22 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM {quickpunch} What’s a rare book that you would go out of your way to see? The Gutenberg Bible; the Aldine edition of Vergil (1501). How has your field changed since you first started? The great innovations online: internet catalogues, internet research, dealers’ lists sent via email and the online reference tools that are available. Fabulous collegial scholarship and editing, facilitated by online images and online auctions, open up great buying opportunities. What’s something people are always surprised to learn about you? That I hit in the clean-up spot for the library softball team way back when. What’s the wildest thing you’ve ever done? Driving half a block without my seatbelt fastened (and it was a long block, just for the record). What are your proudest professional accomplishments? To have encouraged so many faculty at Stanford to bring their classes to Special Collections, to have interacted with so many faculty and students—and apparently, to have made a difference in the lives of so many professors, students, colleagues, donors and other visitors through our time together. What’s a movie you can watch again and again? Casablanca—I have seen it more than 60 times. What was your dream job when you were a child? To become a veterinarian and to play outfield for the Boston Red Sox. THE Q & A JOHN MUSTAIN Do you have a personal motto? “Esse quam videri,” which means “To be, rather than to seem,” a quote from Cicero. It’s a bit pretentious to call this my personal motto, but it is a sentiment I think on often and try to follow. Do you have a favorite book in Stanford’s collection? I have my top 1,000! Pliny’s Natural History (1469) is one of my all-time favorites, but there are so many other treasures. The 1482 Euclid is stunning, the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle is as majestic and remarkable a book as was ever made. The first edition of the King James Bible (1611) is humbling in its grandness. The list of favorites happily goes on … more titles supplied upon request! Where did you grow up and what was great about it? I was enormously fortunate to spend my early years in Hull, Massachusetts, a small resort town famed for its amusement park and beaches. The population exploded in the summer, but we were year-round residents, and loved it. What do you collect? Baseball cards and baseball ephemera, baseball books, especially about the Red Sox. My wife is my co-conspirator in collecting postcards and ephemera from Hull, and books in no end of areas. Do you have a favorite childhood memory involving books? I obtained my first library card at age four. I remember checking out a book from the library, reading it and returning to check out another—only to find out that one was “not allowed” to return a book on the same day that it had been checked out! Stanford University’s rare books curator emeritus talks treasured tomes, his outfielder ambitions and cherished childhood memories at the library.
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