Peter Joseph Bellwood, 56, was sentenced in Copenhagen this week to one year in prison (to be followed by five years' expulsion from Denmark) plus 324,000 kroner ($67,000). Bellwood cut eleven maps out of books belonging to the Danish Royal Library in 2001, and turned himself in after surveillance footage from the library was aired on the British television program "Crime Watch."
Bellwood confessed to the Royal Library thefts, and also to additional thefts committed at the National Library of Wales, for which he received a 4.5-year prison sentence in 2004. He'll begin his Danish sentence once he finishes his time in the British slammer.
The maps had been valued at 1 million kroner ($210,000) by Christie's, but the judge did not accept that valuation, nor the library's call for 4.2 million kroner in compensation for the damage done to the books by Bellwood. The maps, which were sold, have not been recovered.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Auction Report
- The collection of William McGonagall poems (he's the poet dubbed the world's worst) sold in Edinburgh yesterday for £6600. The lot included 35 broadside poems, some signed by McGonagall himself. Both buyer and seller remain anonymous.
- A 1954 letter by Albert Einstein in which the famed scientist disparages religious beliefs ("The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this") sold at Bloomsbury for a whopping £207,600 (with premiums), just about quadrupling the previous Einstein auction record. Presale estimates were £6,000-8,000. The buyer, according to media reports, is a private collector. Bloomsbury managing director Rupert Powell "said the atmosphere in the sale room went from excitement, to disappointment as various bidders dropped out, to disbelief at the rocketing price."
- Also in the Bloomsbury sale, a copy of Thomas Rowlandson's The World in Miniature (1817) better than doubled its estimates, selling for £12,500. A first edition of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964) fetched £2,200, while a first of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone made £11,000. A rare second edition of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776) sold for £8,000. A first edition of the Nuremburg Chronicle (1493), with the plates colored, didn't quite make its estimate, but fetched £88,000. Last but certainly not least, a first edition of Vesalius' De humani corporis fabrica (1543) went for £120,000.
- A 1954 letter by Albert Einstein in which the famed scientist disparages religious beliefs ("The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this") sold at Bloomsbury for a whopping £207,600 (with premiums), just about quadrupling the previous Einstein auction record. Presale estimates were £6,000-8,000. The buyer, according to media reports, is a private collector. Bloomsbury managing director Rupert Powell "said the atmosphere in the sale room went from excitement, to disappointment as various bidders dropped out, to disbelief at the rocketing price."
- Also in the Bloomsbury sale, a copy of Thomas Rowlandson's The World in Miniature (1817) better than doubled its estimates, selling for £12,500. A first edition of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964) fetched £2,200, while a first of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone made £11,000. A rare second edition of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776) sold for £8,000. A first edition of the Nuremburg Chronicle (1493), with the plates colored, didn't quite make its estimate, but fetched £88,000. Last but certainly not least, a first edition of Vesalius' De humani corporis fabrica (1543) went for £120,000.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Disastrous Fire at Delft University
The Faculty of Architecture and surrounding buildings at Technical University Delft (Netherlands) have been destroyed by a massive fire. No one was injured, but a large number of rare books and maps are believed lost. MapHist curator Dr. Peter van der Krogt writes:
"The Faculty has (or must I sadly write: had) one of the most important libraries in the field of Architecture, with 40,000 books including several atlases (Blaeu, Braun & Hogenberg), and a map collection of 12,000 maps (topographical maps of the 19th century, soil maps, planning maps of the Noordoostpolder, Berlage's plans of the new parts of Amsterdam and The Hague, and the plans for the rebuilding of Rotterdam after WW II). The older maps (pre-1850) were stored in the University Library.
"The fate of the library is not known yet. The map curator, Addie Ritter, wrote that his depot is almost certainly destroyed, since it was in the part of the building that collapsed. The library, which was on the ground flour of a different wing of the building, is not accessible because the building is instable. It can take three to four weeks before it may be entered (the building of 14 [or 13] stories has to be demolished first). The older books were in a safe, but if that save[d] them is unknown (the fire lasted for about 24 hours)."
A report from the Chronicle of Higher Ed includes some horrifying video of the fire. Other reports note that some chairs on site for an exhibit were removed from the building unharmed, as were 80 architectural models. Touring the area, education minister Ronald Plasterk called the destruction of the building the "biggest disaster in the history of Dutch university education."
"Authorities believe the fire was started by a water leak in a coffee machine, which led to a short circuit."
"The Faculty has (or must I sadly write: had) one of the most important libraries in the field of Architecture, with 40,000 books including several atlases (Blaeu, Braun & Hogenberg), and a map collection of 12,000 maps (topographical maps of the 19th century, soil maps, planning maps of the Noordoostpolder, Berlage's plans of the new parts of Amsterdam and The Hague, and the plans for the rebuilding of Rotterdam after WW II). The older maps (pre-1850) were stored in the University Library.
