Back on 2 November I noted the impending sale of the Edinburgh Royal College of Physicians' copy of Linnaeus' Systema Naturae; the auction took place on Wednesday, and the book fetched £180,500 (not quite reaching the high estimate of £200,000).
The Scotsman reports that the buyer was not identified.
Friday, November 16, 2007
On the Trail of a Lost Manuscript
This is a literary all points bulletin.
The Hampstead & Highgate Express reports on one man's search for a lost manuscript, an unpublished work about artist Robert Seymour, who is best known for illustrating several serial installments of Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers. The 350-page document by Rowland Morewood was last mentioned in a 1927 magazine article. It was then known to be housed in a deedbox.
Stephen Jarvis, in the process of writing a biography of Seymour, says of the missing work "I have little doubt that overall this is the most important archive of material relating to Seymour in the world. I have been trying to track it down for about two years now. The deedbox really is the Holy Grail for my research."
This seems a terrific longshot, but I suppose it's possible that this document has survived out there somewhere. If you know of it, I suspect Mr. Jarvis would be eternally grateful if you'd contact him. His email address is at the end of the article.
[h/t: Shelf:Life]
[Update: See Mr. Jarvis' comment below, which is important.]
The Hampstead & Highgate Express reports on one man's search for a lost manuscript, an unpublished work about artist Robert Seymour, who is best known for illustrating several serial installments of Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers. The 350-page document by Rowland Morewood was last mentioned in a 1927 magazine article. It was then known to be housed in a deedbox.
Stephen Jarvis, in the process of writing a biography of Seymour, says of the missing work "I have little doubt that overall this is the most important archive of material relating to Seymour in the world. I have been trying to track it down for about two years now. The deedbox really is the Holy Grail for my research."
This seems a terrific longshot, but I suppose it's possible that this document has survived out there somewhere. If you know of it, I suspect Mr. Jarvis would be eternally grateful if you'd contact him. His email address is at the end of the article.
[h/t: Shelf:Life]
[Update: See Mr. Jarvis' comment below, which is important.]
Thursday, November 15, 2007
A Boston Biblio-Weekend
It's that time again ... big book-doings around Boston this weekend.
The Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair (ABAA) runs 5-9 p.m. on Friday night, noon-7 p.m. on Saturday and noon-5 p.m. on Sunday, at the Hynes Convention Center. A few highlights have been posted here. Even beyond the impressive exhibitor list there will be a few seminars and tables from some other book-related organizations. I'll be manning the RBMS table on Saturday afternoon, and will be roaming around the fair on Friday night and Sunday.
But that's just the beginning. Over at the Radisson the Boston Books, Print & Ephemera Show will run from 9-4 on Saturday; I'll probably stop in there before the ABAA fair opens that day.
And Skinner's annual Fine Books & Manuscripts Sale kicks off on Sunday at 11 a.m. More on that at some point today or tomorrow, I'll preview some of the interesting lots.
It promises to be a fun, exciting weekend of book and book people (and as of right now, it doesn't even look like it's going to rain or snow).
The Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair (ABAA) runs 5-9 p.m. on Friday night, noon-7 p.m. on Saturday and noon-5 p.m. on Sunday, at the Hynes Convention Center. A few highlights have been posted here. Even beyond the impressive exhibitor list there will be a few seminars and tables from some other book-related organizations. I'll be manning the RBMS table on Saturday afternoon, and will be roaming around the fair on Friday night and Sunday.
But that's just the beginning. Over at the Radisson the Boston Books, Print & Ephemera Show will run from 9-4 on Saturday; I'll probably stop in there before the ABAA fair opens that day.
And Skinner's annual Fine Books & Manuscripts Sale kicks off on Sunday at 11 a.m. More on that at some point today or tomorrow, I'll preview some of the interesting lots.
It promises to be a fun, exciting weekend of book and book people (and as of right now, it doesn't even look like it's going to rain or snow).
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Christie's Pulls Letters from Auction
Bloomberg notes that Christie's has "removed two lots from its Nov. 29 London auction of Russian books and manuscripts after a cultural watchdog agency said they were stolen from the Russian State Military Archives in Moscow." One of the lots included forty letters signed by Marshall Georgi Zhukov, a top Soviet commander in WWII; the letters had been estimated to sell for up to $16,000.
The Federal Agency for Mass Media and Cultural Heritage Protection (RosokhranKultura) asked Christie's to remove the two lots, and the auction house responded "Christie's will not sell any work of art that we know or have reason to believe does not have good title. In regard to the items in question, Christie's is cooperating fully with Russian authorities."
More on this story as necessary.
[h/t Shelf:Life]
The Federal Agency for Mass Media and Cultural Heritage Protection (RosokhranKultura) asked Christie's to remove the two lots, and the auction house responded "Christie's will not sell any work of art that we know or have reason to believe does not have good title. In regard to the items in question, Christie's is cooperating fully with Russian authorities."
More on this story as necessary.
[h/t Shelf:Life]
BPL Having a Rough Week
Whoever's in charge of PR at the Boston Public Library is undoubtedly having a not-very-fun week at work.
On Monday night, Boston's CBS affiliate broadcast this report (video available at the link) on violence in and around the BPL's main branch at Copley Square. They note that for the past three years, police calls to the area have averaged 270 annually, and the story features some police reports of items being stolen inside the library, people fighting or refusing to leave, &c. "The library prides itself on being a true public building open to all. It's a sad sign of the times, but more and more homeless people are finding it to be their last refuge during the day," correspondent Joe Shortsleeves said in the broadcast ... The mission of a treasured landmark is getting lost."
Kathy LaFrazia, the director of St. Francis House - one of the only daytime homeless shelters in Boston - said "These are people that doors are shut to them constantly, and they stay few minutes at a McDonalds but they are moved along, moved along. People get desperate, people get angry." Of course people need a place to go during the day, where they can be warm and safe and left alone. Should that place be the Boston Public Library? In most cases, probably not. There's a much larger issue here that does not involve adding more security at the BPL, or excluding people, but providing adequate space for people who need it.
This story clearly wasn't handled well by the BPL (whether that's their fault or the t.v. station's is unclear). No library official appears on camera in the piece, only a man identified as "an employee," who commented "It's a big concern. Loitering and people hanging out. Run of the mill disruptive behavior sometimes." Mayor Menino told Shortsleeves that the issue has never before been brought to his attention (which, if true, is absolutely unbelievable).
The timing of the story was most interesting, as it came just hours before the library's board of trustees met and voted 7-2 not to renew the contract of BPL president Bernie Margolis. Margolis is not going to go quietly; in a front-page Globe interview today he lambastes Menino for interfering with library operations and not providing adequate funding for library operations. He accused the mayor of running Boston as an "authoritarian state," telling the paper "I didn't think this was Venezuela."
Menino responded by saying "I'm not getting involved in 'he said, she said,'" but his chief of staff, Judith Kurland, fired right back at Margolis. "It's hubris and entitlement, thinking that he owns the job. Nobody owns the job," she told the paper.
