Darnton Piece in the NY Review of Books

The historian Robert Darnton has written an excellent piece for the most recent New York Review of Books, The Library in the New Age, looking at the internet from a book history perspective and analyzing the future of libraries and special collections in the digital age.  He concludes that the advent of digital information is not as revolutionary as some would have us believe and explains the many reasons traditional libraries will remain just as important in the future as they have been in previous eras.  Highly recommended, not only for book people but also for anyone interested in the history and philosophy of the internet.

Not Book Related: Photo

So one of my photos is doing really well in the Wired Water contest.  Click on “top-rated” and you can see it in the number 3 spot.  There are some really incredible shots in the contest, and I especially like Miroir d’eau, Faucets, Spray, Inside Out (amazing!) and Myedrop.

Gender and Rare Books

I watched the ABAA documentary Bibliomania on YouTube a few weeks ago, and couldn’t help but be struck, though not surprised, by the gender ratio among the fair exhibitors. During part II, bookseller Melissa Sanders echoed my own thoughts:

I can probably only name five other women who are involved in this business full-time on the level that I am, and none of them are within fifteen years of me.  So it’s been an interesting experience. 

For someone who always loved reading, I came shockingly late to the awareness that the study and collection of rare books was a field I could enter. As a child my mental image of rare books involved middle-aged, rich white men in Edwardian dress smoking cigars in plush, mahogany-shelved libraries or bidding on First Folios in the hushed atmosphere of a prestigious auction house.

Of course, this sense of being an outsider was also the result of growing up lower middle class in small-town Appalachia, without even a decent chain bookstore in a thirty-mile radius, much less an antiquarian shop.  Until college my only real exposure to rare books or book collecting was in reading 19th century fiction, visiting the Biltmore House library during a family vacation and whatever rare book news made it into the mainstream press, usually the most astronomically high auction results.  But I have no doubt that my image of book collecting as a masculine past-time played a role, as well.  And even though I was an ardent feminist as a kid, and happily took on the male worlds of science, sports and the outdoors, I never considered book collecting.  There was no obvious glass ceiling, just an ether up there, a rarefied world that I barely glimpsed but that stayed in the back of my mind as an “if only I could do something like that.”

So I wonder about this perception of the rare book world as an old boys club, how common it is and whether it impacts the number of women entering the field.  And I’m sure there are other factors.  Book selling often seems to be a family affair, with men taking it up after fathers, grandfathers and uncles.  Librarianship, on the other hand, is seen as a traditionally female field, and many women interested in rare books may feel more pulled to this world that to that of the shop or auction house.  The low number, and low profiles, of prominent female booksellers and collectors means fewer obvious role models for young women.  Other socio-economic factors pertaining to buying power, available free time, child-rearing and so on probably contribute in complex ways.  And of course, the meanings of bookseller, collector, printer and publisher have altered over time, and women’s activities in these fields have shifted in tune to broad social changes.

I attempted to do some Google research on these issues, but wasn’t overly successful.  There was very little specific information about women as rare book dealers and collectors, with more focus being placed on their roles as printers and publishers.  But here is a list:

— A New York Times article on the bookdealers Madeline Stern and Leona Rostenberg:

Stern invented herself. She was the Gatsby of pedants. A fervent but utterly apolitical feminist in a world where feminists were bluestockings and then bra burners; a devoted scholar with a thriving business in a world where scholars were either academics or independently wealthy gentlemen; an innovative and revered entrepreneur in the leather-armchair world of gentlemen antiquarian book dealers; unmarried in a world where women were wives, Stern lived in a universe in which it was not possible to live the way she wanted to. She simply ignored that impossibility, created her own universe and, in a small but exquisite way, changed the world.

Stern and Rostenberg have written an account of their work together, Old Books, Rare Friends: Two Literary Sleuths and Their Shared Passion.

— SHARP has a list of print sources regarding women printers and booksellers, though it is almost ten years old. 