"The fate of the library is not known yet. The map curator, Addie Ritter, wrote that his depot is almost certainly destroyed, since it was in the part of the building that collapsed. The library, which was on the ground flour of a different wing of the building, is not accessible because the building is instable. It can take three to four weeks before it may be entered (the building of 14 [or 13] stories has to be demolished first). The older books were in a safe, but if that save[d] them is unknown (the fire lasted for about 24 hours)."
A report from the Chronicle of Higher Ed includes some horrifying video of the fire. Other reports note that some chairs on site for an exhibit were removed from the building unharmed, as were 80 architectural models. Touring the area, education minister Ronald Plasterk called the destruction of the building the "biggest disaster in the history of Dutch university education."
"Authorities believe the fire was started by a water leak in a coffee machine, which led to a short circuit."
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Gould Archive, Library Go to Stanford
The Stanford News Service reports that the papers and library of Stephen Jay Gould, the famed paleontologist and writer of fascinating essays on natural history, has been acquired by Stanford. The collection includes some 1,500 rare books on early paleontology, more than 8,000 volumes from Gould's working library, as much as 500 linear feet of documents, plus many artifacts and specimens
"So how did all the books, papers and artifacts from a scientist who spent his professional career at Harvard University end up at Stanford?
'Stanford was the only institution really prepared to make a commitment to digitize and cross-link all of Steve's work, and this is something that Steve wanted,' said [Gould's widow Rhonda] Shearer. 'Even though he called himself a Luddite and really had anxiety about technology, he saw that for ideas to compete, they really had to be out on the Internet.'
"So how did all the books, papers and artifacts from a scientist who spent his professional career at Harvard University end up at Stanford?
'Stanford was the only institution really prepared to make a commitment to digitize and cross-link all of Steve's work, and this is something that Steve wanted,' said [Gould's widow Rhonda] Shearer. 'Even though he called himself a Luddite and really had anxiety about technology, he saw that for ideas to compete, they really had to be out on the Internet.'
[Stanford librarian Michael] Keller said the plan is to digitize Gould's articles, as well as the sources from which he drew both inspiration and information, and cross-link the source materials to the endnotes and citations in his writing. The goal will be to make all of Gould's papers freely available over the Internet to anyone who wants to see them, whether schoolchildren or scholars."
The project is expected to take at least three years.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Another Brubaker Arraigned
The Great Falls Tribune reports today that another shoe has dropped in the James Brubaker case ... his wife Caroline Brubaker, 64, was arraigned yesterday in federal court "on charges of conspiracy to traffic in stolen property and possession and sale of stolen property."
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
The Mathers are Finished!
I have at long last completed cataloging the known portions of the Mather Family Library at LibraryThing. This turned into one of those projects that once begun was rather more expansive than it first appeared, so it took longer than I expected to finish, but I think it came out well in the end.The library contains copies of books owned by several members of the Mather family, from patriarch Richard to Increase and Cotton (at left), their cousins and nephews, sons, daughters and grandsons (the notorious Boston loyalist minister Mather Byles) and several other relations. The books are now widely scattered, although the majority of them are currently housed at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, MA. The MHS and BPL also hold portions of the collection.
Many if not most of the books contain ownership inscriptions, which are noted for those where either the old bibliography (from 1910) or the current library records contain them. The copies at MHS have been examined personally and verified, but the others I haven't physically looked at yet.
Not surprisingly, the Mathers don't share many titles with modern readers (or at least LT-users, I'm sure there's somebody out there with a few obscure 17th century religious pamphlets). Those they do share are ones you might expect: Machiavelli's The Prince, Thomas Browne's Religio Medici, Ovid, Descartes, Plutarch, &c. No Shakespeare for this lot, of course.
This is the first time (so far as I know) that the entire known collection of the Mathers (there may be a few more scattered titles out there - if anyone knows of such, please let me know) has been compiled in one place: the 1910 bibliography did not include a large portion of those held at AAS; those are included here, and all records have been updated to the extent possible.
An interesting look, I think, at the bookshelves of the most important early New England divines.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Authorities Say Comstock Case (Almost) Closed
The investigation into the murder of book collector Rolland Comstock last July may finally be winding up, the Springfield News-Leader (MO) reported over the weekend: "Chief Deputy Jim Arnott said Friday that most of the evidence sent for testing has come back and detectives have narrowed in on 'one or more suspects.'
'We have received several items of forensic evidence that have helped us go in a specific direction,' he said. 'We have narrowed our focus on the investigation and we are proceeding forward. ... We do feel that we're headed the right way ... We believe we have a motive and some physical evidence.'"
The length of the investigation has been largely due to lab-testing of evidence, Arnott said.
Television station KY3 adds that "charges could be filed within a month."
'We have received several items of forensic evidence that have helped us go in a specific direction,' he said. 'We have narrowed our focus on the investigation and we are proceeding forward. ... We do feel that we're headed the right way ... We believe we have a motive and some physical evidence.'"
The length of the investigation has been largely due to lab-testing of evidence, Arnott said.
Television station KY3 adds that "charges could be filed within a month."
