- Mary Hamilton French writes for the NEDCC blog about her recent work to conserve a fifteenth-century manuscript Vitae Augustini from the BPL collections. A really excellent and beautifully illustrated walk through the process.
- News that the Honresfield Library will be sold at Sotheby's across three auctions (see the introduction to the first part, scheduled to be sold in July) prompted much coverage: see Alison Flood's piece in the Guardian and Jennifer Schuessler's in the NYT. A followup piece by Alison Flood for the Guardian reports on the immediate calls from the Brontë Society and others for the collection to be kept intact and made publicly available for research. See also Francesca Collins' post for the Museums Association.
- Stephen Hawking's Cambridge papers and personal memorabilia have been acquired for the British nation, and will be housed at the Cambridge University Library and the Science Museum.
- Hobby Lobby has sued Dirk Obbink to recover some of the $7 million reportedly paid for ancient gospel fragments which Obbink allegedly had stolen. See also the official complaint.
- The National Library of Scotland has acquired a sixteenth-century Perthshire manuscript, the "Chronicle of Foringall."
- Candida Moss has a roundup of some recent book thefts from libraries in the Daily Beast.
- Chiara Betti writes for the St John's College blog about the collection of some 750 copper plates given by Richard Rawlinson to the Bodleian Library. This is an introductory post about a new project to really study this collection for the first time, which promises to be extremely useful!
- From Aaron Pratt, "Paper Pitfalls."
- Notre Dame's Hesburgh Library has acquired a rare early Civil War lithograph of Jefferson Davis metamorphosed into a donkey.
- The Princeton Graphic Arts Collection blog has a roundup of their Pandemic-Times webinars, and also a new post on "Typographic Necrology."
- From Medieval Manuscripts Provenance, "A New Leaf from the Pontigny Copy of Florus & Didymus" and "Otto Ege's 12th-Century Italian Gospel Lectionary."
- Heather Wolfe writes for The Collation, "Malicious Teaseling: Or, how a simple reference question got complicated."
- Over on the Bodleian blog, "A Pirate's Life?"
- The Franz Kafka collection held by the National Library of Israel is now online in digital form.
- From Adam Smyth at TEXT!, "Family Bibles."
- The Middle Temple Library has another provenance mystery for this month.
Upcoming Auctions
- Music: Books & Manuscripts at Sotheby's London ends on 8 June.
- Early Printing, Americana (Printed and Manuscript) at New England Book Auctions on 8 June.
- TCM Presents ... Mavericks at Bonhams Los Angeles on 8 June.
- Travel Books, Maps & Atlases at Forum Auctions on 9 June.
- Rare Books Signature Auction at Heritage Auctions on 9–10 June.
- Americana – Zamorano 80 – Travel – World History – Cartography at PBA Galleries on 10 June.
- Bibliothèque Théâtrale du Comte Emmanuel D'André – Livres at Manuscrits at Binoche et Giquello on 11 June.
- Summer Auction at Arader Galleries on 12 June.