— The Princeton University Library has created a wonderful online exhibit, called Unseen Hands, about women involved in the book trade since the advent of printing.  I recommend reading through the time-line to get a sense of how women’s involvement in the field has changed over the years, but you can also browse by name and occupation.

— For a more specialized look, the Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering and Technology focuses on female science illustrators with Women’s Work: Portraits of 12 Scientific Illustrators from the 17th to the 21st Century.

— The Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign hosts an exhibit from 1998 on Women Printers in Great Britain.  The images are low quality (this is from waaay back in the day, you know, before everyone had a digital SLR in the closet,) but there is a lot of good text.

From the California Historical Society, Women in Printing and Publishing in California: 1850 – 1940. (This exhibit is also circa 1998.  What is it with the late 90s and this subject?)

— And, of course, 84, Charing Cross Road.

I think this is a really interesting subject, and I’m going to try to find books that might shed more light on it for me.  If you know of any other books, journal articles or websites that pertain to this issue I’d very very glad to hear from you.

Book History in the Service of Evolution

Via RichardDawkins.net, a fantastic bit of book history sleuthing by the pro-evolution National Center for Science Education. 

A similar clip appears in Judgement Day, a NOVA documentary about the Dover, PA Intelligent Design trial (Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District).  I really enjoyed the documentary, which you can see in its entirety here at the PBS website.

Medieval Graphic Design

Yale’s Beinecke Library hosts an interesting online exhibit titled The Speculum Theologiae in Beinecke MS 416. The project was completed by undergraduates in 2006 as part of a seminar titled “The Medieval World of Umberto Echo’s Name of the Rose,” taught by Brian Noell.

According to the exhibit, Speculum Theologiae were common teaching and meditation tools of the Middle Ages, used primarily by monks and the clergy. They combined religious and moral statements with concrete diagrams in order to foster an understanding of the ways in which various concepts were connected.

The exhibit gives an excellent overview of this teaching tool and how it fit into the broader Medieval culture. Each of the ten pages of the manuscript is analyzed in detail, with a full explanation of the diagram’s symbolism and religious meaning. All the pages have been scanned beautifully and each has a corresponding image in which the original text has been replaced by an English translation. (Thanks to the translation of the Tower of Wisdom I now know that I’m doing everything wrong. Apparently I don’t think about death enough.)

Below you can see one of the images, the Tree of Vices, which I liked a lot. I can’t help but be reminded of scientific charts used to illustrate the descent of species over time, and that leads me to wonder whether designs of this type may have influenced later graphic arts and scientific illustration.

U Haz a Erly Modrn Flavor

I thought I was having a boring week.  Until directed to LOLManuscripts by Bibliophile Bullpen.  How had I missed this for so long??  It combines everything I love about the internets: LOLs and digital book history stuff.

The author, Sarah Redmond, is a PhD student in Renaissance Studies, so not only is she hilarious, but she really knows what she’s talking about:

P.S. I know they aren’t manuscripts…but LOL Early Modern Printed Materials didn’t have the same ring to it.

More Miscellany from the Library of Congress

As promised, more images from the Library of Congress Other Digitized Materials collection that caught my fancy. As yesterday, click the image to go to the material at the LOC website.

History of Insects. New-York: Printed and sold by Samuel Wood, at the Juvenile Book-Store, no. 357, Pearl-Street, 1813.

[Ivory hornbook] [realia]. [England: s.n., 18--].

[Wood hornbook] [realia]. [United States?: s.n., 18--]

— Hornbooks were tools used to teach children the alphabet, and sometimes a few words and religious verses, before paper was cheap and widely available. The first example above is ivory with a beautiful carved alphabet, and it looks to have been broken and repaired at some point.  The second hornbook is made of wood, with a printed sheet underneath a thin layer of translucent horn to protect the page, which explains the origin of the term “hornbook.” This one appears to be multi-functional, with what looks like an abacus at the top.