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Book Review: "The Monsters of Templeton"
Lauren Groff's debut novel The Monsters of Templeton (Hyperion, 2008) is a remarkable book, which I would definitely put in my top five for 2008 thus far. Deftly weaving history and literary references with other, less conventional elements (cryptozoology, genealogy, &c.), Groff has crafted a refreshingly original work.
Wilhelmina (Willie) Upton, 28, our main character and sometime narrator, returns to her hometown of Templeton, NY (a scarcely disguised Cooperstown, using the name for the village that James Fenimore Cooper used in his own Leatherstocking tales for the town founded by his father), disgraced and confused. Her mother doesn't help things along by revealing that her unknown father was in fact a Templeton man rather than the California hippie Willie had always been led to believe ... and not only was he a Templeton man, but a descendant of the Templeton man, town founder Marmaduke Temple himself (making Willie a direct Temple descendant thrice over, for reasons better explained by reading the book).
Willie has a rough time settling back into Templeton life: renewing acquaintances, living with her mother, dealing with the issues she left behind. But she dives into the quest for her father, gorging on archival research [why, by the way, does every book which features library research have to include a theft?! It's quite disturbing] and reading the Temple canon in search of clues. The clues she finds in letters, diaries and other writings are included in the book, as are first-person narratives from some of the historical characters she comes across. These add much to the novel, and I quite enjoyed them. Oh, and there's a dead lake monster, too.
I think I was particularly taken with the novel because I happen to know Cooperstown quite well; I grew up near there, camped on the shores of the lake quite often and spent several summers working in the print shop at the Farmer's Museum. So I understood the references to the town and its tensions in a way that people unconnected with the place might not do (not that it would necessarily detract from anyone else's reading of the book, I just think it enhanced mine a bit).
One (of the two!) reviews of Monsters in the NYTimes called the work overambitious. Tosh. What are debut novels for if not to be ambitious? All credit to Lauren Groff for writing an ambitious book; it's a fine effort, and I'll very much look forward to the next one.
Wilhelmina (Willie) Upton, 28, our main character and sometime narrator, returns to her hometown of Templeton, NY (a scarcely disguised Cooperstown, using the name for the village that James Fenimore Cooper used in his own Leatherstocking tales for the town founded by his father), disgraced and confused. Her mother doesn't help things along by revealing that her unknown father was in fact a Templeton man rather than the California hippie Willie had always been led to believe ... and not only was he a Templeton man, but a descendant of the Templeton man, town founder Marmaduke Temple himself (making Willie a direct Temple descendant thrice over, for reasons better explained by reading the book).
Willie has a rough time settling back into Templeton life: renewing acquaintances, living with her mother, dealing with the issues she left behind. But she dives into the quest for her father, gorging on archival research [why, by the way, does every book which features library research have to include a theft?! It's quite disturbing] and reading the Temple canon in search of clues. The clues she finds in letters, diaries and other writings are included in the book, as are first-person narratives from some of the historical characters she comes across. These add much to the novel, and I quite enjoyed them. Oh, and there's a dead lake monster, too.
I think I was particularly taken with the novel because I happen to know Cooperstown quite well; I grew up near there, camped on the shores of the lake quite often and spent several summers working in the print shop at the Farmer's Museum. So I understood the references to the town and its tensions in a way that people unconnected with the place might not do (not that it would necessarily detract from anyone else's reading of the book, I just think it enhanced mine a bit).
One (of the two!) reviews of Monsters in the NYTimes called the work overambitious. Tosh. What are debut novels for if not to be ambitious? All credit to Lauren Groff for writing an ambitious book; it's a fine effort, and I'll very much look forward to the next one.
Links & Reviews
Apologies for the lateness of this post: this morning was so beautiful that I spent it outside doing a little birding rather than catching up on my link-gathering. One of my favorite spots, Jamaica Plain's Arnold Arboretum, was mobbed by Mother's Day crowds enjoying the Lilac Festival, so I went to a new (to me) spot, the park-like and wonderful Forest Hills Cemetery. In just under four hours of birding I had fifty-three species, including a gorgeous Cape May warbler, a life bird for me. Quite a delightful way to spend a few hours.
- In today's NYTimes, Virginia Heffernan has an essay on Oxford University Press' decision not to print a new edition of the OED (the Dictionary will be updated online, as it has been in recent years).
- A reminder from NPR giving another good reason to collect books instead of, oh, antique ammunition.
- The Washington Post reported this week on a study by WI-based Renaissance Learning exploring childrens' reading habits. Some very interesting findings, actually. The top-five books for first-graders through high-schoolers are here - the number of "classics" is quite surprising, and heartening.
- From BibliOdyssey, images from Ole Worm's Danicorum Monumentorum (1643), a book on Scandinavian rune stones.
- LIS News has been providing dispatches from Schenectady, where plans to renovate the main branch of the public library called for complete closure of the building for 10-12 months. Plans have now been put on hold, the Daily Gazette reports, so that additional bids can be obtained.
