- A new theft case out of Vermont: Patrick J. Rooney, 55, of Colchester pleaded not guilty last month to charges that he stole a page from a 1791 volume of early Vermont records from Burlington's Fletcher Free Library and tried to sell it to UVM's Bailey-Howe Library. Following that discovery an investigation revealed that UVM had previously purchased other material from Rooney, including a volume of Chittenden County Road Commissioner records from 1828-1831 which UVM purchased in May 2013 for $625. Last week Rooney was charged with additional counts relating to the newly-discovered thefts, and he failed to appear for his arraignment on Thursday. Court records revealed that Rooney was linked to prior library thefts in 2001, 1994, and 1991. There's a photo of Rooney here, and the Burlington Police Department has posted a list of documents which may be linked. I'll keep an eye on this, but will appreciate any information others have on this story as well.
- Newly-released, the third volume of Galileo's O: A Galileo Forgery. It's available for pre-order on Amazon, but the text is also available online here as PDFs, which is absolutely fantastic to see.
- From David Whitesell on the UVA Special Collections blog Notes from Under Grounds, an excellent post on book (or manuscript) breaking for pleasure or profit.
- The finalists for the George Washington Book Prize have been announced: Alan Taylor's The Internal Enemy, Jeff Pasley's The First Presidential Contest, and Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy's The Men Who Lost America. The winner will be announced in May.
- Over in the LATimes, Carolyn Kellogg's "Younger book dealers are diving into the antiquarian trade" is a good read.
- Some excellent news for ESTC: UC Riverside has received a $405,000 Mellon grant to fund upgrades and the addition of collaborative features to ESTC.
- On the AAS blog, Molly O'Hagan Hardy on Evans-TCP and some of its potential uses.
- Richard Ovenden has been appointed Bodley's Librarian. Delightful news!
- Author Naomi Novik recently testified to Congress about copyright and fair use. Her arguments are well worth a read.
- Alexis Coe at Buzzfeed has posted her list of eight book folks "killing it online." All folks you should be paying attention to, for sure.
- New from the College Art Association, a report which suggests we're all probably under-using fair use.
- A new exhibit at the Yale Law Library focuses on the use of Reflectance Transformation Imaging to bring out details on early bindings.
- On the APHA blog, Irene Tichenor on the centenary of the death of Theodore Low De Vinne, which will be marked by a Grolier Club exhibition.
- In the New Yorker, George Packer writes on Amazon and its overall impact on the book world.
- The University of Southern California has been awarded a five-year, $1.9 million Mellon grant to support graduate-level training in digital scholarship.
- Steven Koblik, president of the Huntington Library, has announced that he will retire in 2015.
- Seth Parry asks at The Junto, "Are we all book historians now?"
- Over at Open Culture, Josh Jones on the de Caro Galileo forgeries.
- At The Collation, Heather Wolfe on an excellent example of early modern English writing paper.
- Also at The Collation, Goran Proot on the uses of V and U in 17th-century Flemish book titles, and Sarah Werner on transcription style for early modern texts.
- The folks at the Guardian books blog want to know how many books you read at once.
- A fire in some adjacent disused water towers threatened the British National Archives buildings at Kew, but the flames were extinguished quickly.
- OCLC Research issued a report titled "Does Every Research Library Need a Digital Humanities Center?" Dot Porter responds with "What if we do, in fact, know best?"
Reviews
- Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction; reviews by Al Gore in the NYTimes and Robert Darwall in the WSJ.
- David Brion Davis' The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation; reviews by James Oakes in the WaPo Eric Foner in The Nation.
- Rachel Shelden's The Washington Brotherhood; review by Robert Mitchell in the WaPo.
- Tom Zoellner's Train; reviews by Jonathan Yardley in the WaPo and Hector Tobar in the LATimes.
- Joshua Zeitz's Lincoln's Boys; review by Scott Martelle in the LATimes.
- Timothy Brook's Mr. Selden's Map of China; review by Lisa Jardine in the Financial Times.
