Robert Adelsperger was as adept at finding rare books in old vaults as he was at finding them in unlikely places, such as a van parked on the street.
Mr. Adelsperger first joined the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1959 in the serials and acquisitions section of the library and organized the school’s rare book room when the Chicago Circle campus opened in 1965.
Mr. Adelsperger, 80, died Thursday, May 18, in Concord Extended Care in Oak Lawn from heart disease.
Books permeated Mr. Adelsperger’s life, and he used the same expertise to find rare books for the children of friends on birthdays as he did in piecing together a rare collection on slavery for UIC, according to those who knew him. His friends tell story after story about a meticulous hunter of rare books who was a child at heart.
Mr. Adelsperger spent about seven years in a tuberculosis sanitarium as teenager and young adult, friends said. He was raised in Hammond, said Cay DeVos, a friend of nearly 40 years.
“He was such a caring man, and for each of my four children, on birthdays and Christmas, he would find limited-edition books … something he would want as a child, maybe,” she said. “He was still a boy in many ways, which was the wonderful thing about him.”
Mr. Adelsperger began working for the university when it was located on Navy Pier. The school drew on his expertise when the rare books room was assembled at the current campus.
He was curator of special collections and then acting head of technical services at UIC’s Library of Health Sciences.
Mr. Adelsperger retired in 2000.
“What I learned about rare books, I learned from Bob,” said Edward Valauskas, Follett Chair in Library and Information Science at Dominican University. “This was in the days before the Internet when there was a lot more legwork involved.”
Many who work in special collections departments fall into two camps: those who can network with rare-book dealers and collectors, and those who have mastered the technical knowledge of recognizing a rare work, Valauskas and others said. Mr. Adelsperger straddled the line, Valauskas said.
“There was a rare books dealer from St. Louis named Tony Garnett who would drive from his Victorian mansion with a VW bus full of books,” he said. “He’d just show up on Morgan Street, and we’d work our way through Tony’s van, haggling about prices. It was a wonderful experience.”
Through Garnett, Mr. Adelsperger found a rare complete run of books from Black Sparrow Press, which also published poet Charles Bukowski.
Mr. Adelsperger recognized the need to find a niche for UIC and strove to make the university strong in several collections.
In addition to slavery, Mr. Adelsperger collected important material on the labor and social movements as well as pre-Chicago Fire prints, associates said.
Mr. Adelsperger’s is survived by a half brother, George Davis, and half-sister, Suzanne Frankum.
A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Monday in Bethlehem Lutheran Church, 9401 S. Oakley Ave.
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csheehan@tribune.com