- Paul Collins notes a possible "lost book" reported in a letter to The Guardian: a 1934 Nigel Dennis novel titled Chalk and Cheese, the entire run of which the letter-writers believes to have been destroyed in an air raid. Not quite so, according to WorldCat: the New York Public Library holds a copy of the book (which was published under the pseudonym Richard Vaughan). If their cataloging is correct, then, Chalk and Cheese: A Co-educational School Novel is not lost, just quite rare indeed.
- K.G. Schneider at Free Range Librarian has a thoughtful post on tagging, which bounces off Tim's earlier post "The Long Tail of Ann Coulter" (funny, I would have thought forked tail, but long'll work). Both of them discuss why tagging-in-library-catalogs hasn't really taken off all that well, with the exception of LibraryThing for Libraries, which provides LT-user tags to library catalogs. They're both right: I would be quite unlikely to tag things in a library catalog (and don't on Amazon), whereas if I'm putting something in my own library for my own purposes, I will tag it. Which is why offering LT-tags to libraries makes sense - even if the tags might not be exactly those the library's own users would add, at least they are (for the most part) considered and useful (rather than Amazon's silliness).
- Travis updates us on the Transy Four: "Warren Lipka has been transferred from his old Kentucky home to the federal correctional institute in Elkton, Ohio. His boy Spence Reinhard is now at the FCI in Fort Dix, New Jersey. Charles Allen and Eric Borsuk remain in Kentucky, but at different prisons." Travis also points out some feedback to Paul Constant's book thief story: a book thief writing in to explain why he does what he does.
- The ALA's list of most-challenged books for 2007 is out, topped once again by And Tango Makes Three. But there is some good news: "Overall, the number of reported library challenges dropped from 546 in 2006 to 420 last year, well below the mid-1990s, when complaints topped 750."
- Also via LISNews, word that the Internet Archive "successfully fought a secret government Patriot Act order for records about one of its patrons and won the right to make the order public." More from the Washington Post.
Reviews
- Cokie Roberts' new book, Ladies of Liberty, receives a glowing review by Charlotte Hays in the Washington Post. I can't ethically review this one myself (my name appears in the acknowledgments) but I am certainly looking forward to reading it.
- In Salon, Louis Bayard reviews Tony Horwitz's A Journey Long and Strange.
- For the New Yorker, Jill Lepore reviews several new technological histories.
- In today's NYTimes, Virginia Heffernan has an essay on Oxford University Press' decision not to print a new edition of the OED (the Dictionary will be updated online, as it has been in recent years).
- A reminder from NPR giving another good reason to collect books instead of, oh, antique ammunition.
- The Washington Post reported this week on a study by WI-based Renaissance Learning exploring childrens' reading habits. Some very interesting findings, actually. The top-five books for first-graders through high-schoolers are here - the number of "classics" is quite surprising, and heartening.
- From BibliOdyssey, images from Ole Worm's Danicorum Monumentorum (1643), a book on Scandinavian rune stones.
- LIS News has been providing dispatches from Schenectady, where plans to renovate the main branch of the public library called for complete closure of the building for 10-12 months. Plans have now been put on hold, the Daily Gazette reports, so that additional bids can be obtained.
- Paul Collins notes a possible "lost book" reported in a letter to The Guardian: a 1934 Nigel Dennis novel titled Chalk and Cheese, the entire run of which the letter-writers believes to have been destroyed in an air raid. Not quite so, according to WorldCat: the New York Public Library holds a copy of the book (which was published under the pseudonym Richard Vaughan). If their cataloging is correct, then, Chalk and Cheese: A Co-educational School Novel is not lost, just quite rare indeed.
- K.G. Schneider at Free Range Librarian has a thoughtful post on tagging, which bounces off Tim's earlier post "The Long Tail of Ann Coulter" (funny, I would have thought forked tail, but long'll work). Both of them discuss why tagging-in-library-catalogs hasn't really taken off all that well, with the exception of LibraryThing for Libraries, which provides LT-user tags to library catalogs. They're both right: I would be quite unlikely to tag things in a library catalog (and don't on Amazon), whereas if I'm putting something in my own library for my own purposes, I will tag it. Which is why offering LT-tags to libraries makes sense - even if the tags might not be exactly those the library's own users would add, at least they are (for the most part) considered and useful (rather than Amazon's silliness).
- Travis updates us on the Transy Four: "Warren Lipka has been transferred from his old Kentucky home to the federal correctional institute in Elkton, Ohio. His boy Spence Reinhard is now at the FCI in Fort Dix, New Jersey. Charles Allen and Eric Borsuk remain in Kentucky, but at different prisons." Travis also points out some feedback to Paul Constant's book thief story: a book thief writing in to explain why he does what he does.
- The ALA's list of most-challenged books for 2007 is out, topped once again by And Tango Makes Three. But there is some good news: "Overall, the number of reported library challenges dropped from 546 in 2006 to 420 last year, well below the mid-1990s, when complaints topped 750."
- Also via LISNews, word that the Internet Archive "successfully fought a secret government Patriot Act order for records about one of its patrons and won the right to make the order public." More from the Washington Post.
Reviews
- Cokie Roberts' new book, Ladies of Liberty, receives a glowing review by Charlotte Hays in the Washington Post. I can't ethically review this one myself (my name appears in the acknowledgments) but I am certainly looking forward to reading it.
