Library News for Rare Books

Rare Books in the News: May 31, 2009

Iowa child porn case has comic book collectors reeling
Just one week ago a 39-year-old Glenwood man entered a guilty plea in federal court to child pornography charges. The man, Christopher Handley, unlike others who have faced similar charges, did not e-mail or transfer nude photos of himself to a minor, nor did he engage in viewing online child pornography videos or pictures. His crime centered around a shipment of seven graphic novels from Japan, known as manga. And that has prompted a firestorm of activity within the collectors’ community.

Labor of Love
She said that “preservation” and “sustainability” describe the goals of the people being honored this year. Theme of National Preservation Month is “This Place Matters,” also the name of a photo-sharing campaign that was created to help people share the places that matter to them, to illustrate that heritage is local and that history is all around. “This is what Randy Roberts and Janette Mauk did in their book,” Carlson said. The book and postcard set are part of the “Images of America” series published by Arcadia Publishing. The firm first contacted Carlson, who referred them to Roberts, archivist and curator of Special Collections at Axe Library, Pittsburg State University. Mauk also works in Special Collections. They were in exactly the right place to compile the book — Special Collections has a huge number of Pittsburg photos.

Center goes to the source to collect area histories
LSU has its own version of StoryCorps in the guise of the T. Harry Williams Oral History Center. The center, with offices in the Agnes Morris House on Raphael Simms Drive, collects oral histories on a variety of Louisiana-related subjects. Jennifer Abraham is director of the center, which is part of LSU Libraries’ Special Collections. “We were founded in 1991,” Abraham said. The center was named for historian T. Harry Williams, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and longtime LSU professor who used tape recorded interviews to collect information for his Huey Long books. Williams developed interview techniques that were used to collect information about the university itself.

Collecting Napoleon
As a teenager, Pierre-Jean Chalencon was given a motorcycle as a birthday present from his parents. The relationship lasted five minutes. He sold the cycle and used the proceeds to buy an engraving of the first decision by then French Gen. Napoleon Bonaparte, the "Coup d' Etat of the 18th Brumaire." "It was important. It was his first proclamation as commander," Chalencon suggested some two decades later as he escorted a reporter through a collection of some 400 Napoleon artifacts that he has gathered. The collection is currently taking temporary residence at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

Christie's New York to Offer Five Centuries of Botanical Books in June
Christie’s presents the sale of Important Botanical Books on June 24 featuring many of the most significant medicinal herbals and fine illustrated botanical books from the 15th through the 19th century. Over 200 works, including many of the most celebrated in the history of the field, document the development of the scientific and artistic studies of plants throughout these four centuries. What distinguishes these works from other scientific books are the quantity, and John Hill, The Vegetable System, London, 1773-1786 Estimate: $200,000-300,000 outstanding quality, of illustrations they contain, from the earliest woodcut illustrations of the 15th century to the many extensive of hand-colored illustrations of the 18th and 19th centuries. The present collection comprehensively reveals the development of the simultaneous pursuit of artistic representation and scientific accuracy.

'Ancient' artifacts, cyber scams
But a funny thing happened on the way to EBay's boom as a new forum for very old collectibles. [Charles "Chip"] Stanish says that contemporary inhabitants of ancient lands soon learned that many online antiquities shoppers were, shall we say, a tad lacking in connoisseurship, not to mention in basic consumer sense. It became apparent, he says, that people on the Net could be fooled into buying knickknacks dressed up to look plausibly ancient. Why should local diggers break their backs and risk arrest when they could stay home and make a cottage industry out of copying, with less or more verisimilitude, what their ancestors had wrought? Stanish published his ideas in an essay in the May/June issue of Archaeology magazine, entitled "Forging Ahead, Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love eBay."

Rare Books in the News: May 29, 2009

U.S. Manga Obscenity Conviction Roils Comics World
In an obscenity first, a U.S. comic book collector has pleaded guilty to importing and possessing Japanese manga books depicting illustrations of child sex abuse and bestiality. Christopher Handley, described by his lawyer as a “prolific collector” of manga, pleaded guilty last week to mailing obscene matter, and to “possession of obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children.” Three other counts were dropped in a plea deal with prosecutors.

Student Writings From 1970s Show Sotomayor Assailing Princeton for Discrimination
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor once accused Princeton University of attempting to "relegate" the Puerto Rican and Chicano population to "oblivion," according to a decades-old letter to the editor released by the university's newspaper. The Daily Princetonian has posted a series of Sotomayor-related letters and articles from the 1970s that show her early interest in the issues of discrimination and minority representation as a student at the Ivy League school. In one May 10, 1974, letter to the editor, Sotomayor -- whose parents are from Puerto Rico -- described and defended a student complaint against the university charging it with an "institutional pattern of discrimination."

Estate's treasures go on the block
"It's like walking through a time warp," [Glenn] Watson said. Inside was a full library with hundreds of books on floor-to-ceiling shelves -- and a ladder to reach the uppermost volumes. Antiques and artifacts were everywhere, on all three floors. "There couldn't have been more than 10 electric lights in the whole house," Watson said. The rest were old oil fixtures, including the chandelier in the music room. "We're in there with flashlights," he said. Most of the contents came down through the family of the previous owner, E. Millis Hurley, who died in 1986 and also had no children. Hurley, who left the house and much of its contents to [Charles] Parker, was a prominent Milford storekeeper, historian and founding trustee of Milford Historical Society.

New Lincoln letter added to archives
Specialists at the archives will reattach the letter to the place it was torn from the book. "We will have this piece of the puzzle now where it belongs and scholars can now interpret its importance to this critical period," [James] Hastings said. The letter was donated to the National Archives by Lawrence Cutler, a private collector from Scottsdale, Ariz. Cutler said he bought the letter at auction about three years ago. He was contacted the following year by the archives, which believed the letter belonged in its custody. He said he waited until Lincoln's bicentennial to donate the item.

National Archives Gets Lost Lincoln Letter
"It is both a great honor and a pleasure for me to give this very important Abraham Lincoln letter back to the citizens of the United States of America, especially during this bicentennial year of Lincoln's birth," Cutler said. Acting Archivist Adrienne Thomas welcomed the letter's return and said it is an important page in U.S. history. "This brief note, written five days before President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, provides us with a window to look at a difficult personal crisis faced by Lincoln in the midst of the Civil War," she said.

Old West Ledger Mystery Solved
The legend of the ledger reads like a mystery book, classic or modern. An FBI agent from southwest Kansas began investigating the case of a missing Dodge City ledger book, but this one is unlike any other in the series. It contains signatures and court records of crimes investigated by men like Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson. It's worth an estimated $100,000 and was last seen in Dodge City offices back in the 1950's. The latest investigation into the disappearance began in October 2008 when Arlyn Leaming, a retired Ford County sheriff's investigator, called the FBI. He told the agent two men in Arizona may have the book because it showed up on a blog. An expert in Old West memorabilia had written about it after authenticating it for a collector who was working on a deal to buy it from an Ohio man.

Exile's epic history published at last
A handwritten Latin manuscript that was missing for 300 years has been translated into English for the first time by an 81-year-old Irish scholar. University College Cork (UCC) historian Denis O’Sullivan, a former surgeon at Cork University Hospital (CUH), spent more than three years painstakingly translating the historical manuscript and his finished work, The Natural History of Ireland, was launched in Cork last night. O’Sullivan’s work is based on a manuscript, Zoilomastix , written by Phillip O’Sullivan Beare, who was exiled to the continent after the Battle of Kinsale in 1601.

Manuscript may be a medieval women's magazine
The document, which is part of a collection in the Naples Library, was likely one of a number of books that were produced in the latter half of the Middle Ages as paper replaced parchment, says medieval specialist Dr. James Weldon, soon to be chair of the English and film studies department at Wilfrid Laurier University. Weldon stumbled upon it while doing research on Lybeaus Desconus – one of the romance tales in the anthology. "It really is a valuable manuscript," said Weldon. And it reveals a lot about women in the Middle Ages.

Notes on Aboriginal remains on eBay
In 1893 Cambridge anatomist W. L. H. Duckworth dissected the brains of four Aboriginal heads to determine whether they were distinguishable from those of apes. Aboriginal groups hope the freakish discovery on eBay of Duckworth's handwritten manuscript on the "craniology of the natives of Australia", more than a century later, will place Cambridge University under renewed pressure to repatriate the skulls. The manuscript — which is being exhibited for the first time at Counihan Gallery in Brunswick as part of National Reconciliation Week — confirms Duckworth dissected four Aboriginal heads sent to Cambridge from Australia.

Company's 'ATM For Books' Prints On Demand
Have you ever had that frustration of walking into a bookstore, looking for a specific book, and being told it's out of print or not in stock? One company wants to put an end to that. In a move some are calling the most significant step in publishing in the past 500 years, a New York company is trying to make books available on demand, printed out locally, rather than centrally as they always have been. On Demand Books has installed a trial machine in a central London bookstore. It's called the Espresso machine, but it has nothing to do with coffee beans. This baby's grinding out books.

