Some things have crossed the transom since yesterday's links post that I didn't want to hold off on passing along:
- Slate asked a few well-known writers what font they use to compose in, and why. I was surprised by many of these choices and reasons. I guess I'm pretty boring, I just use the default font 99% of the time (I am, however, partial to Book Antiqua in certain situations).
- The University of Pittsburgh has been selected to receive the European Union depository collection - the most extensive collection of public European Community/European Union documents and publications in North America, according to a press release. Plans are in place to digitize much of the collection, which was created by the Delegation of the European Commission to the U.S. (based in D.C.). [h/t: Rare Book News].
- Much buzz in the biblioworld today about this AP story out of St. Louis, where a book dealer is burning excess stock "to protest what he sees as society's diminishing respect for the printed word." Tom Wayne, whose book-fire burned for about fifty minutes until the fire department made him put it out because he didn't have a permit, pledged a bonfire a month until his extra stock (some 20,000 books) is depleted. Wayne says he tried to give the extra books away, but libraries and thrift shops didn't want them. Meanwhile, "dozens of customers took advantage of Sunday's book-burning, searching through those waiting to go into the fire for last-minute bargains." GalleyCat comments here, leading with headline "Publicity-Hungry Bookseller Lures AP Reporter to Clearance Sale with Flickering Lights." The whole thing seems a bit melodramatic to me, really, but as a marketing ploy, it just might work. Joyce has a post on this too.
- A new issue of Medical History is now online; the articles include several of interest to bibliofolk, which I look forward to reading once the fulltext links are up.
- The University of Otago has mounted a nice online accompaniment to their exhibit "A Quick Stab at the Eighteenth Century."
- From the NYTimes, news that the Book of Kells is going to undergo a two-year intensive laser examination, to "study the chemicals and composition of the book, its pigments, inks and pages of fine vellum."
