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Jillian Hinchliffe
Curatorial Assistant, Lilly Library
jhinchli@indiana.edu
812-855-2452

Breon Mitchell
Director, Lilly Library
mitchell@indiana.edu
812-855-2452

Eric Bartheld
Associate Director of Development and External Relations
812-856-4817

Last modified: Thursday, July 20, 2006

IU's Lilly Library will acquire world's largest collection of mechanical puzzles

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 20, 2006

Quickly dispelling the notion that puzzles are merely child's play, many of the items that will be on display at the Lilly Library are hand-carved works of art or masterpieces of such geometric precision that they can be solved only by the most tenacious die-hards.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Indiana University's Lilly Library will be home to the world's largest collection of mechanical puzzles, library officials announced today (July 20). Highly regarded for its variety and scope, the collection includes items dating from the eighteenth century.

Puzzle enthusiast and author Jerry Slocum has announced his intention to donate his prized collection of more than 30,000 puzzles and nearly 4,000 puzzle-related books to the Lilly Library. Beginning Aug. 3, approximately 400 of the puzzles will be on display in a refurbished exhibition space named in Slocum's honor.

IU alumnus Will Shortz, subject of the new documentary "Wordplay" and longtime editor of the New York Times crossword puzzle, will join puzzle designers and collectors from around the world to celebrate the donation at an invitation-only reception to be held at the Lilly Library. Approximately 100 guests are expected to attend from countries including Russia, Japan, the Czech Republic, France and the Netherlands.

"This gift culminates a long relationship with Jerry Slocum, and we are honored he chose the Indiana University Libraries to house and display his collection," says Pat Steele, Ruth Lilly Interim Dean of University Libraries. "The collection is an excellent resource for teaching and learning, in part because it's so engaging. The more challenging and complex the puzzles, the more they fascinate and instruct."

Unlike word or jigsaw puzzles, mechanical puzzles are hand-held objects that must be manipulated to achieve a specific goal. The Rubik's cube or tangrams are popular examples. Slocum, who developed a mechanical puzzle classification system adopted worldwide, identifies 10 types of mechanical puzzles, ranging from put-together puzzles to dexterity and disentanglement puzzles.

Most of the puzzles soon to be on view at the Lilly Library are of three types: put-together, take-apart and interlocking. Quickly dispelling the notion that puzzles are merely child's play, many of the items are hand-carved works of art or masterpieces of such geometric precision that they can be solved only by the most tenacious die-hards. The "impossible" puzzles — a soda bottle pierced by an arrow, for example — seem to defy the laws of physics. Highlights of the collection include intricately carved ivory puzzles from China, tangrams and hand-colored problem cards from France and thousands of nineteenth-century puzzles from England and America.

On display will be a Japanese trick-box that requires 20 moves to open, made even more challenging by the elaborate wooden inlay that disguises its functional parts. An eighteenth-century French padlock, the size of a hardback novel, apparently has no keyhole. Created by an apprentice locksmith to demonstrate his mastery, its hidden mechanisms once helped night watchmen by baffling would-be intruders. A fragile reproduction of a tenth-century Chinese "justice cup" mysteriously drains itself of liquid if overfilled.

Visitors to the Lilly Library will be able to test their wits by trying to reassemble or disentangle replicas of puzzles that have entertained for centuries. Many of the interlocking puzzles, with strong geometric shapes and repeating patterns, are based purely on mathematical principles.

"Like music, math is a universal language," says exhibit coordinator Jillian Hinchliffe. "These puzzles have a cross-cultural appeal. Not only does Jerry collect puzzles of different types and materials, but they're also from all over the world."

The Jerry Slocum Puzzle Room features custom-made exhibition cases as well as display tables commissioned especially for the room. Top puzzle designers competed to design the tables which, with concealed drawers and mechanisms, are puzzles themselves. Winning entries came from Oregon and Japan.

Plans are under way to create a searchable database providing information on all 30,000 puzzles, including some with digital images and animation.

The collection will serve as a resource to professors and students studying education, mathematics, developmental psychology, history of science and other disciplines. It supplements the world-class learning and research materials provided by the Indiana University Libraries, ranked 13th by the Association of Research Libraries.

The Lilly Library, IU's library for rare books and manuscripts, houses more than 400,000 books, 130,000 pieces of sheet music and approximately 7 million manuscripts. It is one of 18 libraries on campus administered by the IUB Libraries to help students and faculty succeed in their academic goals.

The exhibition may be viewed beginning Aug. 3. Regular hours are 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Friday, and 9 a.m.-1 p.m. on Saturday. Tours are offered to the public at 2 p.m. each Friday. The Lilly Library, 1200 East Seventh Street, is free and open to the public.

One of the puzzles soon to be on display at the Lilly Library.