Pixel Qi Offers Peek at New Display
Pixel Qi, a company that promises inexpensive, low-power displays that could potentially rival E Ink screens, has been talking about its product for months. But Thursday Pixel Qi founder Mary Lou Jepsen posted the first pics of the display on her blog. The pictures are a little fuzzy but they show the display in two modes and also running on a netbook.

For the Love Of Letterpress: Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. At ATC
There are many reasons why we love letterpress printer Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. First, he apparently doesn’t own a phone and would rather that you send him a letter. Second, he said goodbye to middle class life as a computer programmer to work in the lost crafts of letterpress printing and bookmaking—in the tiny town of Gordo, Alabama. Third, he recommends that you trust his expertise. According to the printmaker's web site, “Printing is what we do. You send the text and a check, and go home and pray."

IU's Lilly Library showcases vintage autos
To kick off the summer traveling season, the Lilly Library at Indiana University's Bloomington campus opened an exhibition Tuesday featuring collections relating to early automobiles and motor cars. "Are We There Yet? The Age of the Automobile" showcases vintage catalogs, books and materials featuring topics ranging from luxury roadsters to the first Indianapolis 500. The exhibition runs through Sept. 5. Lavish catalogs aimed at Gatsby-like customers come from the collection of Thomas T. Solley. Solley was director of the Indiana University Art Museum from 1971 to 1986 and a grand-nephew of J. K. Lilly Jr., early benefactor of the library that bears his family name.

Chance Find Leads to New Lobel Picture Books
When a rare book dealer called Adrianne Lobel last September with news he’d found three small books handcrafted by her father, legendary author and illustrator Arnold Lobel, she wasn’t immediately sure how interested she was in acquiring them. “I didn’t realize how important or how complete they were until they were in my hands,” she said. Arnold Lobel, who died in 1987, had created the one-of-a-kind books as a Christmas gift for fellow author Crosby Bonsall, and her husband George. Written in the 1960s, they predate his Newbery and Caldecott Honor-winning I Can Read books about Frog and Toad by a decade—but have the same witty vibe. Once Adrianne saw the books, she had no doubt about what to do next: she took them to her father's longtime publisher, HarperCollins.

Audience participation required
A few meters away from Ullman's vault sits Mark Dion's "Antiquarian Book Shop," an installation that tries to shatter the accepted norms of history and collective culture. Ranging from volumes of Plato and Kant, travel guides for Africa, hooks displaying masking tape and screwdrivers, and the hefty volume of Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, Dion's cultural collage is locked inside a small shed. The viewer can study the cultural artifacts through a few windows, peering in to see the volumes and stamps ranging many periods and continents.

8 ways that comic book fans and shops are stereotyped in TV shows
With the single exception of Star Trek fans, there's perhaps nothing considered more quintessentially geeky by non-geeks than the comic book enthusiast. And it's clear to see just how the categorical characterisation is perpetuated when we look at how they're portrayed on some popular TV shows. Now, we're not necessarily talking popular among geeks, so be prepared to be offended on some fronts and amused on others...

Rare Books in the News: May 28, 2009

St. Louis opens Civil War era court documents
White-gloved archivists digging through brittle pages inside metal file drawers at the St. Louis circuit clerk's office have unlocked never-before told stories of looting, betrayal and slavery in the years following the Civil War. Now these rare documents, unearthed during a 10-year preservation project, will be available to anyone who wants to read about how Missourians attempted to bring law and order after the chaos of war. "This is a treasure trove of information, most of which has never been seen by historians," said Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, who oversees the state archives. "These cases are attempting to right the wrongs that people saw in those years."

Mo. court archives give glimpse of Civil War life
Relatively few lawsuits were filed in Missouri and the rest of nation during the chaos and upheaval of the Civil War. But once it ended, the courts of St. Louis were filled with people seeking relief for everything from marital infidelity to continued enslavement in the Union state. Their stories, made available to the public for the first time this week, provide a deep and tangible history of how ordinary Missourians struggled to recover after the war. Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan on Wednesday announced completion of the effort to preserve and index more than 11,200 Civil War-era cases in St. Louis Circuit Court from 1866 through 1868.

More than 50 Research Fellowships Awarded By the Harry Ransom Center
The Harry Ransom Center, a humanities research library and museum at The University of Texas at Austin, has awarded more than 50 research fellowships for 2009-10. These fellowships support research projects in the humanities that require substantial use of the Center's collections of manuscripts, rare books, film, photography, art and performing arts materials. The scholars, more than 25 of whom will be coming from abroad, will use Ransom Center materials to support projects with such titles as "The Left-Conservative Imagination: Norman Mailer's Political Thought," "Dreams of a Totalitarian Utopia: Literary Modernism and Politics" and "Radio Literature: The Broadcasts of Welles, Thomas, Beckett, and Stoppard."

Report: Contemporary Preservation Activities in ARL Libraries
From the Announcement: The report by ARL Visiting Program Officer Lars Meyer, “Safeguarding Collections at the Dawn of the 21st Century: Describing Roles & Measuring Contemporary Preservation Activities in ARL Libraries,” responds to a recommendation of the 2006 ARL Task Force on the Future of Preservation in ARL Libraries. The task force encouraged ARL to conduct a high-level investigation of the range and balance of preservation activities represented among the ARL membership. Meyer’s report is a thoughtful and thorough qualitative examination of how research libraries’ preservation activities are evolving and expanding in the 21st century.

A collector says goodbye to a trove of Lewisiana
“Very outspoken. Very honest. Direct. Exciting in the extreme,” he said. He began hunting for the man's works. He gathered prints and other artworks. He sent postcards to those personages who knew the man, getting responses from the likes of Lord Beaverbrook. In time, Mr. [Cy] Fox gathered an awesome trove of Lewisiana, including rare volumes, signed editions and fascinating ephemera. These he has donated to the library at the University of Victoria, which has a collection of nonconformist British writers such as John Betjeman, Robert Graves and Herbert Read, as well as an archive of anarchist materials. An eight-week-long exhibition called The Lion and the Fox comes to a scheduled end tomorrow.

Underground Comix and the Transformation of the American Comic Book
This revolutionary era in American comics is preserved and celebrated with great aplomb in Underground Classics: The Transformation of Comics into Comix by co-authors James Danky and Denis Kitchen, published this month by Abrams ComicsArts. A companion volume to a fascinating gallery show at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art, the book documents the first time in American comics when the uncensored ideas of anti-establishment thinkers—from women, blacks and homosexuals to other disenfranchised members of American society—were given full and unfettered voice.

Agoura High School teacher donates Bradbury books in memory of student
In a letter to Cano, Bradbury wrote that he was upset that Brett hadn't received one of his letters. He supposed it might have been stolen by a student who saw his name on it and "pocketed (it) as a gift from this old Martian." After Ingram died, Cano wrote to Bradbury with another request—a complete collection of his books for Agoura High School's library. "I like thinking of the two of you on a shelf where I can touch you both," she wrote. Bradbury sent her a collection of old, new, some first editions and some signed copies of his books, including "Fahrenheit 451," "Twice 22," "Zen and the Art of Writing"—22 books in all. One book, "Bradbury's Classic Stories," written 12 months after Ingram died, includes a story based on Ingram.

Rare hanging scroll of blue deity to be displayed
A hanging scroll depicting a guardian deity that is rarely shown to the public will be exhibited in autumn at Shoren-in temple in Higashiyama Ward, Kyoto. The scroll dating from the mid-Heian period (794-1192) has been preserved as a hidden treasure at the monzeki temple of the Tendai Sect, which has close ties to the Imperial family. The 2-meter by 1.5-meter scroll features a fierce seated cetaka (a guardian deity) painted in bluish black against a backdrop of flame. The Blue Cetaka painting at the temple is known as one of the nation's three major cetaka paintings and has been designated a national treasure.

L.A. Torah Scribe Has Quill, Will Travel
In 2001, Jewish sofer (scribe) Ron Sieger served as a hand double for the actor playing a scribe on “The Sacred Scroll” episode of the CBS drama, “Touched By an Angel.” He left his studio in Los Angeles for a few days and headed off to the Utah set to serve as a scribe consultant and to tutor actress Valerie Bertinelli in Hebrew. It was a glamorous digression from what is essentially a humble, albeit holy, Jewish profession, one that preserves exactly the sacred words Moses received on Mount Sinai, the defining moment of the Jewish people, celebrated on Shavuot, which this year takes place on Friday, May 29.

The Amulet, the Temple, the Disfigured Book, and the Butterflies: the Art of Yona Verwer, Robert Kirschbaum, David Friedman, and Joel Silverstein
Where Kiefer's manipulation of the book might carry Holocaust or book-burning references in its inaccessibility and illegibility, Friedman's book is changed for postmodern reasons. "While traditional Jewish texts such as the Talmud are rarely illustrated, these manuscripts often open with a printed image of a gate on the title page," he says. "Much of my work is about being inside and outside of those gates, exploring the divided self and the state of being in-between; aspects of identity, time, memory, belief - between G-d and the gutter. To curse and bless at once." Like Mark Podwal's Sefer, which also hung in the show and presents an M.C. Escher-like optical illusion in which people walk through gate on a title page of a book, Friedman portrays a vision of Jewish books that transcends the physicality of the spine and the pages.

