Apologies for not getting a post up last week; as usual the New York Book Fair weekend proved too busy to get much written. It was lovely to see many friends at the book fair(s), and if you have a chance to get to the Grolier Club for the absolutely excellent Aldus show before it comes down on 25 April, do go and see it.
- Rebecca Rego Barry has a rundown of the book fairs at the Fine Books Blog, while Greg Gibson at Bookman's Log writes about the "dueling" shadow shows (I went to both, and must say the venue for the Getman show was a real winner; it made browsing the booths much more pleasant).
- At The Collation, Sarah Werner takes a look at the use of printed cancel slips as a method of correcting printing mistakes.
- Entrepreneur John Rogers, who bought up the photo archives of several major American, Australian, and New Zealand newspapers (in exchange for money and digital copies of the photos) reportedly faces up to a dozen lawsuits and his business has been raided by the FBI, Brian Lamber reports for MinnPost.
- More on that unpublished Jupiter Hammon poem from the N-YHS blog.
- An exhibition at the Library of Congress on early American printing opens on 4 June and will run until 2 January 2016. The show features two copies of the 1640 Bay Psalm Book, among other treasures.
- There's an update from the CBC about the aftermath of the disastrous fire at Moscow's INION in January. Library staff and volunteers are still packing and removing damaged books from the site.
- Jennifer Schuessler reports for the NYTimes on the possible shutdown of the Dictionary of American Regional English due to funding shortfalls. More from the Boston Globe.
- Work by UVA profs Chad Wellmon and Brad Pasanek to create a "digital network of print materials created during the Enlightenment" is highlighted in UVA Today.
- The Royal Archives is digitizing some 350,000 pages from the private papers of George III.
- Also from Jennifer Schuessler, a report on Terry Alford's new biography of John Wilkes Booth, Fortune's Fool (OUP), and Alford's work with amateur Booth researchers.
- The manuscript of Don McLean's "American Pie" sold for $1.2 million at Christie's on 7 April.
- Erik Kwakkel has a new piece on how people sent short messages to each other in earlier centuries: "Texting in Medieval Times."
- The Outer Banks Sentinel reports on some new research which suggests that the Roanoke colonists may well have relocated to Hatteras Island (as has been long thought).
- Some 450 artifacts made by Japanese-Americans in WWII internment camps (and later given to a historian writing about the art created in the camps) were withdrawn from a New Jersey auction this week following online protests and threats of legal action.
- Ralph Blumenthal reports on the Stanford Literary Lab's Mapping Emotions in Victorian London project.
- Book collector and Melbourne barrister John Emmerson has bequeathed his library to the State Library of Victoria. The collection, numbering more than 5,000 volumes, includes a number of important English imprints from the Civil War period, books from Charles I's personal library, &c. The bequest also funds fellowships for visiting scholars to work with the collection. [h/t Anthony Tedeschi]
- Literary Hub has launched.
- In the THE, Christopher Bigsby writes on the changing nature(s) of libraries.
- From the WSJ, a report by Steven Rosenbush, "In This Digital Age, Book Collecting is Still Going Strong."
- At Inside Adams, Julie Miller writes on Jefferson's manuscript chart on the appearances of fruits and vegetables in the markets of Washington, D.C. (compiled while Jefferson was president).
- On the JHI blog, Maryan Patton writes on "The Early History of Arabic Printing in Europe."
- A key Alan Turing notebook was sold at Bonhams New York on 13 April for $1,025,000.
- The current Houghton Library exhibition, Starry Messengers: Signs and Science from the Skies, closes on 2 May. As a sneek peek, they've posted a short video conversation between curator John Overholt, Sara Schechner (Curator of Harvard's Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments) and Owen Gingerich.
- There's an excerpt from Alex Johnson's new book Improbable Libraries online at the Guardian.
- Johnson's Dictionary is highlighted on the John J. Burns Library's Blog.
- More than a hundred professors at the University of Oregon have called on the university administration to reinstate archivist James Fox, who was placed on administrative leave following the release of confidential university data to a professor.
- Abbie Weinberg writes at The Collation about the sorts of bibliographical thread-pulling expeditions that provide hours of entertainment for those of us who enjoy such things (and utter, hair-pulling-worthy frustration for others, I'm sure!).
- Over at The New Antiquarian, John Waite profiles a rare edition of The New England Primer, one printed during the 1780s which contains a portrait of Washington possibly engraved by Paul Revere.
- Sarah Henary profiles the legacy of Anthony Trollope at The Millions.
- Writing for the Guardian, Calum Marsh asks "Can you really make a living by selling used books on Amazon for a penny?"
Reviews
- Mary Pilon's The Monopolists; review by Sarah Wise in the Telegraph.
- Deborah Cadbury's Princes at War; review by Philip Ziegler in the Telegraph.
- Jon Ronson's So You've Been Publicly Shamed; review by Choire Sicha in the NYTimes.
- Cassandra Good's Founding Friendships; review by Tom Cutterham at The Junto.
- Robert Bevan reviews the new Weston Library in Architects Journal.
