- There's an article in today's Globe about the Adams-Jefferson Libraries conference, which starts tonight at 5 p.m. with a speech by Ted Widmer at the BPL.
- Michael Suarez has been named the new head of Rare Book School, to succeed the retiring Terry Belanger. Suarez is currently J. A. Kavanaugh Professor of English at Fordham University and as Fellow and Tutor in English at Campion Hall, Oxford University, and the co-editor of The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Volume 5, 1695-1830, to be published in September, and co-general editor of The Oxford Companion to the Book, expected in January 2010. Congratulations and good luck!
- Laura's got a great look at the topic of her dissertation, the Gildbook of the Barber-Surgeons of York and some other medieval medical texts.
- Ray Bradbury has taken to the barricades in support of library funding in California.
- Rick Ring posted a three-part transcription of Lawrence C. Wroth's 1939 series of articles "The Press in the United States: An Ideal Tercentenary Exhibition." Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. A delightful look at early printing in America.
- News this week that The Papers of Andrew Jackson will be added to the University of Virginia Press's Rotunda project, which offers digital editions of the papers of George Washington, the Adams family, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Dolley Madison, as well as the Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution. The seven already-published volumes of Jackson papers will soon appear in the digital clearinghouse.
- ALA President Jim Rettig requests feedback on the report [PDF] of the ALA's Special Education Task Force, as well as recent recommendations [PDF] on accreditation. Comments are being accepted via the new Standards Review blog.
- Not really bookish, but a good idea. Via Rabelais Books, word for folks in the Portland, ME area that they'll be able to join an apple CSA this fall: "Each share will include 30-40 varieties of rare, interesting and highly flavored apples over the course of the season with a wide range of uses, appearances, histories and tastes. Each week you will receive a mix of dessert apples (apples meant to be eaten fresh) and culinary apples." This sounds great, and I wish I lived close enough to Portland to take advantage of it!
- On the State Library of Massachusetts blog, special collections librarian Katie Chase writes about archivists and pencils. This post circulated around our department on Friday, since most of us also have our own little pencil quirks (my major ones include that the pencils left out for the readers to use must always be pointy-side up and extremely sharp, and that I pretty much always have to have a mechanical pencil somewhere on my person, since I'm less likely to stab myself with one of those). And I agree entirely with Katie - thumbs way down on electric pencil sharpeners.
- Over at The Millions, C. Max Magee takes a look at the Amazon Alphabet (the auto-fill suggestions that pop up in the search box when you type each letter). Very clever!
- The Guardian notes that the BL has digitized a large collection of 19th-century newspapers. Searches are free, but there is a fee for downloading.
- A copy of the first volume of the first collection edition of the Federalist Papers sold for $80,000 in an online auction this week. It had been purchased for $7 at a flea market nineteen years ago.
- In the Telegraph, Gary Dexter examines the origin of Swift's title Gulliver's Travels.
Reviews
- William E. Cain reviews Jonathan Bate's Soul of the Age: A Biography of the Mind of William Shakespeare in the Boston Globe.
- In the WSJ, Aram Bakshian reviews Alex Storozynski's The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Age of Revolution.
- Gina Bellafante reviews The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet in the NYTimes.