The Princeton Library Responds
To the questions I posed here. Here's the explanation I received in an e-mail from Princeton University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt: The University respects copyright and has a permissions process for reproducing items in its archives, and the material removed from the Weekly Standard’s website was copyrighted material for which the Standard did not request permission for republication.

Landmark study: DRM truly does make pirates out of us all
"The RNIB is very watchful of the issues around DRM," said [Richard] Orme, "because it can see evidence of DRM preventing access to content in a world where digital technology actually makes information more accessible rather than less." As an example, take the case of Lynn Holdsworth, who bought an electronic copy of the Bible from Amazon. It refused to allow text-to-speech, which Holdsworth required. She contacted Amazon, which has a policy of not refunding e-books after a successful download. "On Amazon’s advice, Lynn Holdsworth contacted the publisher, but the publisher referred her back to Amazon," writes [Patricia] Akester. "Neither Amazon nor the publisher were able to assist her and she ended up obtaining an illegal copy of the work (which her screen reader application could access)."

EU governments urge Google Books caution
EU countries want the European Commission to investigate the economic implications of Google’s book search project amid fears that it will harm the European publishing industry, it emerged on Tuesday (26 May). EU competitiveness ministers meeting in Brussels tomorrow and Friday (28-29 May) are likely to ask the Commission to launch an investigation into the implications of the project for Europe's authors, a Czech EU Presidency source told EurActiv.

A taste of America's past
By February 1943, when the WPA was finally closed down, these writers had published a million words about America. There were at least 276 books, some still in print and enjoyed today. In all, with pamphlets and brochures included, the group produced more than 1,000 publications. Now the raw, unedited manuscripts of the project's last creative effort -- canceled after Pearl Harbor and never assembled -- was contained in the gray boxes before me. That ambitious effort explored the social and gastronomic traditions of American food. Novelists, anthropologists, out-of-work reporters, teachers, secretaries, typists and penniless people who had always wanted to be writers were instructed to send in recipes, interviews, stories of parties and picnics, pancake breakfasts and weddings, and anything else they could find that had something to do with food and eating in America.

Southwestern Oklahoma State Rolls Out Public Digital Repository
Southwestern Oklahoma State University has launched a new publicly accessible online digital repository, providing access to the university's historical documents. The SWOSU Digital Repository is currently providing access to all of the university's yearbooks from 1906 to 1993. It will also include archives of its student newspaper, The Southwestern, and a keyword-searchable version of the 1651 edition of Nicholai Culpeper’s A Physical Directory, according to information released by SWOSU.

Amsterdam University returns stolen drawings
The University of Amsterdam is handing eleven stolen 18th-century drawings back to their original owner, the Madrid Natural History Museum. The drawings ended up in Amsterdam in the early 1990s via a Britsh art dealer, and had to be kept in safe storage in the Special Collections section of the university while investigation of the Madrid theft continued.

Rare Books in the News: May 27, 2009

Auctioneer to 'sell' Robert Burns' Auld Lang Syne
It is one of the world's best known songs – and now one lucky person will have the chance to "own" it. The original Robert Burns manuscript of Auld Lang Syne is going under the hammer at a Capital auction house in August. But whoever buys the unique piece – expected to fetch about £50,000 – will not be able to give it pride of place in their home. Instead the artefact will be restored and placed in the new Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Ayrshire, beside a plaque bearing the name of its new patron.

Library showcases Defender treasures
It's the largest and most significant collection of historical materials on the nation's black press to be acquired by any American library. Today, the Chicago Public Library will unveil the Abbott-Sengstacke Family Papers -- a rare archive providing a sweeping look into the legacy of one of the nation's most prominent black newspapers, the Chicago Defender, through its advocacy role in the history of black America -- spanning more than 130 years. Available to the public for the first time are some 4,000 rare, unpublished photographs, 100 home movies, and reams of personal correspondence with ordinary people, politicians and U.S. presidents, from the lives of Chicago Defender founder Robert S. Abbott -- whose materials date from the 1880s to 1940s -- and his publishing heir John Sengstacke -- whose materials date from the 1920s to 1990s.

Stolen: ABA steps up efforts to resolve Slade affair
The Antiquarian Booksellers Association (ABA) has stepped up its efforts to recover books stolen by its former president, David Slade, from Sir Evelyn de Rothschild. The ABA’s May Newsletter noted that 14 of 71 identified missing items had already been returned but 57, unwittingly sold over a period of several years by Dominic Winter – for whom Slade had acted on occasion as a consultant – had yet to be recovered. In mid-March, on receipt of a list from Sir Evelyn de Rothschild’s solicitors, the ABA wrote to seven members who had bought books, but by the time of the April council meeting, none had been returned and there was concern that this might reflect badly on the ABA should it and its members be perceived not to be co-operating fully. One member, the council was told, “apparently had no record of purchasers of three of the books which must have been priced at several thousand pounds each”.

Garden and Cosmos at the British Museum
Would you like to reach Nirvana? Then wander along to admire some beautiful court paintings that are about to go on show at the British Museum. This week the museum launches its Indian Summer season,encompassing anything from evening lectures through a themed restaurant menu to a collaboration with Kew Gardens in which the the forecourt will be transformed into a celebration of sub-continental fecundity. But at the heart of the festivities are the exotic visions of the Garden and Cosmos exhibition. This show brings to Britain, for the first time, an exceptional loan of more than 50 paintings produced for the ruling maharajahs of a vast northwest Indian kingdom, once known as Marwar, now the state of Rajasthan.

There's a time and place
Dr Geoff Lambert, medical researcher and avid collector of railway timetables, has been following the market ebb and flow for about 20 years. "I think that the basic message would be that hardly anybody buys old timetables as an investment," he says. "They buy them 'to have and to hold'." He and other members of the Australian Association of Time Table Collectors (there are branches in most states) find great pleasure in analysing timetables of any vintage. The great majority of AATTC members are rail-oriented, except in Sydney, where most appear to be interested in buses. Few Australians seem to collect shipping or plane timetables although this is popular overseas.

Brooks McNamara, Director of the Shubert Archives, Dies at 72
Brooks McNamara, a professor and historian who helped to organize the invaluable theatre history resource known as the Shubert Archives, died May 8 in Doylestown, PA. He was 72 and lived in Doylestown and Manhattan. In 1976 Mr. McNamara, a professor of performance studies at New York University, was asked by the Shubert Foundation to take charge of the mountain of theatre-related documents it owned. Shortly after, the Shubert Archive was formed. At that point, Shubert records were scattered in several locations. There were some six million artifacts in all, including business documents, leases, scripts, musical scores, set and costume designs and photographs. As the history of the producing and theatre-owning Shubert Brothers, and their administrative heirs, stretched back to the very dawn of Broadway theatre, the materials documented every era of the modern theatre district's history.

Japan launches digital archive on director Kurosawa
Fans of Japan's best-known director Akira Kurosawa now have access to an online treasure trove of thousands of photos, sketches and other materials from the film-maker's life. A digital archive of 20,000 items went live on the Internet this week, ranging from private photos and newspaper clippings to notes and sketches of movie scenes, the website's operator said Wednesday.

Presidential library selects Don Wilson as new leader
Don W. Wilson, former archivist of the United States and director of the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation, has been tapped to become the president of the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library Foundation on July 1. He replacces Eric Vettel, who resigned. "We feel very fortunate to have a man of his experience and background take over running the library. He has a lot of experience with this sort of thing. I think we're going to have a good future, and I think he's provided good leadership for the library. We're very fortunate to have him," A. Stanley Link Jr., chair of the board of the WWPL, said. "We appreciate Dr. Vettel's leadership over these last four years, and are confident that Dr. Wilson will help us continue to serve our mission of educating people of all ages about President Wilson and his times."

Spy finding rattles Germany
It was called "the shot that changed the republic." A police officer's 1967 killing of an unarmed demonstrator in West Berlin set off a left-wing protest movement and put conservative West Germany on course to evolve into the progressive country it has become today. Now a discovery in the archives of the East German secret police, the Stasi, has upended Germany's perception of its postwar history. The killer, Karl-Heinz Kurras, although working for West Berlin police, also was acting as a Stasi spy for East Germany. It is as if the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State University by the Ohio National Guard had been committed by an undercover KGB officer.

Javanese Manuscript Savior Dismisses Theft Accusation
An Australian man wanting to donate 3,000 ancient Javanese manuscripts to Indonesian institutions has found himself accused in this Central Java city of having stolen them almost 30 years ago. A researcher of Javanese literature at Monash University in Melbourne, John Paterson denied the theft charge put forward by a local daily newspaper, the Solopos, and told a press conference on Tuesday that he took the scrolls to Australia to rescue them from certain ruin. “I was concerned about their future,” he said.

WVU's best kept secret: Rare book collection includes many first editions
In a tiny room on the sixth floor of the Wise Library, on the downtown campus of West Virginia University, is a stash of stuff that would set the hearts of literary scholars aflutter. But probably half the students at WVU - and most people in the state - don't even know it exists. "It's the best kept secret on campus," said Stewart Plein, a staff member of the Rare Book Room.