- In Salon, Louis Bayard reviews Tony Horwitz's A Journey Long and Strange.
- For the New Yorker, Jill Lepore reviews several new technological histories.
Friday, May 09, 2008
Book Review: "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"
I've long intended to read Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and finally did so over the past few days using the Oxford World's Classics edition (containing the original John Tenniel illustrations). Carroll's story, bizarre as it is, remains witty and nonsensical (just as it was intended to be).
With the ridiculous and improbable characters he's famous for, Carroll manages to tell a good yarn, even if things are never exactly as they seem. I was actually surprised at how similar the Disney version of Alice's adventures are to their source materials: while the two books are combined into one film and the events are taken out of sequence, most of the scenes were portrayed with quite reasonable accuracy.
Fun reads, so long as you can find it within you to suspend your sense of normal.
With the ridiculous and improbable characters he's famous for, Carroll manages to tell a good yarn, even if things are never exactly as they seem. I was actually surprised at how similar the Disney version of Alice's adventures are to their source materials: while the two books are combined into one film and the events are taken out of sequence, most of the scenes were portrayed with quite reasonable accuracy.
Fun reads, so long as you can find it within you to suspend your sense of normal.
Free at Last!
As of 5:30 p.m. yesterday afternoon, I'm finally done with my Simmons degrees ... I've spent a long three years in the dual-masters history and library science program, but I have at last reached the end of the road.
The last few weeks have been quite busy (hence the less-frequent posts here lately), and the next few may be as well as I readjust to non-class-based life again and get caught up on the projects that I'd been putting off until I was finished with classes. But I'm very much looking forward to being able to spend some more time reading, and writing, and enjoying the springtime that seems to be flying by much too fast for my liking.
I'll have more ruminations on library school once a little time has passed; I consciously avoided discussing that topic here very often while I was still in the program, but am looking forward to offering some thoughts about the current state of library education both in general and at Simmons in particular.
For the moment, however, I'm just happy to be done. I'm going to go read something entirely non-school related, and feel utterly guiltless about it (I've been reading all along, of course, but I've felt at least slightly guilty about it until now).
The last few weeks have been quite busy (hence the less-frequent posts here lately), and the next few may be as well as I readjust to non-class-based life again and get caught up on the projects that I'd been putting off until I was finished with classes. But I'm very much looking forward to being able to spend some more time reading, and writing, and enjoying the springtime that seems to be flying by much too fast for my liking.
I'll have more ruminations on library school once a little time has passed; I consciously avoided discussing that topic here very often while I was still in the program, but am looking forward to offering some thoughts about the current state of library education both in general and at Simmons in particular.
For the moment, however, I'm just happy to be done. I'm going to go read something entirely non-school related, and feel utterly guiltless about it (I've been reading all along, of course, but I've felt at least slightly guilty about it until now).
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Auction Report: Sotheby's
Sotheby's London held a sale of Natural History, Travels, Atlases and Maps today in London; the sale total was 1.375 million GBP ($2.66 million). Full results here. Highlights included:
- Zaehnsdorf-bound copy of John Gould's Birds of Great Britain (1862-1873), which sold for 43,700 GBP
- First edition of Albertus Seba's Locupletissimi rerum naturalium thesauri accurata descriptio (1734-1765), a four-volume catalogue of one of the great cabinets of natural curiosities (and a great tourist attraction in its day). Sold for 84,500 GBP.
- A 1628 world map by Cornelis Danckerts the Elder and Melchior Tavernier, of which only a "four or five" copies survive, sold for 62,900 GBP (smashing its estimates). A 1513 Waldseemüller map also sold well, fetching 48,500 GBP.
- Zaehnsdorf-bound copy of John Gould's Birds of Great Britain (1862-1873), which sold for 43,700 GBP
- First edition of Albertus Seba's Locupletissimi rerum naturalium thesauri accurata descriptio (1734-1765), a four-volume catalogue of one of the great cabinets of natural curiosities (and a great tourist attraction in its day). Sold for 84,500 GBP.
- A 1628 world map by Cornelis Danckerts the Elder and Melchior Tavernier, of which only a "four or five" copies survive, sold for 62,900 GBP (smashing its estimates). A 1513 Waldseemüller map also sold well, fetching 48,500 GBP.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Yale to Digitize Books with Microsoft
The Yale University Library has inked a deal with Microsoft to digitize 100,000 books from Yale's collections this year, according to a report in the library newsletter. "The initial selection criteria for books chosen will be those in English, published before 1923, and thus part of the public domain and free from copyright restrictions. Yale and Microsoft will work together to identify which of the approximately 13 million volumes held by Yale's 22 libraries will be digitized. Currently, selected books will be in the subject areas of Art and Art History, History, Religion, and Travel. Most are coming from Sterling Memorial Library, Mudd Library, and the Library Shelving Facility as well as from the British Art Center library."
