete files of shorthand periodicals and shorthand books in many languages.  All European languages are represented.  There are textbooks in Hebrew, Chinese and Japanese, as well as less common languages such as Tagalog, Thai and Erse.

The Collection also contains letters from Civil War soldiers written in shorthand to magazine editors and to their wives or sweethearts.  In addition, the Collection reveals how many authors handled copyright problems in the 18th century.  They printed statements at the beginning of their books that the book is not genuine unless signed by the author and, at times, prohibited resale of the book.

The earliest book in shorthand from the Leslie Collection is a manuscript entitled Semigraphy by Samuel Palmer dated 1669.  Another interesting book for inclusion on the Web site is Arts Advancement, or, The Most Exact, Lineal, Swift, Short, and Easy Method of Short-Hand-Writing Hitherto Extent by William Mason, published in London in 1682. The Collection’s copy was a Christmas gift to “Jack” (John Robert Gregg) from Faith Baldwin, the novelist, in 1938 to mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of Gregg Shorthand in 1888.