Mementos Sought from University’s First 40 Years
“Regardless of size, we’re here to help potential donors determine if their memorabilia would fit with the 40th Anniversary collection,” Oelkrug said. The University also will invite friends to share their stories about their experiences at UT Dallas through an interactive Web site expected to launch in September. The site will serve as the base of an ongoing record of the University’s history. “We look forward to hearing about people’s reflections, and hope they’ll add their chapter to our story,” Oelkrug said. “Did they make a great discovery here? Meet lifelong friends or a future spouse? Watch the transformation of campus through the construction of new buildings? All these experiences and reflections add to the University’s rich history, and we want our friends to be as active as possible in helping us document UT Dallas’ legacy.”

Chilean Ambassador to the U.S. Visits Atlanta for Opening of “El Papel Del Chileno” at the Robert C. Williams Paper Museum at Georgia Tech
On Monday, June 1, Ambassador Mariano Fernandez Amunategui, Chilean ambassador to the United States, will join artist Mariana Kaplun, guest curator of the Museo de Bellas Artes in Santiago, Chile, photographer and collector Roberto Edwards of Santiago, Cindy Bowden, director of the Robert C. Williams Paper Museum at Georgia Tech and others as they unveil a new work, El Papel Del Chileno (The Paper of the Chilean People). The art will be on display at the museum June 1-5, 2009 and then will become part of the museum’s permanent collection. A reception, open to the public, will be held Monday, June 1 from 5-7 p.m

Rare Books in the News: May 26, 2009

A Most Prolific Peasant Poet
And acceptance of Clare as a a literary figure was pitifully slow, both in his lifetime and for many decades beyond. Today, however, that acceptance is global and electronic. Simon Sanada, a scholar at Aichi University, Japan, compiled, in December 2007, a complete e-text of Clare's four volumes of published poetry, providing easy accessibility of original versions to a vast potential audience. In an e-mail, Mr. Sanada, who discovered Clare 30 years ago, wrote that an impetus to his e-text project was to ensure availability of the original unedited volumes. "Otherwise we are unable to appreciate how Clare appeared to the literary world," he said. In the poet's native village in England, the 28th annual John Clare Festival will be held July 10 to 12.

Smashwords Launches Flexible Ebook Affiliate Program
Smashwords, an online Ebook store for independent authors and their publishers, is launching a new affiliate program that will allow external sites to generate revenue by linking to Ebooks that are being sold on the Smashwords store. Affiliate programs for bookstores are nothing new. Typically online publishers will link to a book and will get a cut of the proceeds if the store linked to makes a sale within a certain timeframe. But the emergence of Ebooks is changing the landscape. Amazon, which has built up its affiliate program for traditional books over the last decade, does not give affiliate publishers any portion of the purchase price if a visitor winds up buying an electronic book. Smashwords is looking to capitalize on this omission by offering web publishers an alternative.

Amazon's next revolution
Such numbers don't exactly translate to a white-earbud phenomenon (Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) has shipped more than 200 million iPods), but anecdotal evidence shows that Kindle has infiltrated one circle in particular. Next time you fly (or just pass through) business class, notice how many professional travelers have Kindles. And if you're carrying one, prepare to answer questions: How do you like it? Is it worth it? "They're not gadget people," Bezos says of the early adopters. "I think of a gadget as something that you buy, play with awhile, and stick in a desk drawer. Nobody calls their microwave oven a gadget. It's too useful."

Apple Relents, Adds ‘Pornographic’ E-Book Reader to App Store
Apple has finally approved the gorgeous-looking e-book reader, Eucalyptus, for the iTunes App Store. The application was previously banned for pornographic reasons: not because it contained objectionable material but because it could be used to download the Kama Sutra, an ancient text which acts as a manual for living a good and full life.

ODU archivist starting a catalogue of integration
It was a gold mine for [Sonia] Yaco, who had taken the job at ODU specifically to work with its collection on Massive Resistance, a period in Virginia history when the state fought the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that segregated public schools were illegal. She couldn't stop wondering after she got the material: "Who else has cool stuff like this?" After calling other college libraries, Yaco discovered there was no central database of Massive Resistance archives. She tapped a colleague to create DOVE, the Desegregation of Virginia Education project, which identifies and preserves records of the state's desegregation process.

Harry Lee His love for shells sparks lifelong collection
Some of his shells are very rare. He found a Vasum Crosseanum in a dusty shop in Mauritius, an island off the east coast of Africa. Only three of those shells are known to be in collections, he said. Less rare, but more prized by many, is his "reverse-coiled" chank shell, known among Hindus as the Sacred Chank. According to Hindu scripture, Vishnu hid a sacred text in one of the shells, one in 600,000 of which have reverse coils. A Hindu collector offered Lee $20,000 for the shell, but Lee declined. Lee said he began planning a book on the shells of Northeast Florida in 1975. But his day job as a physician kept getting in the way.

Insight into iconic TV series
For 32 years BBC TV’s The Antiques Roadshow has attracted audiences exceeding eight million a week. The Kenton Theatre is delighted to present a fascinating insight into this iconic series when it stages Have You Had It Long, Madam? on Friday, June 5. Two of the programme’s longstanding stars — Hilary Kay and Paul Atterbury — will be revealing all in this unique production which they have recently taken on tour to Australia and New Zealand. It is an entertaining and compulsive show about the programme which former presenter Michael Aspel once described as “one of the longest and most successful stories in British television history”.

Call for Preserving Yazd Inscriptions
Yazd is among the most important provinces in terms of stone, clay and plaster inscriptions, but unfortunately most of them are being destroyed. Abdollah Qouchani, an author and university researcher, made this bitter revelation on the sidelines of the workshop for teaching cuneiform script in Yazd, Mehr News Agency reported. He noted that inscriptions are documents about the Iranian identity and culture, but most inscriptions in the historical edifices of Yazd province are on the verge of destruction.

Raggedy Ann & Andy Museum's closing a sign of times
"It's hard," said Joni Wannamaker, who said they may try to keep a small exhibit open. "Every time we look around, we're like, 'Oh dear, are we doing the right thing?' But I know we are because it's important that this continue on in a larger museum. These little guys deserve it." Family papers, books and rare dolls will be donated to the Strong National Museum of Play, which plans to dispatch curators this summer to cull the Wannamakers' collection. The Rochester, N.Y., museum previously inducted the Raggedy dolls as two of the 41 toys in its National Toy Hall of Fame, joining such classics as Barbie, Silly Putty, the Slinky, Etch A Sketch, LEGOs, Monopoly and Mr. Potato Head.

Jacket design practices 'scandalous'
Book cover designers are being hampered by not having title information, delegates at The Bookseller's Cover Design seminar heard. At the event held on Thursday (21st May) Damian Horner, founder of Mustoes and publishing marketing consultant, said: "It's frankly scandalous. I don't think you can ever design a cover without having some idea of what the title might be—yet it happens all the time."

Design path takes detour
A diploma, a resume and a portfolio used to be the most valuable documents for post-secondary graduates launching careers in design. Today they can add another: a business card. As traditional paths to steady employment such as internships and entry-level jobs narrow in a tight economy, more graduates in fields such as fashion design, graphic design and photography are hanging out their shingles. “We usually don’t recommend students work as freelancers right after graduation. We tell them to be part of a design community first,” said Henry Kim, associate chair of the graphic design department at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), “but now in this economy, that has been changing. Freelancing has become a big part of our students’ career opportunities.”

Japanese publisher prints horror novel on toilet roll
Horror writer Koji Suzuki has teamed up with a Japanese paper manufacturer to have his latest stomach-churning novella published in a very convenient form - on toilet paper. The nine-chapter tale is appropriately titled "Drop," and is the alarming story of an evil spirit that inhabits a toilet bowl, according to Takaki Hayashi, vice president of Hayashi Paper Corp. "I've read the story and it's very scary," he said.

Rare Books in the News: May 25, 2009

Museum to bring touch-up work out in the open
As a result, the museum will open a temporary exhibit June 10 where a conservator will clean and touch up paint missing from three 18th century Hubert Robert works. Museum patrons will be able to watch the work unfold and get answers to their questions. "People are either totally unaware of conservation, or it is such a mystery," said Eryl Wentworth, executive director of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. Several American museums, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts among them, have previously restored art in galleries open to the public. Since 2006, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery have let visitors watch preservation work through glass walls at five conservation labs. And the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore started opening a window to its conservation lab on weekends this year to show how they work and take questions.

The price of a duty of care
Directors are only too aware of the responsibilities that they shoulder. It is believed that the Getty building, for example, could withstand an earthquake of 7.5 on the Richter scale. All manner of precautions have been taken against fire, from the use of special non-inflammatory coolants in the air conditioning units to keeping goats that graze the surrounding brush. Old masters are a blue-chip commodity. As values rise — holding firm even in the face of rocky markets — insurance costs soar. Some collectors are faced with moving their treasures to places where the risk of natural disaster is lower or leaving large tranches of their works without cover.