This provides an opportunity to link to a little class project I did this term: a comparative examination of the three major book-scanning sites (Google Books, Microsoft Live Search Books and the Internet Archive's Text Archive). It's written as a class tutorial, so it's quite basic, but it's something.
I'm always surprised when libraries sign on with Microsoft given the low comparative searchability and accessibility that they offer compared to the other two: to me Microsoft's product is clearly the weakest of the three (the lack of an advanced search feature alone is enough to keep me away from it in all but the most dire of circumstances).
This provides an opportunity to link to a little class project I did this term: a comparative examination of the three major book-scanning sites (Google Books, Microsoft Live Search Books and the Internet Archive's Text Archive). It's written as a class tutorial, so it's quite basic, but it's something.
I'm always surprised when libraries sign on with Microsoft given the low comparative searchability and accessibility that they offer compared to the other two: to me Microsoft's product is clearly the weakest of the three (the lack of an advanced search feature alone is enough to keep me away from it in all but the most dire of circumstances).
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Audubon Exhibits in MA, SC
- The Art Room of the New Bedford (MA) Public Library reopens today after a five-year hiatus, SouthCoastToday reports. Among the pieces to be displayed is a full set of Aubudon's Birds of America, donated to the library in 1866 by whaling merchant James Arnold. "The library will hold its grand re-opening of the Art Room on June 12 from 5 to 9 p.m. as part of an AHA! Night in the city. The Art Room will be open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 1 to 5 p.m., Thursdays from 1 to 5 p.m. and 6 to 9 p.m. and Fridays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m."
- The Upcountry History Museum in Greenville, SC has opened a new exhibit, "South Carolina Naturalists: Audubon in Context." The show runs through 24 September, and includes the University of South Carolina's copy of the Birds as well as works by other early naturalists working in the region. Museum hours are Tuesday-Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday 1-5 p.m.; closed Monday. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and students, $3 for children ages 4-12. Children under 4 years old are free.
- The Upcountry History Museum in Greenville, SC has opened a new exhibit, "South Carolina Naturalists: Audubon in Context." The show runs through 24 September, and includes the University of South Carolina's copy of the Birds as well as works by other early naturalists working in the region. Museum hours are Tuesday-Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday 1-5 p.m.; closed Monday. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and students, $3 for children ages 4-12. Children under 4 years old are free.
Monday, May 05, 2008
Collection of Rare Cook Materials to be Sold
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a collection of James Cook materials (books, maps, portraits, manuscripts, &c.) will be sold this month "in a fixed-price sale organised by Hordern House, the rare books specialist." The 133-item collection has been accumulated "over the past 15 years by an American investment consultant, Robert Parks."
Highlights include a 1772 manuscript letter by Cook requesting the return of one of his sailors who had been press-ganged by the East India Company, and one of two surviving copies of the "Banks Map," the first to show the entire continent of Australia. "Other oddities in Mr Parks's collection include a print of Cook watching a boxing match in Hawaii; another print shows what is believed to be the first image of a surfer in western art. There are scientific treaties examining Cook's successful prevention of scurvy and an extremely rare book of Hawaiian and Tahitian fabrics that had been collected by Cook and his men on the Resolution."
The Hordern House catalogue will be available later this month for A$45.
Highlights include a 1772 manuscript letter by Cook requesting the return of one of his sailors who had been press-ganged by the East India Company, and one of two surviving copies of the "Banks Map," the first to show the entire continent of Australia. "Other oddities in Mr Parks's collection include a print of Cook watching a boxing match in Hawaii; another print shows what is believed to be the first image of a surfer in western art. There are scientific treaties examining Cook's successful prevention of scurvy and an extremely rare book of Hawaiian and Tahitian fabrics that had been collected by Cook and his men on the Resolution."
The Hordern House catalogue will be available later this month for A$45.
Location of Mitchell Papers Still Unknown
Back in February I posted about the settlement of a lengthy legal battle over a collection of Margaret Mitchell papers. I noted then that the court documents did not reveal the ultimate disposition of the documents, adding "Presumably we'll find out sooner or later where they've ended up, but it is strange (and not particularly helpful for research purposes) that the sides are being so secretive about it."
The AP ran a followup piece yesterday, reporting only that the cat is not yet out of the bag.
The AP ran a followup piece yesterday, reporting only that the cat is not yet out of the bag.
On Sir Thomas Phillipps
David McKie has a short profile of the obsessive collector Sir Thomas Phillipps in today's Guardian.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Links & Reviews
- ILAB has made the 8th edition of John Carter's ABC for Book Collectors is available online in PDF form here.
- The BBC reports today that Vivaldi's long-lost opera "Argippo," which debuted in Prague back in 1730, has been performed for the first time in 278 years after "most of the score was discovered in Germany by a young Czech musician [Ondrej Macek] who completed the missing parts."
- A new exhibition at the University of Virginia, ""The Monster Among Us: 'Frankenstein' from Mary Shelley to Mel Brooks.", "documents various reactions to Mary Shelley's story: not only printed editions in cloth and paper, but also Frankenstein comic books, Frankenstein movies (and stills and posters), Frankenstein masks and clothing, Frankenstein dishware – even Frankenstein breakfast cereal. The exhibition explores how the monster has interacted with American culture over the past century and more." The show was curated by UVa student Shannon Gorman and coordinated through Terry Belanger's Rare Book School.
