- Erik Kwakkel and Giulio Menna have launched a new website, Quill: Books Before Print.
- Philip Palmer writes on the Clark Library blog (The Clog) about manuscript captions added to early woodcuts and engravings.
- The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has partially reversed the GSU e-reserves decision handed down in May 2012. Jen Howard has a thorough report in the Chronicle. The appeals court found that the lower court judge had incorrectly weighed the four factors used to gauge fair use and returned the case for further examination. More on this decision from Kevin Smith.
- The Friends of Bangor Public Library have recognized collectibles dealer Paul Zebiak for his role in returning stolen posters and photographs to the library. Insider thief Russell Graves is serving a six-month jail sentence for the thefts.
- A new open-access journal of special collections, The Reading Room, launched this week.
- There's a report in the NYTimes about 14th-century birch-bark documents found in mud near Novgorod. More than a thousand such documents have been uncovered so far.
- A 31-year-old Bethesda, MD woman, Christina Wimmel, pleaded guilty to the theft of rare books worth more than $30,000 from her neighbor, collector-dealer Julia Jordan. Wimmel was sentenced to probation and the payment of restitution.
- The shortlist for this year's National Book Awards were announced this week.
- Curators at the Huntington Library have found amongst their uncataloged books two sections of the Yongle Encyclopedia (~1562), called the largest book ever printed in China.
- Toni Morrison's papers have been acquired by Princeton University.
- Jeff Peachey writes about the new Mark Landis documentary "Art and Craft" from a conservators' perspective.
- In Lapham's Quarterly, Colin Dickey reconsiders Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando.
- For Ada Lovelace Day this week, Sarah Werner highlighted an exercise she's used with her students to find early women printers in the book trade records. Joe Adelman posed a question about the integration of women printers into the history of early American printing at The Junto.
- The University of South Carolina has acquired the literary archive of Elmore Leonard.
- In the NYRB, Robert A. Schneider, editor of the AHR, replies to Robert Darnton's most recent NYRB essay, and Darnton responds: Overpriced Scholarship: An Exchange.
- Sam Roberts profiles Richard Norton Smith about Smith's new biography of Nelson Rockefeller.
- McSweeney's founder Dave Eggers announced this week that he is transitioning McSweeney's into a non-profit organization.
Reviews
- Steven Pinker's The Sense of Style; review by Charles McGrath in the NYTimes.
- Cary Elwes' As You Wish; review by Alexandra Mullen in the WSJ.
- Jonathan Darman's Landslide; review by Sean Wilentz in the NYTimes.
- A trio of new books on reading in the digital age; review by Jennifer Howard in the TLS.
- Zephyr Teachout's Corruption in America; review by Thomas Frank in the NYTimes.
- Richard Norton Smith's On His Own Terms; review by Robert K. Landers in the WSJ.