Scientific data repository gets $2.18 million boost
A digital data repository that researchers agree has the potential to transform how scientific research is pursued will be expanded with a $2.18 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The repository, called Dryad, is designed to archive data that underlie published findings in evolutionary biology, ecology and related fields and allow scientists to access and build on each other's findings. It is online at http://www.datadryad.org. The grant recipients are: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Metadata Research Center in the School of Information and Library Science; North Carolina State University's Digital Library Program; Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network Office at the University of New Mexico; Yale University's TreeBASE database; and National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, a collaborative effort involving UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke and North Carolina State universities.

From memories to memorials: Center for the Study of War and Society marks 25 years at UT
American wars always produce generals, admirals and field-grade officers who write memoirs. A few even become popular enough to reach the White House. But the real story of war is written in the foxholes, on the decks of naval vessels, on amphibious landings, or in a thousand other battlefield settings where the dogface soldier lives and dies. In 1984, Charles "Chuck" Johnson, a University of Tennessee history professor, set out to find the story of the common fighting man. He began his quest with a card table, a chair and a homemade sign asking veterans to give him their stories. He set up in the center of a hotel lobby where World War II veterans were meeting in a reunion. That was the beginning of UT's Center for the Study of War and Society.

‘Desert Battalion’ Captures Colorful Bit of U.S. History
Gladys “Robbie” Robinson, wife of legendary Hollywood actor Edward G. Robinson, founded a service organization in 1942 to entertain U.S. military servicemen in California. Her experience became a book, “Desert Battalion,” a personal account of the organization later known as the “feminine battalion.” The book written by Gladys Robinson and Jack Preston, which told the story of ladies called “brigadiers,” was auctioned off in April at the prestigious Goldberg Coins and Collectables in Beverly Hills. What makes this a rare, interesting, and valuable collector’s item is the wealth of supplementary material. Passed down through the Robinson family, the materials auctioned as a package include 11 original illustrations from Walt Disney’s brother, Roy, and Freddie Moore, a letter from Walt Disney to Mrs. Robinson, two original copies of the book, and over 425 related photographs of celebrities who attended the Robinson’s “tea parties” to raise money for the troops.

Codicologie et paléographie à l'ère du numérique
The conference will focus on the challenges and consequences of using IT and the internet for codicological and palaeographic research. The authors of some selected articles of an anthology to be published this summer by the Institute for Documentology and Scholarly Editing (IDE) will present and discuss their excellent research results with scholars and experts working on ancient books and manuscripts. A panel discussion will be held with renowned exponents in the field of codicology and palaeography and contributors of cutting edge research to get an overview of the state of the art as well as to open up new perspectives of codicological and palaeographic research in the “digital age”.

The future of books and electronic reading
Random House has just launched the UK’s first “enhanced” electronic book list. The Book and Beyond project brings together 10 of its authors — with more to come soon — making their new books available, unabridged, for digital download to phones, computers, PDAs and e-book readers. This, in itself, is nothing remarkable. The e-book market has been with us for nearly a decade in one form or another. What is significant is that it is the first download list to feature books embedded with “rich media” content. (Video, pictures, music, games and computer apps to you and me.)

New Puzzles That Tell Humans From Machines
Automatic character recognition lets people who are having the work scanned know which words it cannot read. These are the words that recaptcha farms out and, once they are interpreted, returns to the original document. In this way, word by word, most of the mystery words are deciphered, in this case by humans. “We are digitizing about 25 million words per day by having people type in captchas,” Dr. von Ahn said. The audio captchas are also being used for transcription and digitization projects. “We are doing both speech and text,” Dr. von Ahn said. “Take your choice.” The Times is paying reCaptcha for its help in digitizing its archives, said Marc Frons, chief technology officer, digital operations. So far, puzzling words in archives covering about 30 years have been deciphered with reCaptchas, he said.

How intolerable life would be without books and bookshops
I love a beautiful book, but its market price is what interests me least. The monetary importance of a first as against a second edition leaves me cold.Yet I'd claim to be a raving bibliomane. In literature, politics, science and art, the most valuable things I have acquired in 50 years of being alive include my books. I've got a few paintings. There are, now I think about it, a scatter of warm-blooded human beings - relatives, that sort of thing, a friend or two - to whom I owe some kind of allegiance. But the books, racked, stacked, ordered, disordered - are at the heart of being me.

Javanese Relics to Be Returned But More Treasures Still Missing
Efforts to trace and recover rare Javanese relics missing from Solo’s Radya Pustaka Museum have unexpectedly discovered that about 3,000 ancient manuscripts were taken to Australia almost 30 years ago. While no one seems to know whether any of the manuscripts came from the museum itself, John Paterson, an Australian researcher of Javanese culture who has been holding onto them since 1980, has told the Solo Legislative Council that he would like to hand them over to the museum to be better taken care of.

Rare Avicenna manuscript recovered
Police have recovered a rare manuscript of the Persian polymath Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine which was recently stolen from his mausoleum in Hamadan. The Protection Unit of Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization found the manuscript which dates from the Safavid era (1501-1736) in Iran's western province of Hamadan. "Police forces in Hamadan recovered the manuscript, which was pilfered on May 18, this morning," said Colonel Nazari, the head of the protection unit.

Khayyam's Museum to Reopen
The museum of the renowned Iranian poet and mathematician Omar Khayyam in Neishabour has been renovated, and will reopen in late May. Announcing this, Esmaeil Etemadi, in charge of Neishabour Cultural Heritage Department, told Fars News Agency, “It took us three years to complete renovations due to lack of funds." But, recently, over 500 million rials were allocated for renovating the site, he added.

Mug shots now get legitimate attention
But mug shots themselves, the law enforcement kind, aren't just for criminal identification anymore. Three years ago, the Stephan Kasher Gallery in New York presented an exhibition of them, spanning decades – and there was a fascinating companion book too: “Least Wanted: A Century of American Mug Shots,” both culled from a collection of about 15,000 of them assembled by one collector, Mark Michaelson. Most were obscure folk, as were the people in the mug shot exhibition at Quint Contemporary Art in La Jolla earlier this year. Clearly, something is afoot: There's a new slant on the mug shot as a form of found or accidental portraiture with historical and even aesthetic value.

Rare Books in the News: May 23, 2009

Project Whirlwind comes home
The Project Whirlwind Computer collection -- a compilation of pioneering digital computing research conducted at MIT in the 1940s and 1950s -- has been transferred back to the Institute from the MITRE Corporation, and its contents are being opened to the public for the first time. The research project, which included the creation of "Whirlwind I" -- the first digital computer at MIT and the fastest of its time -- began at the Institute and had been moved to Lincoln Lab and then later to MITRE. Materials in the collection were previously unavailable to researchers, but with its transfer to MIT, the collection is now accessible to the public. Key documents from the Whirlwind collection have also been digitized and will soon be made available online.

New from the UK: National Archives Begins Studying How Web Pages are Archived
From the Announcement: The National Archives is pleased to announce a study into how archived websites are collected and made available to users. The study is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee and will take place in collaboration with the UK Web Archiving Consortium. The study aims to:
+ Investigate how UK web archives are delivered to users now, and how they might be delivered in the future
+ Define the long-term historical and research value of online content in the UK
+ Look at different organisations that collect web archives, and their interests

A look at Johnson beyond all the words
Samuel Johnson stands with a book clutched tightly in his hands mere inches from his face, straining to read the page of a book. This is the moment that his friend, Sir Joshua Reynolds decided to capture in his 1775 portrait, "Blinking Sam." Johnson didn't like the painting, yet it epitomizes his very essence. "He was blinking... (The painting) also shows him grabbing at knowledge, gripping the heart out of a book," said Loren Rothschild, a Johnson collector and the overseer at Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino. Along with Alan Jutzi, the Avery chief curator of rare books, he has organized the exhibit, "Samuel Johnson: Literary Giant of the 18th Century." It opens Saturday.

Setting the Stage With Shadows
What's a stage designer to do when the composer has already decided which colors to use — right there in the opera’s libretto? For Robert Edmond Jones, one of the most influential stage craftsmen of the 20th century, having Arnold Schoenberg calling the shots for “Die Glückliche Hand” (“The Hand of Fate”) freed him to design a brooding set and lighting scheme that visually reinforced the composer’s stark exploration of futility in the pursuit of love. The design Jones came up with in 1930, a stage full of jutting forms and menacing shadows, is now on display in “Creating the Modern Stage: Designs for Theater and Opera” at the Morgan Library & Museum. The show features more than 50 original drawings from stage designers, displayed with production photos, rare books and other theatrical ephemera primarily from the first half of the 20th century.

A conversation with Daniel Kestenbaum
Every three months, Bergenfield resident Daniel Kestenbaum holds an auction of Western and Oriental books, manuscripts, and fine Judaica at his Manhattan gallery. One of few such specialists in the world, Kestenbaum & Company has become well-known to Judaica collectors, curators, and dealers. But its founder is perhaps less well-known at home. Following his recent spring auction — featuring items such as a 1488 Torah commentary that sold for $200,000 — Kestenbaum, 47, talked with The Jewish Standard about his work.