- LIS News noted that Encylopaedia Britannica is offering free access to certain bloggers; I've signed up and received my subscription, so look for more links to EB articles in upcoming posts.
- Laura found several interesting book-related films over at the Internet Archive. Check them out.
- Ian notes a new exhibit at the National Library of Medicine of materials from the library's "Bathtub Collection" (materials found in the old bindings when rare books in the library were conserved"). Some fascinating discoveries.
- The Harry Ransom Center at UT Austin has acquired an eight-volume Plantin Polyglot bible (1568-1572), which contains "parallel texts in Hebrew, Greek, Syriac and Aramaic with translations and commentary in Latin." [h/t RBN]
- J.L. Bell does some mythbusting about Washington's first inauguration - turns out that whole "so help me God" ad-lib addition to the oath probably didn't happen. He also passes along this Times-Union article about conservation efforts at the New York State Archives (to repair some of the damage caused by the catastrophic 1911 fire).
- The Scotsman reported this week that "A selection of poems by the man hailed as the world's worst poet are set to fetch up to £6500 when they go under the hammer. Edinburgh-born William Topaz McGonagall has been mocked more than any other bard for his unintentionally humorous writing. Thirty-five of his original poems are to be sold at the Lyon and Turnbull auction house in the Capital next month." [Update: Paul Collins has more, including a link to the online database of McGonagall's poems and a sampler.]
- Travis recommends (and highly, too), Jason Shiga's graphic novel Bookhunter.
- Rare Book Review reports that a complete set of John Gould's books of bird illustrations sold for $2.4 million at Christie's on 30 April as part of the Foljambe Collection. Quite a few other notable examples of illustrated books and early printing.
- The Legacy Libraries VSL debut garnered another very nice mention, in the LATimes book-blog Jacket Copy.
Reviews
- Chuck Leddy reviews The Man Who Made Lists for the Boston Globe.
- Tony Horwitz's new book, A Voyage Long and Strange is reviewed this weekend by Andrew Ferguson for the NYTimes, Nina Burleigh for the Washington Post, and Roland Merullo for the Boston Globe.
- In the NYTimes, Laura Miller reviews Christopher Benfey's A Summer of Hummingbirds: Love, Art, and Scandal in the Intersecting Worlds of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Martin Johnson Heade. Sounds like a rather strange book, although Miller writes that it is "very pleasant to float alongside so curious and playful a writer as he drifts from one anecdote or observation to the next."
- Leo Hollis' The Phoenix: St. Paul's Cathedral and the Making of Modern London is reviewed by Roderick Graham for The Scotsman. This will be published on this side of the pond as London Rising: The Men Who Made Modern London by Walker & Company later this month.
- The BBC reports today that Vivaldi's long-lost opera "Argippo," which debuted in Prague back in 1730, has been performed for the first time in 278 years after "most of the score was discovered in Germany by a young Czech musician [Ondrej Macek] who completed the missing parts."
- A new exhibition at the University of Virginia, ""The Monster Among Us: 'Frankenstein' from Mary Shelley to Mel Brooks.", "documents various reactions to Mary Shelley's story: not only printed editions in cloth and paper, but also Frankenstein comic books, Frankenstein movies (and stills and posters), Frankenstein masks and clothing, Frankenstein dishware – even Frankenstein breakfast cereal. The exhibition explores how the monster has interacted with American culture over the past century and more." The show was curated by UVa student Shannon Gorman and coordinated through Terry Belanger's Rare Book School.
- LIS News noted that Encylopaedia Britannica is offering free access to certain bloggers; I've signed up and received my subscription, so look for more links to EB articles in upcoming posts.
- Laura found several interesting book-related films over at the Internet Archive. Check them out.
- Ian notes a new exhibit at the National Library of Medicine of materials from the library's "Bathtub Collection" (materials found in the old bindings when rare books in the library were conserved"). Some fascinating discoveries.
- The Harry Ransom Center at UT Austin has acquired an eight-volume Plantin Polyglot bible (1568-1572), which contains "parallel texts in Hebrew, Greek, Syriac and Aramaic with translations and commentary in Latin." [h/t RBN]
- J.L. Bell does some mythbusting about Washington's first inauguration - turns out that whole "so help me God" ad-lib addition to the oath probably didn't happen. He also passes along this Times-Union article about conservation efforts at the New York State Archives (to repair some of the damage caused by the catastrophic 1911 fire).
- The Scotsman reported this week that "A selection of poems by the man hailed as the world's worst poet are set to fetch up to £6500 when they go under the hammer. Edinburgh-born William Topaz McGonagall has been mocked more than any other bard for his unintentionally humorous writing. Thirty-five of his original poems are to be sold at the Lyon and Turnbull auction house in the Capital next month." [Update: Paul Collins has more, including a link to the online database of McGonagall's poems and a sampler.]
