- From Jason Rhody, "How to Fight for Federal Support of Cultural Research and Why It Matters."
- Another round of sales from Pierre Bergé's library was held in Paris on 8–9 November, resulting in total sales of €4.8 million. A Flaubert travel diary attracted much pre-sale attention, including coverage in the Guardian (it sold for nearly €540,000).
- November's Rare Book Monthly articles include a profile of map dealer Barry Ruderman, a tribute to Bob Fleck, and a report on the guilty verdict in Michael Danaher's trial for the murder of bookseller Adrian Greenwood. More on the latter from the BBC.
- Wayne Wiegand writes for Inside Higher Ed about how contemporary LIS "research" has shortchanged libraries.
- Some important job searches: AAS is hiring an Associate Librarian, UVA seeks an Associate University Librarian for Special Collections & Archives, and the BPL is looking for a Rare Books and Manuscripts Librarian.
- Newly launched, EMoBookTrade, which looks quite interesting indeed.
- A task force at MIT has issued a preliminary "Future of Libraries" report, which "contains general recommendations intended to develop 'a global library for a global university,' while strengthening the library system’s relationship with the local academic community and public sphere."
- Vic Zoschak looks back at this year's Boston Book Fair.
- The ABAA's Women in Bookselling Initiative launched in Boston during the fair.
- Rick Russack offers a review of the events around the book fair for Antiques and the Arts Weekly.
- The University of Chicago has digitized 68 Biblical manuscripts from the Edgar J. Goodspeed Manuscript Collection.
- Several major US and UK institutions have agreed to cooperate in the digitization of the papers of George III.
- Watch a talk by Tom Mole, "Scott in Stone: The Scott Monument in the Victorian Pantheon," delivered to the Edinburgh Sir Walter Scott Club.
- A first edition of the first Harry Potter book sold for £35,000 this week.
- Based on some fairly tangled legal reasoning, a Connecticut judge ordered that 252 disputed books from Maurice Sendak's estate will go to the author's estate, with another 88 going to the Rosenbach of the Free Library of Philadelphia. Both sides may appeal. More coverage from Smithsonian and the NYTimes.
- Author Philip Roth is donating his 4,000-volume library to the Newark Public Library.
- Damage to a nearby building from a massive earthquake has closed the National Library of New Zealand for the time being.
- Tom Brokaw's papers and archive will go to the University of Iowa.
- At The Taper, Brandon Butler posts about the recent goings-on at the Copyright Office.
- The Portland Press Herald interviews Don Lindgren of Rabelais.
- One of 145 manuscripts stolen in 1985 from the Biblioteca Passerini-Landi in Piacenza was recovered after being spotted for sale online. More than half of the other manuscripts have also been recovered over the years. More from the BBC.
- Book scout Martin Stone has died. More from Bookride.
- Chicago's Lutheran School of Theology has returned a 9th-century New Testament to the Greek Orthodox Church.
- From Stephanie Kingsley in Perspectives, a "quick study" on book history.
- Rob Koehler writes for the JHIBlog on novel-reading in the early republic.
- Watch a time-lapse video of 52,000 books being reshelved in the NYPL's Rose Main Reading Room.
- Seven volumes missing from the London Library since the 1950s were recently returned after being found during an estate appraisal.
- The Watkinson Library has acquired an 1839 Audubon letter to Robert Havell.
- Stephanie Jamieson writes for the NLS blog about identifying platinotype photographs.
- Bookseller Ken Karmiole has given $100,000 to the Book Club of California to endow a lecture series in the history of the book trade in California and the West.
- Éditions des Saints Pères is publishing a limited facsimile edition of the manuscript of Jane Eyre, with illustrations by Edmund Garrett.
- Gregory Schneider reports for the WaPo about the State Library of Virginia's efforts to collect and scan Civil War documents from family collections across the commonwealth. Wonderful story.
- The director of Moscow's Library of Ukrainian Literature has been put on trial for "inciting ethnic hatred against Russians" (i.e. "disseminating banned literature classed as extremist"). Natalia Sharina is also charged with embezzling library funds; she maintains that all charges are politically motivated.
- The OUP blog features an essay by New Oxford Shakespeare editor Gary Taylor on Shakespeare's collaborators.
- National Geographic reports on Robert Berlo's important collection of more than 12,000 road maps.
- The second part of Gordon Hollis' "Book Collecting in the United States" series is up on the ABAA blog. Part One.
- Joel Fry, curator at Bartram's Garden, is seeking information on copies of the first edition of John Bartram's Travels (Philadelphia, 1791) for an ongoing census.
- The DPLA's Archival Description Working Group has released a new whitepaper on aggregating and representing archival collections.
- One of the most amusing library blog posts in a long time: "A Raven Named Sir Nevermore?"
Reviews
- The Morgan Library's Charlotte Brontë exhibition; review by Francine Prose in the NYRB.
- Anne Trubek's The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting; review by Lucy Ferriss at Lingua Franca.
- Frances Wilson's Guilty Thing; review by John Sutherland in the NYTimes.
- David Skal's Something in the Blood; review by Jason Zinoman in the NYTimes.
- John Crowley's new edition of The Chemical Wedding by Christian Rosencreutz: A Romance in Eight Days by Johann Valentin Andreae; review by Peter Bebergal for the New Yorker's Page-Turner blog.
- John Simpson's The Word Detective and John McWhorter's Words on the Move; review by Lynne Truss in the NYTimes.
- Colin Dickey's Ghostland; review by Rachel Monroe in the LARB.