Alibris Hopes to Expand Distribution Business
Alibris will announce on Tuesday "a new book-fulfillment solution" for booksellers. The new program, called Alibris Distribution Services(ADS), will provide full cataloging and distribution services for booksellers who have "exceeded their operations capacity, have more inventory than they'll ever catalog, or want to liquidate large amounts of new and used books." Participating booksellers will receive 70% of the price realized less 99c per item accepted into the program. Almost sounds to good to be true. Send all that excess inventory to Alibris, let them catalog it and deal with the shipping, warehousing etc. I've rarely meet a bookseller who didn't have space issues.

Books make welcome return to Dumfries
PBFA Book Fairs aims to provide a wide-ranging selection of books at all prices, in a variety of subjects, for both the reader and the serious collector. Visitors can browse and handle real books as opposed to the virtual world of the internet sites rife with books of suspect condition, print on demand material and poor quality reprints. Over the years some rare and unusual books have been displayed including early Rupert Bear Annuals, first editions of Ian Fleming’s James Bond books, Peter Rae’s History of the Late Rebellion (one of the first books printed in Dumfries in 1718).

The secret life of Superman
The Scottish writer Mark Millar, for example, who recently completed a contract writing Fantastic Four for Marvel, decided to keep Wanted, an original series about a group of supervillains, to himself. When the concept was used for a film starring Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie last year, I imagine Millar would have had a share of the profits. That level of self-determination wasn’t available to Shuster, which is why, in 1954, his eyesight failing and work hard to come by, he accepted an invitation to illustrate the lurid stories that were to fill the pages of a magazine called Nights of Horror. Promising its readers “stories spiced and illustrated in a way we know you will enjoy”, it contained pictures of young women being bathed, thrashed, tied up and generally subjugated, all the time looking rather uninvolved and unconcerned. It’s unlikely that the pictures reflect Shuster’s peccadilloes or private fantasies. That someone who had helped to create an entire industry should be forced to sell himself so cheap is little short of a tragedy.

Why Donald Duck Is the Jerry Lewis of Germany
“Donald is so popular because almost everyone can identify with him,” says Christian Pfeiler, president of D.O.N.A.L.D. “He has strengths and weaknesses, he lacks polish but is also very cultured and well-read.” But much of the appeal of the hapless, happy-go-lucky duck lies in the translations. Donald quotes from German literature, speaks in grammatically complex sentences and is prone to philosophical musings, while the stories often take a more political tone than their American counterparts. Whereas in the U.S. fans of Donald Duck tend to gravitate to the animated films, duck fandom in Germany centers on the printed comics published in the kids’ weekly “Micky Maus” and the monthly “Donald Duck Special” (with a print run of 40,000 copies), which sells mainly to adult readers.

16 century Sanskrit manuscripts being digitised
"Around 2,300 Sanskrit manuscripts, that is, over four lakh pages, have been digitised so far. It will take the team another six months to complete digitising all the 10,000-odd Sanskrit manuscripts here," says Prashant Nijampurkar, librarian and accountant at Anandashram. Anandashram, in order to propagate the Sanskrit language, plans to offer short-term and long-term courses in the language this July onwards. Two scholarships, each of Rs 250 per month, will be given to two students who will undergo a year-long course on foundational sciences in Sanskrit.

Rare copy of Dnyaneshwari brought back from Andamans
A rare manuscript of Dnyaneshwari written in 1870 has been brought to light by researchers Mandar Lawate and Bhujang Bobade. Bobade has procured it from Andaman and Nicobar islands and handed it over to a Pune-based researcher. Bobade, who is working with Hyderabad-based Andhra Pradesh Government Oriental Manuscripts Library and Research Institute (APGOMLRI) as a research scholar was in the city last month. He delivered a lecture at Bharat Itihas Sanshodhak Mandal.

Seafarers’ Memoirs, Written on Skin
Early tattoos of American sailors are known mainly through description. But the exhibition shows how much can be pieced together about the nation’s seamen by examining archival records. Each had a “Sailor Protection Certificate” that was carried as a form of identification that detailed the tattoos on its bearer’s body; these descriptions often remain the sole remnants of individuality in these once-anonymous figures. Aaron Fullerton (born in 1778), for example, “has a ship on his right hand and on his left hand” along with his birth year etched in tattoos made by gunpowder.

"Sergeant York" tonight at BYU Special Collections
Roughly once a month, BYU Special Collections Film Series screens a classic film on real, original film prints, to a usually-packed and always-enthusiastic crowd. For a movie lover, there's no better place to be. Tonight they will be showing Sergeant York, the 1941 Howard Hawks film starring Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan.

Rare Books in the News: May 22, 2009

The Long Goodbye? The Book Business and its Woes
It is a confused, confusing and very fluid situation, and no one can predict how books and readers will survive. Changed reading habits have already transformed and diminished them both. I, for one, don't trust the book trade to see us through this. Wariness is in order. Three centuries ago, John Locke agreed that we shouldn't base our freedom to read books on the proclaimed good offices of the business itself. "Books seem to me to be pestilent things," he wrote in 1704, "and infect all that trade in them...with something very perverse and brutal. Printers, binders, sellers, and others that make a trade and gain out of them have universally so odd a turn and corruption of mind, that they have a way of dealing peculiar to themselves, and not conformed to the good of society, and that general fairness that cements mankind."

Watching the Detective Books
Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie's Belgian genius Hercule Poirot or P. D. James's Scotland Yard detective-poet Adam Dalgliesh -- will provide investigative mystery at London's coming Antiquarian Book Fair. Many of the 160 or so international book dealers gathered at the Olympia exhibition center from June 4-6 will offer crime and spy fiction, one of the most popular areas of the modern first-edition market. Increasingly, crime fiction by major 20th-century authors is accepted as significant literature in its pithy prose and its reflection of reality, much as in the 19th-century classics of Charles Dickens. The fair also has 19th-century crime literature; London booksellers Jarndyce will bring the "Moonstone" (1868) by Wilkie Collins, an early edition priced at £1,200.

A Photographer Who Refused to Think Like a Photographer
Digital technology has since changed the rules, but it’s still liberating to see the experimental mixed-media works in an exhibition spread over two museums: “John Wood: On the Edge of Clear Meaning,” at the Grey Art Gallery at New York University, and “John Wood: Quiet Protest,” at the International Center of Photography. Mr. Wood trained as a photographer, but refused to think like one. Beginning in the 1950s, he made unique objects with combinations of drawing, collage, printmaking and early forms of photography (cyanotype, photogram, cliché-verre). The only rule, to paraphrase Jasper Johns, seems to be: Take a photograph. Do something to it. Do something else to it.

New Morgan Exhibition Examines the Artistry and Innovation of Twentieth-Century Stage Design
The twentieth century saw a renaissance in the art of the theater. Modern technology and materials allowed for innovative approaches to stage sets. New theories concerning the role of the actor and set in theatrical performances encouraged a radical departure from long-standing practices and the moribund literalism of the nineteenth-century stage. Imagination and vision were encouraged, allowing a vital and varied stagecraft to emerge throughout England, Europe, Russia, and America. This extraordinary period of innovation in modern scenic design is the subject of a new exhibition at The Morgan Library & Museum entitled Creating the Modern Stage: Designs for Theater and Opera. On view from May 22 through August 16, 2009, the exhibition features over fifty drawings derived entirely from the Morgan’s holdings, principally from the collection formed by the celebrated American set designer Donald Oenslager (1902–1975). Enriching these colorful drawings is related material, including musical scores, rare books, and autograph manuscripts as well as more than thirty performance photographs documenting the finished set.

Libraries launch ‘Expeditions and Discoveries’
“Each of Harvard’s open collections offers a vast number of rare and hard-to-find published materials to Internet users,” stated Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the University Library Robert Darnton, “and ‘Expeditions and Discoveries’ is no exception. Support from Arcadia, however, has inspired and enabled a new focus on the University’s legendary special collections. The result is remarkable: ‘Expeditions and Discoveries’ brings a tremendous range of unique manuscript materials into the hands of scholars and Internet users everywhere.”

Mockingbirds in fickle climates sing fancier tunes
To see if there was a correlation between climate and song, Botero searched sound archives around the world and embarked on a solo tour of the southern hemisphere to record bird songs in the wild. Armed with supersensitive recording equipment, Botero trekked his way through desert, jungle, scree and scrub in search of mockingbirds in song. Botero's recordings − nearly 100 tracks from 29 mockingbird species − will enhance pre-existing sound archives by filling in gaps for species for which high-quality recordings weren't previously available. Back in the States, Botero used computer programs to convert each sound recording − a medley of whistles, warbles, trills and twitters − into a sonogram, or sound graph. Like a musical score, the complex pattern of lines and streaks in a sonogram enables scientists to see and visually analyze sound.

Homer exhibition in Vienna’s Papyrus Museum
A major exhibition titled: "The Phenomenon Homer in Papyri, Manuscripts and Prints" on display at the Austrian National Library (ONB), Papyrus Museum in Vienna is dedicated to the ancient Greek poet Homer, the "greatest poet of all times". The exhibition, which will run until Jan. 15, 2010, was inaugurated on Thursday by Austrian Minister of Science and Research Johannes Hahn at the Hofburg Old Imperial Palace where the museum is housed.

