Indiana University's Lilly Library will be home to the world's largest collection of mechanical puzzles, about 400 of which will be on view after August 3. 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.  Some of the most spectacular puzzles will be on display in a refurbished exhibition space named in Slocum's honor.

"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.

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