Margolis accused the mayor's administration of neglecting services at the city's branch libraries, including a rejecting of a plan to have the branches open on Saturdays in an attempt to help combat youth violence. At a meeting about the proposal earlier this year, Margolis says, the mayor "'dismissed it in the 'the most casual, offhanded way,' saying, 'Oh, those kids just want to be at the beach.'" Ironically, aides to the mayor have made the same charge against Margolis, that he's been "fixated" on the Copley Square facility while neglecting the branches.
I can't speak to the branch libraries, but if the current state of the Copley Square branch is what ten years of "fixation" has resulted in, I'm really worried about the state of things. I barely even use the BPL anymore because service and facilities are so poor - photocopiers are rarely working, the books I request from the closed stacks often cannot be found, and the place really is pretty grungy. Margolis says Menino didn't like that he went around telling people that the library doesn't have enough money, but anyone who walks through the doors ought to be able to see that's the case.
The Globe story reports that while library use has been up in recent years, the budget has increased just .26% per year since 2000, and full-time staff positions have been cut from 603 in 2002 to 483 in 2007.
Anybody who's crazy enough to take Margolis' job is obviously going to have some major issues to deal with, and they're definitely going to have to be tough enough to stand up to Menino's administration in an effective way and push for increased funding at attention at all levels. The BPL's collections and facilities are a crumbling treasure, and something must be done soon, before it's too late.
On Monday night, Boston's CBS affiliate broadcast this report (video available at the link) on violence in and around the BPL's main branch at Copley Square. They note that for the past three years, police calls to the area have averaged 270 annually, and the story features some police reports of items being stolen inside the library, people fighting or refusing to leave, &c. "The library prides itself on being a true public building open to all. It's a sad sign of the times, but more and more homeless people are finding it to be their last refuge during the day," correspondent Joe Shortsleeves said in the broadcast ... The mission of a treasured landmark is getting lost."
Kathy LaFrazia, the director of St. Francis House - one of the only daytime homeless shelters in Boston - said "These are people that doors are shut to them constantly, and they stay few minutes at a McDonalds but they are moved along, moved along. People get desperate, people get angry." Of course people need a place to go during the day, where they can be warm and safe and left alone. Should that place be the Boston Public Library? In most cases, probably not. There's a much larger issue here that does not involve adding more security at the BPL, or excluding people, but providing adequate space for people who need it.
This story clearly wasn't handled well by the BPL (whether that's their fault or the t.v. station's is unclear). No library official appears on camera in the piece, only a man identified as "an employee," who commented "It's a big concern. Loitering and people hanging out. Run of the mill disruptive behavior sometimes." Mayor Menino told Shortsleeves that the issue has never before been brought to his attention (which, if true, is absolutely unbelievable).
The timing of the story was most interesting, as it came just hours before the library's board of trustees met and voted 7-2 not to renew the contract of BPL president Bernie Margolis. Margolis is not going to go quietly; in a front-page Globe interview today he lambastes Menino for interfering with library operations and not providing adequate funding for library operations. He accused the mayor of running Boston as an "authoritarian state," telling the paper "I didn't think this was Venezuela."
Menino responded by saying "I'm not getting involved in 'he said, she said,'" but his chief of staff, Judith Kurland, fired right back at Margolis. "It's hubris and entitlement, thinking that he owns the job. Nobody owns the job," she told the paper.
Margolis accused the mayor's administration of neglecting services at the city's branch libraries, including a rejecting of a plan to have the branches open on Saturdays in an attempt to help combat youth violence. At a meeting about the proposal earlier this year, Margolis says, the mayor "'dismissed it in the 'the most casual, offhanded way,' saying, 'Oh, those kids just want to be at the beach.'" Ironically, aides to the mayor have made the same charge against Margolis, that he's been "fixated" on the Copley Square facility while neglecting the branches.
I can't speak to the branch libraries, but if the current state of the Copley Square branch is what ten years of "fixation" has resulted in, I'm really worried about the state of things. I barely even use the BPL anymore because service and facilities are so poor - photocopiers are rarely working, the books I request from the closed stacks often cannot be found, and the place really is pretty grungy. Margolis says Menino didn't like that he went around telling people that the library doesn't have enough money, but anyone who walks through the doors ought to be able to see that's the case.
The Globe story reports that while library use has been up in recent years, the budget has increased just .26% per year since 2000, and full-time staff positions have been cut from 603 in 2002 to 483 in 2007.
Anybody who's crazy enough to take Margolis' job is obviously going to have some major issues to deal with, and they're definitely going to have to be tough enough to stand up to Menino's administration in an effective way and push for increased funding at attention at all levels. The BPL's collections and facilities are a crumbling treasure, and something must be done soon, before it's too late.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Wuthering Heights Soars at Auction
A first edition of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights sold for £114,000 (including tax and premium) at Bonhams yesterday, fetching more than twice the presale estimate. The winning bidder was book dealer Robert Kirkman, "on behalf of a an unnamed British client who is a keen collector of Brontë works."
The book - one of just three copies of the first edition at auction in the last thirty years - had been in the previous owner's family for four generations.
Wuthering Heights was first published in three volumes at London by Thomas Cautley Newby in 1847. Brontë's pseudonym, Ellis Bell, appears on the title page.
The book - one of just three copies of the first edition at auction in the last thirty years - had been in the previous owner's family for four generations.
Wuthering Heights was first published in three volumes at London by Thomas Cautley Newby in 1847. Brontë's pseudonym, Ellis Bell, appears on the title page.
Spain Map Thefts Update
The AP reported yesterday that ten of the fifteen maps stolen from Spain's Biblioteca Nacional this summer have been returned to the library's control. Eight of the maps were found in Buenos Aires with the accused thief, César Gómez Rivero. Two others were recovered from the United States. An eleventh map, now in Australia, will be returned once a thirty-day authorization period passes. Four additional maps - at least - remain unaccounted for.
New library director Milagros del Corral announced this week that a "major audit" of the collections will begin in January. "I can't discount that we'll find more unpleasant surprises," he said, adding that the last such audit was in 1988.
New library director Milagros del Corral announced this week that a "major audit" of the collections will begin in January. "I can't discount that we'll find more unpleasant surprises," he said, adding that the last such audit was in 1988.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Brattlers Beware
If you've got some money burning a hole in your pocket (or if, in my case, you wish you did), this is a good week to stop by Boston's venerable Brattle Book Shop, since their third-floor (i.e. rarer) stock is 50% off through Friday (when the Boston Book Fair starts at 5 p.m. - and yes, the excitement is already mounting). I visited this morning and found a few goodies, including a 1766 Charles Bathurst printing of Jonathan Swift's Tale of a Tub and Battle of the Books, as well as a very nice 1808 four-volume edition of The Works of Laurence Sterne. My other acquisitions were A.S.W. Rosenbach's bibliomystery collection The Unpublishable Memoirs and G.H. Powell's Excursions in Libraria.
