Click here to view a photos of “five architecturally impressive libraries”. I was especially intrigued by the fact that Yale’s rare book collection is housed in a building built with “marble sliced so thin that it allows filtered light into the interior of the building, while protecting the stacks from harmful ultraviolet radiation.” Pretty cool stuff! I would love to see it in person.
Houses for Books: Five Architecturally Impressive Libraries [Curbed]
The Burns Library at Boston College has made a surprising discovery in their own Yeats archive– Yeats’ unpublished first play, Love and Death, written in 1884 when he was only 18 or 19 years of age. The play was hidden among boxes of journals, notebooks and correspondence that had been long overlooked. It was only last year when the play was re-discovered by the library as part of an in-house project to find “‘high impact’ candidates for digitization” in BC’s archives.
A team of more than 15 librarians, archivists, photographers, literary experts and a dedicated transcriber, began working on digitizing the play and taking extra precaution to “present the whole object as if you can hold it in your hands”. To accomplish this, the team presents the transcribed text alongside of high-resolution photographs of the handwritten pages. Click here to view the Love and Death website.
Regarding digitization, Jane Morris, BC’s scholarly communication librarian who is also leading the school’s digitization project, says, “It’s more than a trend. This is the new work of libraries, to make these things digital and available and discoverable, instead of having them closed off to the lucky few who have the means to travel here.’’ This viewpoint echos the idea of the “democratiz[ing] access to knowledge”, which Robert Darnton spoke about in the Q&A that was previously posted.
Boston College gives unpublished Yeats play new life online [The Boston Globe]
Love and Death Manuscript Archives [Boston College Libraries]
Click here to read a Q & A with Robert Darnton, a cultural historian and the Director of Harvard University’s library system, on the proposed Digital Public Library of America.
Mr. Darnton made one comment in particular that speaks to worried murmurs in rare book trade:
One thing we have learned from the new discipline known as “the history of the book” is that one means of communication does not displace another. Manuscript publishing actually expanded after the invention of printing by movable type, and it continued to flourish for three centuries after Gutenberg. Instead of lamenting “the death of the book,” I believe we should celebrate new possibilities of combining the printed codex with electronic technology … .The information ecology is getting richer, not thinner.
Thoughts?
A bookshelf the size of the world [Boston Globe]
The Barnstable-Hyannis Patch is featuring “10 Questions with Isaiah Thomas Books’ Jim Visbeck”. Click here to read!
10 Questions with Isaiah Thomas Books’ Jim Visbeck [Barnstable-Hyannis Patch]
The Hamilton Library at the University of Hawaii at Manoa is very grateful to Michael Hollander for the recovery of 218 books– and for alerting the Library of the books’ absence in the first place.
Michael was contacted by someone in Hawaii who was offering over 200 books for sale. The books were from the mid-1800s to the early 20th century and their total estimated value is between $50,000 to $100,000. Upon receiving six books to examine, Michael noted that they were all stamped as property of the University of Hawaii and had UH bar codes, and he immediately contacted the Hamilton Library to confirm that they were indeed offering these volumes for sale.
Associate librarian Alan Grosenheider was alarmed by the call because the UH “[doesn't] sell [their] books like other libraries.” An internal investigation began and librarians discovered that the books were indeed missing from their shelves. Michael provided police with the seller’s return address, and they in run raided a Waikiki apartment and recovered all the books. Police arrested and charged a former student of UH at Manoa with the thefts.
Kudos to Michael for doing his due diligence and making the ABAA proud!
Alert collector helps UH retrieve stolen rare books [Star Advertiser]
Vladimir Radunsky is an author and illustrator of children’s books, and has created illustrations for Mark Twain’s Advice to Little Girls, a story originally published in The 30,000 Dollar Bequest and Other Stories.
Of Twain’s writing, Radunsky says, “He did not squat down to be heard and understood by children, but asked them to stand on their tiptoes—to absorb the kind of language and humor suitable for adults.”
Please click here to view the slideshow and Radunsky’s accompanying post.
Slide Show: Mark Twain’s ‘Advice to Little Girls’ by Vladimir Radunsky [NY Review of Books Blog]
Flavorwire has a great post entitled 10 Unconventional Bookstores For Your Browsing Pleasure. Browse away, the photos are great! (And my new mission is to find the ‘speakeasy-style’ bookstore in NYC!)
10 Unconventional Bookstores For Your Browsing Pleasure [Flavorwire]
Last weekend NPR aired a story on the Rare Book School; please click here to listen or read a transcript.
A big shout out to the Rare Book School and Michael Suarez!
Students Get Up Close and Personal With Rare Books [NPR]
Over the past three years, the Center for Book Arts in New York City undertook a collections initiative spearheaded by executive director Alexander Campos. The goal of this initiative was to “organize, rehouse, catalogue and digitize” the work of books artists who have trained, exhibited or worked at the CBA over the past four decades.
The results of this project will be displayed at the CBA in an exhibition entitled Multiple, Limited, Unique: Selections from the Permanent Collection of the Center for Book Arts, and will run through September 10. The exhibition will then travel to the Savannah College of Arts and Design (Fall 2011), Minnesota Center for Book Arts (Winter 2012), Museum of Printing History (Spring/Summer 2012), Lafayette College (Fall 2012), and the Book Club of California (Winter 2013).
To view the CBA’s online collections database, please click here.
Collecting at the Center for Book Arts [Fine Books & Collections Blog]
Sadly, Bartleby’s Books closed its brick and mortar shop in Georgetown last weekend. Click here to view a brief video on the story.
No matter where they are selling from, I’m sure John and Karen will have much continued success, and we wish them all the best.
Video: The Next Chapter for Bartleby’s Books [GeorgetownPatch]
From our Missing Books Blog