The World Turned Upside Down, or, No News, and Strange News. York: Printed and sold by J. Kendrew, Colliergate, [1820?].

Solemn Warning to Dancers, A. New York: Published by N. Bangs and J. Emory for the Tract Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, between 1824 and 1832.

— I have a thing for religious pamphlets. I’ve actually been known to go out of my way to get copies from street preachers. The illustration in the above is great – note the snake off to the side.

Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892. Leaves of Grass. Brooklyn, New York : [Walt Whitman], 1855 ([Brooklyn, New York : Rome Brothers])

— I need to get this as a font.

Wollstonecraft, Mary, 1759-1797. A vindication of the rights of woman: with strictures on moral and political subjects. Philadelphia: Printed by William Gibbons …, 1792.

The LOC has a big collection of magic posters. Below are some of my favorites.

Rare Children’s Books at the Library of Congress

I love that the Library of Congress Rare Books and Special Collections Digital Materials website has an “other” collection. I ran across it yesterday while looking for something else, stumbling first on the Children’s Literature. I’ve posted a few of my favorites here, and clicking on an image will take you directly to the book at the LOC website, each digitized in full. Later this weekend I’ll post more images from other parts of the rare books collection.

The Rocket Book / By Peter Newell. New York: Harper & Brothers, c1912.

— What a great book! I’d never heard of it before, but it has whimsical illustrations and a modern, slightly subversive sensibility. The author and illustrator, Peter Newell, wrote a number of children’s books and also published a wonderfully bizarre comic strip called The Naps of Polly Sleepyhead in 1906 and 1907 (which you can view in large size via the preceding link to Barnacle Press.) Newell’s The Slant Book is also available at the LOC website

A Child’s Garden of Verses / By Robert Louis Stevenson; Illustrated by Charles Robinson. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1895.

— A favorite of mine from childhood.

The Grasshopper Stories / by Elizabeth Davis Leavitt; With Illustrations By Maude Dewey Doan. [S.l. : s.n.], c1912 (Jacksonville, Ill.: Henderson & DePew, printers).

— The inside of this one isn’t as interesting as the cover.

The Square Book of Animals / By William Nicholson; Rhymes By Arthur Waugh. New York: R. H. Russell, 1900, c1899.

— What could I possibly add to this? I’m not even going to say anything. Except that it should be submitted to Cute Overload.

London Town / Designed and Illustrated By Thos. Crane & Ellen Houghton. London; New York: Marcus Ward & Co., [1883]

Stories From Hans Andersen / With Illustrations By Edmund Dulac. London: Hodder & Stoughton, [c1911].

The Raven / By Edgar Allan Poe; Illustrated By Gustave Doré; With comment By Edmund C. Stedman. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1884.

— I’m a huge fan of the Dore Raven. Seeing this took me back to all the hours I spent copying the engravings into my sketchbook as a kid.

A Wonder Book For Girls & Boys/ By Nathaniel Hawthorne; with 60 designs By Walter Crane. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1893, c1892.

— Just gorgeous.

Corded

Slate has an excellent slideshow presentation today, called Corded!, about the depiction of technology in children’s books and why it’s often so out of date.  It also features examples of of recent books that use modern technology in unique and engaging ways. I’m going to have to look for a copy of Jellybeans, by Sylvia van Ommen, in which the characters plan an outing via text message and then one (a cat,) rides a bike and wears a messenger bag with a cellphone pocket on his way to the park.

Photos From Today

A few weeks ago I posted a link to Lupin at Etsy, who makes lovely felt badges, including one that says “book nerd.” Of course I had to order my own custom badge, and it arrived today. I love that it matches my bag, too.

I also had an unwelcome visitor in the bathroom this morning. Firebrat! Related to silverfish and, while entomologically interesting, very bad for books (which they find appetizing). He went down the drain.