UMN’s world’s largest Sherlock Holmes collection has “something for everyone”

On May 2, 1974, members of the Norwegian Explorers, a group of Sherlockians with ties to the University of Minnesota, helped initiate a Sherlock Holmes collection on campus, according to Timothy J. Johnson’s “Managing the Mystery Collection: From Creation to Consumption.”  Today, the collection stands as the world’s largest Sherlock Holmes collection, right in the basement of the University s Andersen Library.  “[The collections are] important because… the archives and special collections are the only truly 100% unique academic resource a university has,” Erin McBrien, the curator for the collection, said. The collection itself holds roughly 60,000 items in total, yet is no larger than a high school classroom. It makes up a relatively small portion of the two cubic football fields of archives the University holds. First-edition books, comic book adaptations, film, giant rats and everything else Holmes-related are included in the archives. Interpretations, reimaginations, adaptations an