'Golden Age' comics fetch plenty of green
Here's the difference between Ralph Chicorel and most of the rest of us who bought comic books as kids. He took loving care of his comics, while we were bending, tearing and getting jelly stains on ours. We eventually tossed ours in the trash. Ralph saved his, or at least some, way into adulthood. The payoff came Thursday when the 78-year-old Menomonee Falls man sold 72 comics from the 1930s and 1940s for $518,000, less the 6% he pays the auction house.

Documentary features Ohio cartoonist Russell
Famed Ohio cartoonist Philip Craig Russell visited Ohio State May 12 as the subject of a new documentary highlighting his illustrious career. Director Wayne Alan Harold introduced his film "Night Music: The Art of P. Craig Russell" at the Wexner Center for the Arts to an audience of about 30 people. The documentary offered viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the acclaimed comic book artist's 36-year career in his own words. "The film presents an insightful portrait of comic book art," said David Filipi, curator of film and video at the Wexner Center.

National Digital Library Opens New Doors
After seven years of preparation, the Digital Library opens at the National Library of Korea in Seocho, Seoul on Monday. Keyword searches on its Web site enable users to access 116 million source materials located in libraries both in Korea and overseas. Of course it would not be possible for one digital library to allow human knowledge to automatically advance by leaps and bounds. Searching for knowledge and information at libraries and absorbing them still requires skill, effort and luck, whether in Chaucer's time or today.

No Sikh reference books with us: Antony
The Ministry of Defence has closed the chapter of the rare books of Sikh Reference Library of the Golden Temple taken away by the Army after Operation Blue Star in 1984, saying that the Army had returned the entire material to the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC). In reply to a question of Tarlochan Singh, Rajya Sabha member from Haryana, AK Antony, Minister of Defence, has stated: “I have been informed that after the Operation, various books/items of Sikh Reference Library (Research) and Sikh Itihas Research Board were handed over to SGPC representative by the Army. Hence, the SGPC has no claim against anyone, the Army or the government”.

High and mighty
Some books in a world famous Oxford University library are now out of reach without moving an inch. That's because safety officials at the university have decided that using stepladders to reach rare books and manuscripts on the top shelf in Duke Humphrey's reading room at the Bodleian Library presents a serious safety hazard. Library administrator Laurence Benson said he's perplexed by the action. And he says the library isn't about to move the collection: "The library would prefer to keep the books in their original historic location—where they have been safely consulted for 400 years prior to the instructions from the health and safety office."

Rare Books in the News: May 21, 2009

U.S. National Archives offers reward for missing hard drive
The U.S. National Archives on Wednesday said it is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of a missing hard drive that contains personal information of former Clinton administration staff and visitors. The small portable hard drive was being kept as a backup, the National Archives explained in a question-and-answer document (PDF) on its Web site. It held copies of about 113 four-millimeter tape cartridges of "snapshots" of hard-drive contents of employees who left the Executive Office of the President.

Lawmakers Tracking Loss of Clinton-Era Data
The acting director of the National Archives and Records Administration will not appear tomorrow before a House subcommittee to explain the possible theft of a hard drive with one terabyte's worth of sensitive data from the Clinton administration, according to congressional staffers. Lawmakers instead will receive regular updates from the NARA inspector general's office as they continue their investigation. Members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee learned yesterday that the hard drive went missing from the National Archives facility in College Park, Md. sometime between last October and March of this year. In response, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking member on the panel, asked that acting archivist Adrienne Thomas appear tomorrow before a previously scheduled subcommittee hearing on NARA matters.

A Brief History of The National Archives
Acting National Archives director Adrienne Thomas is being pilloried for Tuesday's revelation that the library has misplaced a hard drive containing enough Clinton administration data—including Social Security numbers, addresses, and Secret Service operating procedures—to fill literally millions of books. But important government documents have walked out of the storied library before—and not just in a Nicolas Cage movie. Despite a security system worthy of an adventure flick, the National Archives and Records Administration has long been a prime target for pilfering.

A Book Grab by Google
This settlement should not be approved. The promise of a rich and democratic digital future will be hindered by monopolies. Laws and the free market can support many innovative, open approaches to lending and selling books. We need to focus on legislation to address works that are caught in copyright limbo. And we need to stop monopolies from forming so that we can create vibrant publishing environments. We are very close to having universal access to all knowledge. Let's not stumble now.

The Evolving Google Library
To some, Google's mammoth book digitization project with university libraries is the ultimate combination of technology and scholarship, potentially making millions of volumes available to audiences that could never visit major research libraries in person. To others, the project represents a dangerous centralization and corporatization of content. Complicating the debate (and obviously there are many viewpoints somewhere in between) has been an uncertainty about how Google would make the new library available. On Wednesday, Google and the University of Michigan announced new details -- and while the plan for pricing was still vague, the basics of the model became more clear.

Books Are at the Vanguard
One of the largest and most admired companies of the Internet era—a $32 billion behemoth—was not only launched upon consumers' love of books; well into its second decade, media remain the foundation—56 percent—of its sales. Amazon (AMZN) is that company. And the stunning success of its Kindle electronic reader suggests that books, not newspapers or magazines, may be the basis for the future of writing as a business. At the early May press conference announcing the third version of the Kindle reader, Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and CEO, told the audience that e-book sales had become 35 percent of Amazon's sales when an electronic edition was available. More than that, this stunning figure was "coincident" with the launch of the Kindle 2 in February. Way back then, e-book sales were 13 percent of book sales when an electronic version was available. In less than three months, with the introduction of the Kindle 2, electronic books sales had nearly tripled.

Louis XVI's Final Testament Found
Louis was found guilty of treason and guillotined in 1793 and the manuscript disappeared shortly afterwards. However, Gerard Lheritier, a French expert in ancient letters, traced it to a collector in the U.S. "The collector agreed to part with it in exchange for several million euros," said Lheritier. The testament will go on public display by the end of the month at Paris' Museum of Letters and Manuscripts.

Printing press' history treated to very modern preservation
A pioneer printing press at Pompallier Mission in Russell, which began its glory days right after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, is entering the 21st century by way of an electronic database this week. The New Zealand Historic Places Trust has started a project to electronically catalogue historic items held throughout the country at its properties. Five cataloguers started work at Pompallier Mission last Monday. The data will be made available online when the project is completed, meaning artefacts like the press will be accessible to New Zealanders as never before. Thousands of items relating to the Pompallier Mission printery and to the people who later occupied the building when it became a private home are held in the historic building on the Russell waterfront, now restored to its original purpose.

UNM Libraries Purchases Lee Marmon Photo Collection
Lee Marmon, America’s best known and most widely respected Native American photographer, recently sold his original photos as well as his personal papers to the Center for Southwest Research and Special Collections (CSWR). More than 65,000 images were included in the acquisition. CSWR director Mike Kelly worked many months to arrange the purchase for the library. "The Marmon photos are a spectacular record of New Mexico Native peoples and the New Mexico landscape. We could not be more thrilled to keep this collection in New Mexico,” says Kelly.

Hernandez to Speak at Prestigious Bible Conference
As the school year comes to an end, Bethel Assistant Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies Juan Hernandez Jr., Ph.D., is preparing to be the only junior American scholar to present his work at the prestigious Codex Sinaiticus Conference, hosted by the British Library in London. This international collaboration aims to put the entire Codex Sinaiticus, which is the original manuscript containing the Christian Bible in Greek, in digital format and make it globally accessible for the first time in history. Out of Codex Sinaiticus’s original 730 parchment leaves, only 400 are known today. They are scattered amongst the British Library, Leipzig University Library in Germany, St. Catherine’s Monastery, and the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg. These four institutions are collaborating to bring together all the surviving leaves in a digital format.

Female scribe to pen Reconstructionist shul’s new Torah
Where this Torah will differ is in size and weight. Slightly smaller, and therefore lighter, it will be more easily handled when used by women and bnei/bnot mitzvah-aged children. Other women – all Montreal artisans – will design and create the covers, as well as the tie, pointer and crowns for the scroll. “The empowerment of women in Jewish life has brought new energy and creativity to the life of our people,” said Dorshei Emet’s Rabbi Ron Aigen. “Over the past 30 years, women have become rabbis and cantors, but it is only now that the soferet… has emerged as a legitimate role for women.” Torat Imeinu – The Torah of our Mothers, as the project is known, was created as a tribute to all women.

Professor emeritus assembling library on history of archipelago
Most presidential libraries are filled with papers, documents and other records pertaining to the tenure of a particular leader. The presidential library professor emeritus Larry Bowman is assembling, however, contains books, maps, periodicals, and other rare materials covering the history of the Seychelles, an archipelago of 115 islands in the western Indian Ocean. He got the assignment about a year ago, after receiving an order from the chief of staff to James Michel, the current president of Seychelles, for about 50 items from Bowman’s antiquarian catalogue and web business. “The order quickly evolved into what he really wanted,” Bowman says, which was to hire him to create a collection for an official presidential library in State House, a recently renovated colonial structure built by the British around 1910 on the largest island, Mahe.