They're my reward for finishing the thesis draft. Yeah, that's it.
They're my reward for finishing the thesis draft. Yeah, that's it.
Transylvania Thieves Talk
Delano Massey reports in today's Lexington Herald-Leader that three of the four "men" convicted of assaulting a librarian and stealing rare books from Transylvania University three years ago have been interviewed for a December Vanity Fair article, "Majoring in Crime." That article isn't available online, but Massey provides a summary and some very noteworthy outside comments.
Eric Borsuk, Warren Lipka and Spencer Reinhard, all serving seven-year sentences at the Federal Correctional Institution in Ashland, KY agreed to be interviewed; Charles Allen did not. A lawyer for Borsuk said he had advised his client not to talk to reporters, at least until after a scheduled appeal before the 6th Circuit (the men are trying to get their sentences reduced). Fred Peters told Massey "if he [Borsuk] did grant them an interview, it would be against my objection. He shouldn't do anything until the appeal is over. A judge could see the story and make a different ruling." He added that he "can't imagine it helping" Borsuk's case.
But the interviews were granted, and I hope the judge reads the resulting article: Massey reports that the thugs "express no regret for the crime, except for harming [B.J.] Gooch, the librarian." Gooch was stunned, blindfolded and "hogtied" while the thieves snatched rare books, including volumes of Audubon's Birds of America. A spokesperson for the university said she was interested to read the article, and that she is "concerned about inaccuracies and embellishments."
The scheme, which Massey describes as "hatched in a haze of marijuana smoke, with inspiration from popular heist flicks" was motivated by "a desire to escape the 'mundane, nickel-and-dime existence' of suburbia," according to one of the felons. Borsuk tells Falk if they'd pulled it off [a ludicrous idea, really], "they would have lived a 'crazy life thinking we were Ocean's 11 types.'" Lipka adds "In a few years we'll be released. We'll all be ... still young. We will be stronger, better, wiser for going through this together, the three of us. Before, in college, growing up, we were being funneled into this mundane, nickel-and-dime existence. Now we can't ever go back there. Even if we wanted to, they won't let us."
These guys are doing their level best to glamorize their story and make themselves into some kind of counter-cultural super-thieves. How long do you think it'll be before the movie deal's announced? Ridiculous. Here it is, simply put: these are four small-time suburbanite potheads who violently assaulted a librarian and stole major cultural treasures. That's nothing to be proud of. I do hope the judges who hear their appeal read both Massey's and Falk's articles, because it's clear to me that these twerps need every minute of jail time they can get.
Eric Borsuk, Warren Lipka and Spencer Reinhard, all serving seven-year sentences at the Federal Correctional Institution in Ashland, KY agreed to be interviewed; Charles Allen did not. A lawyer for Borsuk said he had advised his client not to talk to reporters, at least until after a scheduled appeal before the 6th Circuit (the men are trying to get their sentences reduced). Fred Peters told Massey "if he [Borsuk] did grant them an interview, it would be against my objection. He shouldn't do anything until the appeal is over. A judge could see the story and make a different ruling." He added that he "can't imagine it helping" Borsuk's case.
But the interviews were granted, and I hope the judge reads the resulting article: Massey reports that the thugs "express no regret for the crime, except for harming [B.J.] Gooch, the librarian." Gooch was stunned, blindfolded and "hogtied" while the thieves snatched rare books, including volumes of Audubon's Birds of America. A spokesperson for the university said she was interested to read the article, and that she is "concerned about inaccuracies and embellishments."
The scheme, which Massey describes as "hatched in a haze of marijuana smoke, with inspiration from popular heist flicks" was motivated by "a desire to escape the 'mundane, nickel-and-dime existence' of suburbia," according to one of the felons. Borsuk tells Falk if they'd pulled it off [a ludicrous idea, really], "they would have lived a 'crazy life thinking we were Ocean's 11 types.'" Lipka adds "In a few years we'll be released. We'll all be ... still young. We will be stronger, better, wiser for going through this together, the three of us. Before, in college, growing up, we were being funneled into this mundane, nickel-and-dime existence. Now we can't ever go back there. Even if we wanted to, they won't let us."
These guys are doing their level best to glamorize their story and make themselves into some kind of counter-cultural super-thieves. How long do you think it'll be before the movie deal's announced? Ridiculous. Here it is, simply put: these are four small-time suburbanite potheads who violently assaulted a librarian and stole major cultural treasures. That's nothing to be proud of. I do hope the judges who hear their appeal read both Massey's and Falk's articles, because it's clear to me that these twerps need every minute of jail time they can get.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Links & Reviews
[Breaks radio silence]
I've emerged, after just about two full days of writing. The full thesis draft and appendices are all done, and I'm pretty (okay, really) sick of looking at the computer so as soon as I'm finished with this post I'm going to go sit and read for a while.
- Travis comments on the Rebecca Streeter-Chen sentence: "... [L]leaving this serious crime in the hands of Rockland County was clearly a mistake. Unless absolutely forced into it by statute, there seems to be a pathetic unwillingness on the part of the judiciary to take these crimes seriously. Does anyone think that if she stole $60,000 dollars in cash from the historical society she’d have gotten probation?"
- The NYPost reports today on a recent fairly imaginative marriage proposal at New York's Strand Bookstore.
- John Overholt announced the opening of a new exhibit at the Houghton Library, "Edward Gibbon: The Luminous Historian." That runs through 22 December, which means I've still got some time to get out there and see it. John's included a few highlights in his post.
- Over at Reading Archives, Richard Cox has comments on two recent books, Letter-Writing Manuals and Instruction from Antiquity to the Present: Historical and Bibliographic Studies (here) and Putting ‘America’ on the Map: The Story of the Most Important Graphic Document in the History of the United States (here).
- Tim points out a scholarly take on LibraryThing tagging, Tiffany Smith's Cataloging and You: Measuring the Efficacy of a Folksonomy for Subject Analysis [doc]. Also on the LT front this week, Tim fired a book-site-war-broadside with a blistering compilation of blog-posts excoriating Shelfari for its nasty spamming campaign.
- Over at Paper Cuts, Dwight Garners features Bizarre Books, an anthology of books with unlikely titles. Very amusing.
- Texas A&M University has acquired a copy of George Catlin's North American Indian Portfolio (1844), in honor of alumnus Dr. Mavis Kelsey.
- BibliOdyssey's got some natural history and maritime illustrations from the diary of Carl Johan Gethe, a cartographer for the Swedish East India Company (1746-1749).
Reviews
- For the NYTimes, Richard Brookhiser reviews Christopher Hitchens' Thomas Paine's 'Rights of Man': A Biography.
- Also in the Times, Jon Meacham examines Joe Ellis' American Creation. Ellis was on NPR this week to discuss the new book; you can listen here.
- Over in the Philly Inq, Steve Weinberg reviews Marcus Rediker's The Slave Ship.
