Month: January 2014
-
Fabulously Illustrated and Easy to Carry
Just a quick post to direct readers to my colleague Nancy Shawcross’s write-up of a fascinating new acquisition here at Penn: http://www.library.upenn.edu/rbm/featured/Janet.html In the last decade of the eighteenth century–amid some of the most tumultuous political times in the history of France–Pierre-Étienne Janet publishes an almanac of love songs in a richly-decorated binding. There is…
-
My Rare Book Cataloging Adventure: A Student’s Perspective – The Sequel
Written by Kevin Lee, archival processor Hello again fellow libronauts, and Happy New Year! A year ago I wrote a post detailing my experiences as a student worker in rare book cataloging. I had only been on the job for approximately three months when I wrote that. Now that I have twelve more months of…
-
One fewer frustrating book stamp
There’s nothing more frustrating to catalogers and bibliographers than a partially legible book inscription or stamp. While a completely smudged, faint, or illegible provenance marking might be disappointing it at least has an air of impossibility. Those that have some letters or words clearly rendered can suck hours of time. “So close! If only I…
-
Always check the endpapers
For years scholars (including many from Penn!) have reminded us that print and manuscript cultures are far from exclusive. Printed forms with handwritten additions, handwritten diaries within printed borders, printed books interleaved with as much manuscript as printed text, are just some examples of this inter-mixing. Despite this knowledge though, I’m always delighted to find…