- Brenda Cronin reports for the Wall Street Journal on the renovation of the Beinecke Library, which is set to reopen this fall.
- Allan Young and Patrick Scott are working on a census of Robert Burns' first book, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1786), and they issued a public call for assistance on ExLibris this week. Please help if you can. Project background.
- The Osher Map Library's digitization of maps from its collections is highlighted in the "Future Tense" series at Slate. The piece gets at both the possibilities and shortcomings of digital presentation.
- Rebecca Romney posts about an 1872 self-promotional poster designed by Walt Whitman to drum up sales of his books.
- New to me: a YouTube video of Lisa Baskin talking about her collection, which is now at Duke.
- Heather Wolfe has a Collation post up about how another recent discovery seems to clarify some longstanding questions about several heraldic manuscripts featuring Shakespeare.
- Recent work has revealed a great deal about the provenance of a fragment of the 36-line Bible in the Scheide Library at Princeton.
- The SHARP book awards were announced this week in Paris. Congratulations to the winners!
- A call for individual paper proposals for the Society of Early Americanists' meeting next March in Tulsa is now live, and I do encourage anyone interested to submit. I've been to several of these meetings (though I missed the last one), and have enjoyed them immensely.
- Keith Houston's new book, The Book, comes out next month. On his blog, he recounts a visit to Edinburgh papermaker Chrissie Heughan.
- A Brontë family book containing an early manuscript poem by Charlotte has been purchased by the Brontë Society. More.
- The website for "Beyond Words," a cross-institutional exhibition of medieval manuscripts in Boston, is now live. Along with the exhibitions, there are an impressive number of events coming up this fall.
- There's a report in the Business Tribune that a proposed tax measure in Oregon could spell an end to the venerable Powell's Books.
- The Folger's Digital Anthology of Early Modern English Drama launched.
- A collection of more than 300 Dick Whittington-related items was bequeathed to London's Guildhall Library.
- Princeton has announced the books and manuscripts acquired at the Pirie sale in December.
- Rare Books Digest has an interview with Sandra Hindman of Les Enluminures.
- Sarah Werner went looking for open digital collections. Here's what she found.
- Jerry Morris has been working on the library of lexicographer Joseph E. Worcester.
- AAS intern Dylan McDonough writes about his work this summer on the AAS Printers' File.
Reviews
- William Egginton's The Man Who Invented Fiction; review by Daniel Hahn in the Guardian.
- Lucy Sussex's Blockbuster; review by Michael Dirda in the WaPo.
- Geoffrey Cowan's Let the People Rule; review by Thomas Curwen in the LATimes.
- John Guy's Elizabeth; review by Anna Whitelock in the TLS.