I've emerged, after just about two full days of writing. The full thesis draft and appendices are all done, and I'm pretty (okay, really) sick of looking at the computer so as soon as I'm finished with this post I'm going to go sit and read for a while.
- Travis comments on the Rebecca Streeter-Chen sentence: "... [L]leaving this serious crime in the hands of Rockland County was clearly a mistake. Unless absolutely forced into it by statute, there seems to be a pathetic unwillingness on the part of the judiciary to take these crimes seriously. Does anyone think that if she stole $60,000 dollars in cash from the historical society she’d have gotten probation?"
- The NYPost reports today on a recent fairly imaginative marriage proposal at New York's Strand Bookstore.
- John Overholt announced the opening of a new exhibit at the Houghton Library, "Edward Gibbon: The Luminous Historian." That runs through 22 December, which means I've still got some time to get out there and see it. John's included a few highlights in his post.
- Over at Reading Archives, Richard Cox has comments on two recent books, Letter-Writing Manuals and Instruction from Antiquity to the Present: Historical and Bibliographic Studies (here) and Putting ‘America’ on the Map: The Story of the Most Important Graphic Document in the History of the United States (here).
- Tim points out a scholarly take on LibraryThing tagging, Tiffany Smith's Cataloging and You: Measuring the Efficacy of a Folksonomy for Subject Analysis [doc]. Also on the LT front this week, Tim fired a book-site-war-broadside with a blistering compilation of blog-posts excoriating Shelfari for its nasty spamming campaign.
- Over at Paper Cuts, Dwight Garners features Bizarre Books, an anthology of books with unlikely titles. Very amusing.
- Texas A&M University has acquired a copy of George Catlin's North American Indian Portfolio (1844), in honor of alumnus Dr. Mavis Kelsey.
- BibliOdyssey's got some natural history and maritime illustrations from the diary of Carl Johan Gethe, a cartographer for the Swedish East India Company (1746-1749).
Reviews
- For the NYTimes, Richard Brookhiser reviews Christopher Hitchens' Thomas Paine's 'Rights of Man': A Biography.
- Also in the Times, Jon Meacham examines Joe Ellis' American Creation. Ellis was on NPR this week to discuss the new book; you can listen here.
- Over in the Philly Inq, Steve Weinberg reviews Marcus Rediker's The Slave Ship.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Brief Blackout
I'm entering radio silence this morning to write the final chapter of my thesis; I hope to emerge (unscathed) sometime tomorrow, and will resume regularly-scheduled programming then. The good news is, it'll be a fun chapter to write (it's about 19th-century marginalia in library books). So wish me luck, and I'll see you on the flip side.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Eskander at the BPL
Dr. Saad Eskander, the head of Iraq's National Library, spoke at the Boston Public Library last night as part of a two-week American tour. Much of his discussion, "Rising From the Ashes: The Story of the Iraq National Library and Archive," is covered in David Mehegan's excellent Boston Globe article and follow-up post, but I did want to add a few of my own impressions. Eskander struck me as one of the most down-to-earth, humble and pleasant people I've ever met, and it was incredibly inspiring to hear what he and his staff have accomplished given the ongoing turmoil in the area around the library and the constant threats they continue to face.
Eskander began his talk by providing a short history of the National Library as it existed under Saddam's regime: he noted that official censorship meant that the collections were very conservative, and that the "destruction of cultural heritage" began during Saddam's rule as Baathists plundered the library to smuggle rare books and other items out of the country. He reported that in the pre-war years, all air-handling/ventilation systems were removed from the library building, and that librarians were being paid the equivalent of $6-7 per month (which led to rampant corruption and bribery).
After showing some cringe-inducing pictures of the library after the looting occurred in April of 2003, Eskander made clear that he rejects the theory that American forces intentionally allowed the library to be destroyed, but that they did allow it to happen and should be held responsible for the losses (60% of the archival material, 90% of the rare books, nearly all of the photographs and microfilm collections) caused by looters, thieves, and arsonists.
The major portion of the speech centered on the changes to the library that Eskander has engineered since 2003. He spoke of the new staff (an ethnically, religiously diverse group from across Iraq), new procedures and new technological equipment and systems that they've been able to put in place, including a conservation lab, a microfilm room (both funded by the Czech government) and an IT department (funded by the Italian and Japanese governments). He continued by discussing plans for expanding the archives and creating a Library of Pioneers, which he said would be designed "to create a common cultural identity for all Iraqis." A cooperative digital library project is in the works with the Library of Congress.
Eskander concluded by noting some of the continued challenges, which he said include excessive bureaucracy and widespread corruption at the Culture, Planning and Finance ministries. To combat this and increase the authority of the library's director, he's attempting to
remove the institution from the purview of the Ministry of Culture and link it directly to either the executive or to the parliament. He said the legislation governing archives in Iraq needs to be liberalized to reflect the shift from authoritarianism to democracy, and that the library requires funding to expand and modernize services. A major continuing dilemma, he said, is that coalition forces removed massive amounts of government archives from Iraq during the invasion and have transferred those to America; Eskander stressed that these documents are necessary for Iraqis to study and learn about the old regime so that they can move on and embrace the future.
Following his formal discussion, Eskander patiently answered questions for almost 45 minutes. He had to keep repeating the point that it is vital for the library to be open and available, saying that it remains necessary to make clear "We are here, we're working, and it's important to resist the attempt ... to paralyze life in Baghdad." Asked what the contingency plan was for if the library is attacked again, he noted that they are targeted in some way nearly every day, and that he has taken steps to hire as many 24/7 guards as he can to protect the collections and keep the building secure. Nonetheless, he said, the danger keeps many patrons away - right now the average number of visitors hovers around 400 per month.
Explaining the success of his efforts to have an integrated and diverse staff, Eskander praised his workers and noted "the problem is not at the bottom, it's at the top," adding that leaders of the major religious parties see it as their advantage to "motivate hate for their own ends."
The question that I'm sure most people had - about Eskander's view of whether American forces should be withdrawn from Iraq - wasn't asked until the end, and he prefaced his answer by saying that many in the crowd probably would not agree with it. He said that he has no doubt that the withdrawal of American troops would increase instability in Iraq: "You cannot just leave Iraq after you make a mess." He added that the first people to be targeted after an American pullout would be the liberals and secular leaders, and said that the country must be made more stable and the armed forces made strong enough to protect its institutions before a full pullout could occur. No one likes to see an occupying power in their cities, he said, calling himself "not unpatriotic, just realistic," but he fears that the loss of American protection could easily prove disastrous for the progress that has been made.
A fascinating discussion by a man who is I think one of the greatest unsung heroes of our time.
Eskander began his talk by providing a short history of the National Library as it existed under Saddam's regime: he noted that official censorship meant that the collections were very conservative, and that the "destruction of cultural heritage" began during Saddam's rule as Baathists plundered the library to smuggle rare books and other items out of the country. He reported that in the pre-war years, all air-handling/ventilation systems were removed from the library building, and that librarians were being paid the equivalent of $6-7 per month (which led to rampant corruption and bribery).