Technology allows you to be a part of history in Obama book
After ordering the book at Amazon, you'll receive an e-mail with a link that takes you to the Time Capsule website. You'll have 10 days to customize the book there or it will get shipped as is. You get to write a dedication, and your name appears on the cover (and an inside page) as one of the authors, next to Smolan and co-project director Jennifer Erwitt. You can upload one image to appear on the back cover and another that will appear on a page next to pictures of Sean Penn, George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities. There's also a place-holder for your kid's Obama-related artwork.

Help Write the Story of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights
Over the next 12 months, the Content Advisory Committee (CAC) for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights will be holding sessions across Canada to provide Canadians with the opportunity to help develop the content of the Museum. The aim of these sessions is to identify stories and perspectives that can be incorporated into the Museum, and to receive feedback on how the Museum can establish an ongoing dialogue with Canadians on important human rights issues. "Knowledge of the evolution of human rights in Canada is essential in order to better understand both our failures and our successes," stated Mr. Yude Henteleff, C.M., Q.C., LL.D. (Hon) Chair of the Content Advisory Committee. "In turn this will, hopefully, lead us to overcome the forces of discrimination, oppression and inequality. The input we will be receiving from CAC's sessions across Canada over the next 12 months will tell the Museum how and what it must share in order to achieve those objectives."

Rare Books in the News: May 20, 2009

UK to 'unroll' papyrus scrolls buried by Vesuvius
Now, a computer scientist from the University of Kentucky hopes that modern digital technology will allow him to peer inside two of the fragile scrolls — without physically opening them — and unlock secrets they have held for almost 2,000 years. Brent Seales, the Gill professor of engineering in UK's computer science department, will use an X-Ray CT scanning system to collect interior images of the scrolls' rolled-up pages. Then, he and his colleagues hope to digitally "unroll" the scrolls on a computer screen so scholars can read them.

Papyrus project teaches students about past, future
BYU students and faculty were encouraged to join together on projects in Tuesday’s forum titled, “Lighting Vesuvius: Observations & Lessons from an Infamous Volcano.” “Our projects tend to be stronger the more we pursue mentoring environments where students and faculty work together for good effect,” said Roger Macfarlane, an associate professor in the Department of Humanities, Classics and Comparative Literature. This cooperation specifically regarded BYU’s work on the Herculaneum Papyrus Project, which began at the Maxwell Institute and is now housed in the College of Humanities.

The Walters Art Museum Digitally Analyzes Art Using GE Technology
"We X-ray works of art because it allows us to better understand them,” said Terry Drayman-Weisser, Director of Conservation and Technical Research at the Walters. "An X-ray can help us determine the best way to preserve the piece, understand how it was made and has changed or deteriorated over time. It is also a useful tool in evaluating authenticity and whether parts were added later.” The Walters uses GE’s digital radiography to analyze pieces such as ancient vases, bronze statues and paintings. The CR50P uses flexible imaging plates, enabling the Walters’ team to curve a plate on the inside of a three-dimensional object, such as a vase or statue, to analyze one side at a time. Occasionally, an X-ray of a painting reveals a different painting underneath. In one instance at the Walters, the painting underneath could be dated to a later period than the style of the painting on top, indicating that the painting on top was a fake.

Rushmore to add laser scans, digital mapping to its preservation arsenal
And soon the National Park Service expects to add a new dimension to its preservation of the mountain carving. Within a year, officials hope to laser scan and digitally map the entire surface of the mountain carving as well as the Hall of Records, the unfinished chamber carved in the canyon wall behind the sculpture. Duane Bubac, Director of Cultural Resources and Facilities at Mount Rushmore National Memorial, said the mapping project will give the National Park Service detailed information about the features of Mount Rushmore. And the data could later be used to create virtual, up-close tours of Mount Rushmore.

New Conservation Lab Saves Printed Matter
To leave a legacy, the lab will do more than repair the collection. "The Conservation Lab will afford Brooklyn College the opportunity to offer students enrolled in our interdisciplinary Archival Studies and Community Documentation (ASCD) minor a comprehensive course, cum workshop, in book and paper conservation," said Professor Anthony M. Cucchiara, College archivist and coordinator of the ASCD minor, which is offered by the History Department in conjunction with the library. "Generally, such a concentration is available only to graduate students seeking library master’s degrees or certificates in archival management," noted Cucchiara, who heads the Archives and Special Collections. "Brooklyn College is the first in the City University of New York—and the first nationally—to offer this specialized course of study to undergraduates."

Did Shakespeare Want To Suppress His Sonnets?
Heylin first became interested in the sonnets when he was researching a book on bootleggers in the music industry. Along the way, he discovered that a lot of Shakespeare's plays had been bootlegged — which got him wondering about the Bard's shorter works. As Heylin tells it, publishing was a murky, anarchic business during the Elizabethan age. It wasn't hard for an enterprising publisher to get his hands on a manuscript without the author's approval, and Heylin believes that Thomas Thorpe, the man who published the sonnets, did just that.

A Festival of Books: Christie's Offers a Collection of Illustrated Fete Books
Encompassing over five hundred of the greatest and most visually arresting illustrations in the history of festivals and ceremonies, The Paul and Marianne Gourary Collection of Illustrated Fête Books will be offered for sale at Christie's on June 12, 2009. This is the first specialized auction sale of this magnitude to ever take place in America in this important field of bibliophily. The collection covers many famous artists of the Renaissance and Baroque periods such as Ludovico Burnacini, Jacques Callot, Jean Cousin, Stefano della Bella, Nicolaus Hozenberg, and Jean Goujon. These sumptuous works record births, baptisms, weddings, anniversaries, elections, coronations, peace treaties, funerals, religious and secular festivals, theater performances, fireworks displays, and other official, political, artistic and musical productions.

Guilty Plea from Penna. Man in Ebay ''Autographed'' Books Scam
A Reading, Pa. man has pleaded guilty in federal court in Philadelphia to a book fraud -- forging famous authors' signatures and selling the books on Ebay as signed originals. Prosecutor Mark Dubnoff says there were at least a thousand victims over several years, and defendant Forrest Smith, 47, took in over $300,000 from the scam. According to Dubnoff, Smith bought first-edition books by such authors at Truman Capote, James Michener, Norman Mailer, Tom Clancy, Tom Wolfe and others, forged their signatures, and then sold them at inflated prices on Ebay.

Photo archive move completed
An archive featuring 50 million images – 800,000 of which are online – has been established at a new facility outside Paris. The Sygma Preservation and Access Facility can be used by publishers, photographers, researchers, iconographers, historians and others who work in creative industries globally. The Sygma collection documents historical world figures and events and comprises nine separate collections from the second half of the 20th century. The 1950s and 1960s imagery includes photography from Apis, Universal Photo, Interpress, Spitzer, Reporter Associés and other agencies.

Dictionary Society to Visit Library, Cordell Collection
"The Cordell Collection is very keen on having the Dictionary Society of North America to visit it a second time to celebrate the impending 40th anniversary," David Vancil, head of special collections at the library, said. "Mr. Cordell was involved in the society himself and counted the members as his close personal friends. What better way to celebrate it them to have them visit and see what's happened over the last decades? We're especially happy to have his family members join us." Nearly 13,000 volumes of dictionaries and word books make up the Cordell Collection. "I've been working with it for 20 years and I haven't found another one that's close," Vancil said. "This particular collection is the world's largest of dictionaries and word books."

Yale Daily News Using Digital Archive
Whether they're deadline-driven journalists in need of background, nostalgia-afflicted alumni or dust-adverse students, all now have access to more than 25,000 pages of the Yale Daily News to use as they please, thanks to a joint effort by the Yale University Library and the Oldest College Daily foundation (the alumni arm of the Daily News). Beginning with the newspaper's earliest editions from 1878-79, Yale librarians have gone on to digitize Daily News editions from World Wars I and II, the "radical '60s" and the early years of the former president A. Bartlett Giamatti's administration, all of it fully indexed and keyword-searchable.

Save Those Commencement Photos! The University Archives Collects Them
“The USC University Archives preserve the heritage and institutional memory of our university,” said Claude Zachary, university archivist. “We collect, preserve, and make available records—including books, files and manuscripts, USC periodicals and newspapers, ephemera, photographs, sound and video recordings—having permanent value in documenting the history of USC. In many cases these are unique items that otherwise would be lost.” The photo of McCluggage and Joker is also part of the USC Libraries Digital Archive, where it can be readily retrieved by researchers tracing the history of the university and the Trojan family. The USC-related images in the digital archive run the spectrum from classic sports images to Greek and student functions to the architecture found on the University Park and Health Sciences campuses.

Postage Stamp to Mark World Book and Copyright Day
Tomorrow, 20 May, the Vatican Publishing House will issue a postage stamp (of the value of 60 euro cents), and the corresponding postmark, to celebrate World Book and Copyright Day. The postage stamp shows a sketch by Maria Carmela Perrini depicting the "Codex Vaticanus".