After showing some cringe-inducing pictures of the library after the looting occurred in April of 2003, Eskander made clear that he rejects the theory that American forces intentionally allowed the library to be destroyed, but that they did allow it to happen and should be held responsible for the losses (60% of the archival material, 90% of the rare books, nearly all of the photographs and microfilm collections) caused by looters, thieves, and arsonists.
The major portion of the speech centered on the changes to the library that Eskander has engineered since 2003. He spoke of the new staff (an ethnically, religiously diverse group from across Iraq), new procedures and new technological equipment and systems that they've been able to put in place, including a conservation lab, a microfilm room (both funded by the Czech government) and an IT department (funded by the Italian and Japanese governments). He continued by discussing plans for expanding the archives and creating a Library of Pioneers, which he said would be designed "to create a common cultural identity for all Iraqis." A cooperative digital library project is in the works with the Library of Congress.
Eskander concluded by noting some of the continued challenges, which he said include excessive bureaucracy and widespread corruption at the Culture, Planning and Finance ministries. To combat this and increase the authority of the library's director, he's attempting to
remove the institution from the purview of the Ministry of Culture and link it directly to either the executive or to the parliament. He said the legislation governing archives in Iraq needs to be liberalized to reflect the shift from authoritarianism to democracy, and that the library requires funding to expand and modernize services. A major continuing dilemma, he said, is that coalition forces removed massive amounts of government archives from Iraq during the invasion and have transferred those to America; Eskander stressed that these documents are necessary for Iraqis to study and learn about the old regime so that they can move on and embrace the future.
Following his formal discussion, Eskander patiently answered questions for almost 45 minutes. He had to keep repeating the point that it is vital for the library to be open and available, saying that it remains necessary to make clear "We are here, we're working, and it's important to resist the attempt ... to paralyze life in Baghdad." Asked what the contingency plan was for if the library is attacked again, he noted that they are targeted in some way nearly every day, and that he has taken steps to hire as many 24/7 guards as he can to protect the collections and keep the building secure. Nonetheless, he said, the danger keeps many patrons away - right now the average number of visitors hovers around 400 per month.
Explaining the success of his efforts to have an integrated and diverse staff, Eskander praised his workers and noted "the problem is not at the bottom, it's at the top," adding that leaders of the major religious parties see it as their advantage to "motivate hate for their own ends."
The question that I'm sure most people had - about Eskander's view of whether American forces should be withdrawn from Iraq - wasn't asked until the end, and he prefaced his answer by saying that many in the crowd probably would not agree with it. He said that he has no doubt that the withdrawal of American troops would increase instability in Iraq: "You cannot just leave Iraq after you make a mess." He added that the first people to be targeted after an American pullout would be the liberals and secular leaders, and said that the country must be made more stable and the armed forces made strong enough to protect its institutions before a full pullout could occur. No one likes to see an occupying power in their cities, he said, calling himself "not unpatriotic, just realistic," but he fears that the loss of American protection could easily prove disastrous for the progress that has been made.
A fascinating discussion by a man who is I think one of the greatest unsung heroes of our time.
Streeter-Chen Wrist-Slapped
Rebecca Streeter-Chen, a former curator who stole an 1823 Tanner atlas from the Rockland Historical Society and then attempted to sell it, was sentenced yesterday to five years' probation and 24 weekends of community service with the county Sheriff's Department, Steve Lieberman reports for the Journal News.
County court judge Victor Alfieri rejected prosecutors' requests for a 1-3 year prison term when Streeter-Chen pleaded guilty, saying in August that he was inclined to sentence Streeter-Chen to six months in jail plus supervised probation. But yesterday he didn't even go that far, accepting calls for leniency from Streeter-Chen's lawyers who said that Ms. Streeter-Chen was "the mainstay of the family" and "needed at home to raise and support two children."
I'm sorry, but in my view she really should have thought about that before she stole the atlas. Life is choices, and Ms. Streeter-Chen chose to steal that atlas, she chose to try and sell it, and she chose to put her children at risk by doing so. Probation combined with 48 days of trash-pickup (or whatever onerous community service she gets assigned) is simply not a serious punishment for the theft of a rare book. Utterly absurd.
But hey, what else is new?
I'm sure Travis will weigh in on the sentence over at Upward Departure today, so do check in to see what he thinks of it. I'll post the link when it's up. Hopefully he'll renew his call for cases like this to be handled at the federal level, as this one clearly should have been.
County court judge Victor Alfieri rejected prosecutors' requests for a 1-3 year prison term when Streeter-Chen pleaded guilty, saying in August that he was inclined to sentence Streeter-Chen to six months in jail plus supervised probation. But yesterday he didn't even go that far, accepting calls for leniency from Streeter-Chen's lawyers who said that Ms. Streeter-Chen was "the mainstay of the family" and "needed at home to raise and support two children."
I'm sorry, but in my view she really should have thought about that before she stole the atlas. Life is choices, and Ms. Streeter-Chen chose to steal that atlas, she chose to try and sell it, and she chose to put her children at risk by doing so. Probation combined with 48 days of trash-pickup (or whatever onerous community service she gets assigned) is simply not a serious punishment for the theft of a rare book. Utterly absurd.
But hey, what else is new?
I'm sure Travis will weigh in on the sentence over at Upward Departure today, so do check in to see what he thinks of it. I'll post the link when it's up. Hopefully he'll renew his call for cases like this to be handled at the federal level, as this one clearly should have been.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
NARA IG Investigating Major Security Breaches at Reagan Library
The LATimes reports that National Archives Inspector General Paul Brachfeld has opened an investigation into allegations that a former employee stole artifacts from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Brachfeld told the paper that his efforts have been stymied by a record-keeping failure, what he called a "near universal security breakdown."
A former archivist at the Reagan Library was reportedly fired about six months ago for stealing items from the collections; an audit of the collections by the IG's office was begun at that time, and revealed that "the library was unable to properly account for more than 80,000 artifacts out of its collection of some 100,000 such items, and 'may have experienced loss or pilferage the scope of which will likely never be known.'" The report blamed management lapses and poor storage practices, which included "artworks stacked on top of one another, and sculptures and vases unwrapped and lying on their sides on open shelves - in an area prone to earthquakes."
Once again, it's clear that at least some of the problems here are caused by insufficient funding and staffing - the fact that volunteers had to be called in to help catalog artifacts after the problem emerged should be a major clue that more resources should be allocated to these facilities.
More on this as it comes in. I'm sure we haven't heard the last of it.
A former archivist at the Reagan Library was reportedly fired about six months ago for stealing items from the collections; an audit of the collections by the IG's office was begun at that time, and revealed that "the library was unable to properly account for more than 80,000 artifacts out of its collection of some 100,000 such items, and 'may have experienced loss or pilferage the scope of which will likely never be known.'" The report blamed management lapses and poor storage practices, which included "artworks stacked on top of one another, and sculptures and vases unwrapped and lying on their sides on open shelves - in an area prone to earthquakes."
Once again, it's clear that at least some of the problems here are caused by insufficient funding and staffing - the fact that volunteers had to be called in to help catalog artifacts after the problem emerged should be a major clue that more resources should be allocated to these facilities.
More on this as it comes in. I'm sure we haven't heard the last of it.
Grants, Acquisitions &c.
- The Archives and Rare Books Library at the University of Cincinnati has received a $200,000 grant from the Marge and Charles J. Schott Foundation. The funds will be used for "facility and furnishing upgrades."
- The University of Calgary has purchased a collection of four early texts of Biblical scholarship by Nicholas of Lyra, which the university librarian called "probably the most famous early comment on the Bible." The library paid $45,000 for the collection.
- Hamilton College was awarded the Outstanding Project for 2007 prize from the Communal Societies Association for its "digitization of the Shaker periodical, variously titled The Shaker, Shaker and Shakeress, The Shaker Manifesto and The Manifesto. This publication ran from 1871 until 1899 and shared religious and political opinions between Shaker communities from Maine to Kentucky."
- An 8-centimeter fragment of a parchment Bible, the "1087-year-old Aleppo Codex[,] will be given to a representative of the Ben Zvi Institute in Jerusalem on Thursday, following 18 years during which Israeli scholars tried to retrieve it from businessman Sam Sabbagh," Haaretz reports. The small fragment was saved from a burning synagogue in 1947. Much more background on the text at the linked article.
- British fashion mogul Tom Tar Singh has donated 'to the Indian nation' a collection of Gandhi letters he purchased at Sotheby's earlier this year (for more than $90,000). The transfer was made on Monday "at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), which became [the collection's] official recipients. The manuscripts, which include a series of articles, postcards and letters by Gandhi, were received by Dr Karan Singh, Chairman of the Executive Council, NMML."
- Two leather-bound photo albums showing art looted by the Nazis as they ravaged Europe during the early years of World War II have been given to the U.S. National Archives. The albums "contain photos from which Hitler and his curators could choose art for the Fuhrer's art museum in Linz." Archivist of the United States Alan Weinstein said the albums could help researchers locate looted works of art which are still missing. They "were found in the attic of the heirs of a US soldier who was stationed in the Berchtesgarden area of Germany at the end of the war in 1945," and were donated to the Archives by Robert Edsel, president of the Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art.
- The University of Calgary has purchased a collection of four early texts of Biblical scholarship by Nicholas of Lyra, which the university librarian called "probably the most famous early comment on the Bible." The library paid $45,000 for the collection.
- Hamilton College was awarded the Outstanding Project for 2007 prize from the Communal Societies Association for its "digitization of the Shaker periodical, variously titled The Shaker, Shaker and Shakeress, The Shaker Manifesto and The Manifesto. This publication ran from 1871 until 1899 and shared religious and political opinions between Shaker communities from Maine to Kentucky."
- An 8-centimeter fragment of a parchment Bible, the "1087-year-old Aleppo Codex[,] will be given to a representative of the Ben Zvi Institute in Jerusalem on Thursday, following 18 years during which Israeli scholars tried to retrieve it from businessman Sam Sabbagh," Haaretz reports. The small fragment was saved from a burning synagogue in 1947. Much more background on the text at the linked article.
- British fashion mogul Tom Tar Singh has donated 'to the Indian nation' a collection of Gandhi letters he purchased at Sotheby's earlier this year (for more than $90,000). The transfer was made on Monday "at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML), which became [the collection's] official recipients. The manuscripts, which include a series of articles, postcards and letters by Gandhi, were received by Dr Karan Singh, Chairman of the Executive Council, NMML."
- Two leather-bound photo albums showing art looted by the Nazis as they ravaged Europe during the early years of World War II have been given to the U.S. National Archives. The albums "contain photos from which Hitler and his curators could choose art for the Fuhrer's art museum in Linz." Archivist of the United States Alan Weinstein said the albums could help researchers locate looted works of art which are still missing. They "were found in the attic of the heirs of a US soldier who was stationed in the Berchtesgarden area of Germany at the end of the war in 1945," and were donated to the Archives by Robert Edsel, president of the Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art.
UH Library Damaged (Again)
Three years after a major flood, the University of Hawaii's Hamilton Library is dealing with more water damage after heavy rains last weekend. The library's roof, which is scheduled to be replaced next summer, began leaking in several places, so librarians had to move many books off the third floor. "'Our main concern was to get the books out of the area with all the water. You have high humidity, any moisture, all the books are just going to suck it up,' conservation technician Kyle Hamada said."
"Buckets sit on shelves where books used to be in an area where librarians keep the expensive and rare books. ... While initially staffers thought the problem was limited to one area, more leaks developed as the days wore on. Workers could not keep up. Large plastic canopies cover much of the shelves and make shiftdrains are helping to collect the water."
For the moment, the evacuated books have been taken to a cold storage unit to combat mold growth.
"Buckets sit on shelves where books used to be in an area where librarians keep the expensive and rare books. ... While initially staffers thought the problem was limited to one area, more leaks developed as the days wore on. Workers could not keep up. Large plastic canopies cover much of the shelves and make shiftdrains are helping to collect the water."
For the moment, the evacuated books have been taken to a cold storage unit to combat mold growth.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Book Review: "Quicksilver"
Sprawling. Epic. Doorstop. Clocking in at 927 pages, Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver (Morrow, 2003) is hardly for the faint of heart or weak in wrist. Especially as it's just the first volume of a trilogy in which the succeeding books are nearly as hefty themselves. It is a vastly complicated tale with what must be hundreds (but seems like millions) of characters - some historical, some entirely made up. Of course each character going by several different names at various points doesn't help much.
For all its dense vastness and complexities (and interminable length), Quicksilver is a fascinating and engaging work. The intertwined narratives are well told, and somehow Stephenson is able to keep everything and everybody straight even if we readers may get temporarily lost along the way. The book blends history and fiction quite nicely, providing bold descriptions of England during the Restoration and Glorious Revolution periods, the formation and early years of the Royal Society, and the political, scientific and religious intrigues of seventeenth-century Europe. Sure, there's some literary license, but hey, that's what historical fiction is for.
The characters range from the peripatetic pirate Jack Shaftoe (to whom Disney's Jack Sparrow bears a remarkable and uncanny resemblance at times) to Benjamin Waterhouse (courtier, natural philosopher, Puritan), Robert Hooke, Newton and Leibniz, William of Orange
and far, far beyond.
If you've got a spare month (in fact it took me rather a lot longer than that to read this, since I went through it just a couple chapters at a time before going to sleep at night), and if you enjoy a complicated story well told, I highly recommend suspending your disbelief and hefting Quicksilver onto your lap.
For all its dense vastness and complexities (and interminable length), Quicksilver is a fascinating and engaging work. The intertwined narratives are well told, and somehow Stephenson is able to keep everything and everybody straight even if we readers may get temporarily lost along the way. The book blends history and fiction quite nicely, providing bold descriptions of England during the Restoration and Glorious Revolution periods, the formation and early years of the Royal Society, and the political, scientific and religious intrigues of seventeenth-century Europe. Sure, there's some literary license, but hey, that's what historical fiction is for.
The characters range from the peripatetic pirate Jack Shaftoe (to whom Disney's Jack Sparrow bears a remarkable and uncanny resemblance at times) to Benjamin Waterhouse (courtier, natural philosopher, Puritan), Robert Hooke, Newton and Leibniz, William of Orange
and far, far beyond.
If you've got a spare month (in fact it took me rather a lot longer than that to read this, since I went through it just a couple chapters at a time before going to sleep at night), and if you enjoy a complicated story well told, I highly recommend suspending your disbelief and hefting Quicksilver onto your lap.
Chile Returns Library Books
The AP reports that Chile has returned 3,778 books its forces stole from Peru's national library ... in 1881. "The volumes, written in Greek, Latin, French and Spanish, some with full-page colonial-era maps, dated from the 16th to 19th centuries. Chile shipped the books, most in excellent condition, to Peru this week via DHL ..."
Chile's national director of libraries, archives and museums, Nivia Palma, called the action a "concrete expression of our deep commitment to building a relationship of brotherhood and cooperation between our countries."
The books were taken after the capture of Lima by Chilean forces during the 1879-1883 War of the Pacific.
Just for fun: if Peru's national library charged 10 cents a day for a late book, I think that works out to ... $17,375,022 (not taking inflation or currency into account).
Chile's national director of libraries, archives and museums, Nivia Palma, called the action a "concrete expression of our deep commitment to building a relationship of brotherhood and cooperation between our countries."
The books were taken after the capture of Lima by Chilean forces during the 1879-1883 War of the Pacific.
Just for fun: if Peru's national library charged 10 cents a day for a late book, I think that works out to ... $17,375,022 (not taking inflation or currency into account).
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
A Very Bad Idea
The Guardian reported yesterday that libraries in Essex, Somerset, Bromley, Leeds and Southend will begin inserting advertising fliers into books checked out by patrons. "The plan is being run by the direct marketing company Jackson Howse, whose business development director Mark Jackson said the company was 'very proud' of what he described as 'a brand new channel' for direct marketing."
Gag. If this is the best idea library managers could come up with to raise extra money, they'd better find another line of work.
Jackson told the paper that if 300,000 adverts were inserted per month, a library could expect to receive about £10,000 revenue.
Guy Daines, director of policy at the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals "said that such a scheme should be operated with 'caution' and suggested there would be 'numerous practical difficulties, perhaps the most important of which is that a high percentage of people would find it off-putting.'" Daines added "'Like any other public sector institution finding a new stream of income is incredibly important.' However, he claims, there is a risk that advertising could put libraries' place in the community at risk. 'Free access and impartiality are at the core of what libraries do,' he said, 'so any kind of scheme which seems to compromise that position of impartiality and trust has to be looked at very carefully.'"
As someone who doesn't particularly enjoy having anything inserted into the books I buy or check out of the library (anybody need a gigantic stash of unwanted bookmarks?), this proposal is irksome to say the least. We are all exposed to far too much latent advertising as it is, and we certainly don't need more direct exposure to adverts in any form, let alone staring at us from across the "date due" stamp.
Gag. If this is the best idea library managers could come up with to raise extra money, they'd better find another line of work.
Jackson told the paper that if 300,000 adverts were inserted per month, a library could expect to receive about £10,000 revenue.
Guy Daines, director of policy at the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals "said that such a scheme should be operated with 'caution' and suggested there would be 'numerous practical difficulties, perhaps the most important of which is that a high percentage of people would find it off-putting.'" Daines added "'Like any other public sector institution finding a new stream of income is incredibly important.' However, he claims, there is a risk that advertising could put libraries' place in the community at risk. 'Free access and impartiality are at the core of what libraries do,' he said, 'so any kind of scheme which seems to compromise that position of impartiality and trust has to be looked at very carefully.'"
As someone who doesn't particularly enjoy having anything inserted into the books I buy or check out of the library (anybody need a gigantic stash of unwanted bookmarks?), this proposal is irksome to say the least. We are all exposed to far too much latent advertising as it is, and we certainly don't need more direct exposure to adverts in any form, let alone staring at us from across the "date due" stamp.
Monday, November 05, 2007
Grafton on Digitization
Biblio-historian Anthony Grafton has an essay on digitization in the New Yorker which is today's required reading. I think he's got it just about right:
"Google’s projects, together with rival initiatives by Microsoft and Amazon, have elicited millenarian prophecies about the possibilities of digitized knowledge and the end of the book as we know it. ... Others have evoked even more utopian prospects, such as a universal archive that will contain not only all books and articles but all documents anywhere—the basis for a total history of the human race.
In fact, the Internet will not bring us a universal library, much less an encyclopedic record of human experience. None of the firms now engaged in digitization projects claim that it will create anything of the kind. The hype and rhetoric make it hard to grasp what Google and Microsoft and their partner libraries are actually doing. We have clearly reached a new point in the history of text production. On many fronts, traditional periodicals and books are making way for blogs and other electronic formats. But magazines and books still sell a lot of copies. The rush to digitize the written record is one of a number of critical moments in the long saga of our drive to accumulate, store, and retrieve information efficiently. It will result not in the infotopia that the prophets conjure up but in one in a long series of new information ecologies, all of them challenging, in which readers, writers, and producers of text have learned to survive."
Grafton provides a short history of 'information management', beginning with Mesopotamian tablet-cataloging and the Alexandrian scroll-copiers before discussing the changes wrought by the arrival of print technologies and those that have arrived since. He succinctly and accurately describes the shortcomings of all the current book digitization efforts - Google, Microsoft, Amazon, &c. - and also covers something that most who write on digitization leave out entirely: the place for non-Western books and collections in the grand plan. Grafton notes "Sixty million Britons have a hundred and sixteen million public-library books at their disposal, while more than 1.1 billion Indians have only thirty-six million. Poverty, in other words, is embodied in lack of print as well as in lack of food. The Internet will do much to redress this imbalance, by providing Western books for non-Western readers. What it will do for non-Western books is less clear."
Grafton calls the idea of a universal archive "distant." I'd go a step further and call it utterly ludicrous. "ArchivesUSA, a Web-based guide to American archives, lists five and a half thousand repositories and more than a hundred and sixty thousand collections of primary source material. The U.S. National Archives alone contain some nine billion items. It’s not likely that we’ll see the whole archives of the United States or any other developed nation online in the immediate future - much less those of poorer nations."
"The supposed universal library, then, will be not a seamless mass of books, easily linked and studied together, but a patchwork of interfaces and databases, some open to anyone with a computer and WiFi, others closed to those without access or money. The real challenge now is how to chart the tectonic plates of information that are crashing into one another and then to learn to navigate the new landscapes they are creating. Over time, as more of this material emerges from copyright protection, we’ll be able to learn things about our culture that we could never have known previously. Soon, the present will become overwhelmingly accessible, but a great deal of older material may never coalesce into a single database. Neither Google nor anyone else will fuse the proprietary databases of early books and the local systems created by individual archives into one accessible store of information. Though the distant past will be more available, in a technical sense, than ever before, once it is captured and preserved as a vast, disjointed mosaic it may recede ever more rapidly from our collective attention."
Grafton concludes on precisely the right note, in my admittedly biased view: "And yet we will still need our libraries and archives. ... Original documents reward us for taking the trouble to find them by telling us things that no image can. Duguid describes watching a fellow-historian systematically sniff two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old letters in an archive. By detecting the smell of vinegar - which had been sprinkled, in the eighteenth century, on letters from towns struck by cholera, in the hope of disinfecting them - he could trace the history of disease outbreaks. Historians of the book - a new and growing tribe - read books as scouts read trails. Bindings, usually custom-made in the early centuries of printing, can tell you who owned them and what level of society they belonged to. Marginal annotations, which abounded in the centuries when readers usually went through books with pen in hand, identify the often surprising messages that individuals have found as they read. ...
For now and for the foreseeable future, any serious reader will have to know how to travel down two very different roads simultaneously. No one should avoid the broad, smooth, and open road that leads through the screen. But if you want to know what one of Coleridge’s annotated books or an early “Spider-Man” comic really looks and feels like, or if you just want to read one of those millions of books which are being digitized, you still have to do it the old way, and you will have to for decades to come. ... If you want deeper, more local knowledge, you will have to take the narrower path that leads between the lions and up the stairs. There - as in great libraries around the world - you’ll use all the new sources, the library’s and those it buys from others, all the time. ... [T]hese streams of data, rich as they are, will illuminate, rather than eliminate, books and prints and manuscripts that only the library can put in front of you. The narrow path still leads, as it must, to crowded public rooms where the sunlight gleams on varnished tables, and knowledge is embodied in millions of dusty, crumbling, smelly, irreplaceable documents and books."
Illuminate, rather than eliminate. I like it.
"Google’s projects, together with rival initiatives by Microsoft and Amazon, have elicited millenarian prophecies about the possibilities of digitized knowledge and the end of the book as we know it. ... Others have evoked even more utopian prospects, such as a universal archive that will contain not only all books and articles but all documents anywhere—the basis for a total history of the human race.
In fact, the Internet will not bring us a universal library, much less an encyclopedic record of human experience. None of the firms now engaged in digitization projects claim that it will create anything of the kind. The hype and rhetoric make it hard to grasp what Google and Microsoft and their partner libraries are actually doing. We have clearly reached a new point in the history of text production. On many fronts, traditional periodicals and books are making way for blogs and other electronic formats. But magazines and books still sell a lot of copies. The rush to digitize the written record is one of a number of critical moments in the long saga of our drive to accumulate, store, and retrieve information efficiently. It will result not in the infotopia that the prophets conjure up but in one in a long series of new information ecologies, all of them challenging, in which readers, writers, and producers of text have learned to survive."
Grafton provides a short history of 'information management', beginning with Mesopotamian tablet-cataloging and the Alexandrian scroll-copiers before discussing the changes wrought by the arrival of print technologies and those that have arrived since. He succinctly and accurately describes the shortcomings of all the current book digitization efforts - Google, Microsoft, Amazon, &c. - and also covers something that most who write on digitization leave out entirely: the place for non-Western books and collections in the grand plan. Grafton notes "Sixty million Britons have a hundred and sixteen million public-library books at their disposal, while more than 1.1 billion Indians have only thirty-six million. Poverty, in other words, is embodied in lack of print as well as in lack of food. The Internet will do much to redress this imbalance, by providing Western books for non-Western readers. What it will do for non-Western books is less clear."
Grafton calls the idea of a universal archive "distant." I'd go a step further and call it utterly ludicrous. "ArchivesUSA, a Web-based guide to American archives, lists five and a half thousand repositories and more than a hundred and sixty thousand collections of primary source material. The U.S. National Archives alone contain some nine billion items. It’s not likely that we’ll see the whole archives of the United States or any other developed nation online in the immediate future - much less those of poorer nations."
"The supposed universal library, then, will be not a seamless mass of books, easily linked and studied together, but a patchwork of interfaces and databases, some open to anyone with a computer and WiFi, others closed to those without access or money. The real challenge now is how to chart the tectonic plates of information that are crashing into one another and then to learn to navigate the new landscapes they are creating. Over time, as more of this material emerges from copyright protection, we’ll be able to learn things about our culture that we could never have known previously. Soon, the present will become overwhelmingly accessible, but a great deal of older material may never coalesce into a single database. Neither Google nor anyone else will fuse the proprietary databases of early books and the local systems created by individual archives into one accessible store of information. Though the distant past will be more available, in a technical sense, than ever before, once it is captured and preserved as a vast, disjointed mosaic it may recede ever more rapidly from our collective attention."
Grafton concludes on precisely the right note, in my admittedly biased view: "And yet we will still need our libraries and archives. ... Original documents reward us for taking the trouble to find them by telling us things that no image can. Duguid describes watching a fellow-historian systematically sniff two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old letters in an archive. By detecting the smell of vinegar - which had been sprinkled, in the eighteenth century, on letters from towns struck by cholera, in the hope of disinfecting them - he could trace the history of disease outbreaks. Historians of the book - a new and growing tribe - read books as scouts read trails. Bindings, usually custom-made in the early centuries of printing, can tell you who owned them and what level of society they belonged to. Marginal annotations, which abounded in the centuries when readers usually went through books with pen in hand, identify the often surprising messages that individuals have found as they read. ...
For now and for the foreseeable future, any serious reader will have to know how to travel down two very different roads simultaneously. No one should avoid the broad, smooth, and open road that leads through the screen. But if you want to know what one of Coleridge’s annotated books or an early “Spider-Man” comic really looks and feels like, or if you just want to read one of those millions of books which are being digitized, you still have to do it the old way, and you will have to for decades to come. ... If you want deeper, more local knowledge, you will have to take the narrower path that leads between the lions and up the stairs. There - as in great libraries around the world - you’ll use all the new sources, the library’s and those it buys from others, all the time. ... [T]hese streams of data, rich as they are, will illuminate, rather than eliminate, books and prints and manuscripts that only the library can put in front of you. The narrow path still leads, as it must, to crowded public rooms where the sunlight gleams on varnished tables, and knowledge is embodied in millions of dusty, crumbling, smelly, irreplaceable documents and books."
Illuminate, rather than eliminate. I like it.
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