- Travis recommends (and highly, too), Jason Shiga's graphic novel Bookhunter.
- Rare Book Review reports that a complete set of John Gould's books of bird illustrations sold for $2.4 million at Christie's on 30 April as part of the Foljambe Collection. Quite a few other notable examples of illustrated books and early printing.
- The Legacy Libraries VSL debut garnered another very nice mention, in the LATimes book-blog Jacket Copy.
Reviews
- Chuck Leddy reviews The Man Who Made Lists for the Boston Globe.
- Tony Horwitz's new book, A Voyage Long and Strange is reviewed this weekend by Andrew Ferguson for the NYTimes, Nina Burleigh for the Washington Post, and Roland Merullo for the Boston Globe.
- In the NYTimes, Laura Miller reviews Christopher Benfey's A Summer of Hummingbirds: Love, Art, and Scandal in the Intersecting Worlds of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Martin Johnson Heade. Sounds like a rather strange book, although Miller writes that it is "very pleasant to float alongside so curious and playful a writer as he drifts from one anecdote or observation to the next."
- Leo Hollis' The Phoenix: St. Paul's Cathedral and the Making of Modern London is reviewed by Roderick Graham for The Scotsman. This will be published on this side of the pond as London Rising: The Men Who Made Modern London by Walker & Company later this month.
Friday, May 02, 2008
LOC's Jefferson Exhibit Now Online
The Library of Congress' new Thomas Jefferson library exhibit is now available online (in an abbreviated but interactive form). It provides a good brief overview of the reconstitution project and offers a selection of digitized books from the collection which are available for browsing. I hope there would be a few more of these, but I really like that they've highlighted Jefferson's use of the Baconian classification system for his library.
Until I can get to DC and see the "real thing," the online version will suffice - I'm delighted that they've done it, and I think it's a very adequate introduction to the library and its contents.
[NB: Once classes (finally) end next week and I've finished up some final work on the Mather Library I'm going back to Jefferson's LT library to make some further enhancements there. So be on the lookout for those.]
Until I can get to DC and see the "real thing," the online version will suffice - I'm delighted that they've done it, and I think it's a very adequate introduction to the library and its contents.
[NB: Once classes (finally) end next week and I've finished up some final work on the Mather Library I'm going back to Jefferson's LT library to make some further enhancements there. So be on the lookout for those.]
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Top 106 Unread Books on LibraryThing
Abby blogged yesterday about a new LibraryThing meme that's been making the rounds: The Top 106 Unread Books on LT. "People are going through the top 106 books tagged "unread" on LT, and then marking which ones they've read, which they read for school, which they started but didn't finish, which are on their to read list, which they loathed, which they read more than once..." I usually don't do these things, but it's LT ...
As per None of This Matters: "The rules: bold the books you have read, italicize books you’ve started but not finished, strike the books you read but hated (likely for school), add an asterisk* to books you’ve read more than once, and underline those you own but still haven’t read yourself." (I've changed the last one to a number sign# because I retained the hyperlinks and I didn't think the underlining would show up - so titles with an # in front are those I own but haven't read).
NB: The numbers following each title are the number of times the book has been tagged "unread" / the total number of LT users with the book.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (236/9041)
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (211/8954)
One hundred years of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (183/11973)
Crime and punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (176/10687)
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (162/12137)
Catch-22 a novel by Joseph Heller (158/10886)
The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (155/8789)
*Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra (152/6654)
#The Odyssey by Homer (136/10954)
The brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (136/7174)
#Ulysses by James Joyce (135/6255)
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (132/6267)
War and peace by Leo Tolstoy (132/5953)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (124/13765)
*A tale of two cities by Charles Dickens (124/7460)
*The name of the rose by Umberto Eco (120/7706)
*Moby Dick by Herman Melville (119/7719)
#The Iliad by Homer (117/8723)
Emma by Jane Austen (117/8949)
Vanity fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (115/3827)
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (114/7115)
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (110/4806)
The Canterbury tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (108/6165)
Pride and prejudice by Jane Austen (108/18293)
The historian : a novel by Elizabeth Kostova (108/6447)
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (106/8595)
The kite runner by Khaled Hosseini (106/13572)
The time traveler's wife by Audrey Niffenegger (105/11414)
Life of Pi : a novel by Yann Martel (105/12692)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies by Jared Diamond (104/7493)
Atlas shrugged by Ayn Rand (102/5984)
Foucault's pendulum by Umberto Eco (101/5616)
*Dracula by Bram Stoker (100/6873)
The grapes of wrath by John Steinbeck (99/7812)
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius by Dave Eggers (97/6451)
Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (97/9127)
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (97/5565)
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books by Azar Nafisi (96/4404)
Middlemarch by George Eliot (96/4159)
Sense and sensibility by Jane Austen (96/8591)
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (95/5167)
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (94/11617)
The sound and the fury by William Faulkner (94/5043)Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (93/12421)
*Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle I) by Neal Stephenson (92/3525)
#American gods : a novel by Neil Gaiman (92/10319)
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (91/8871)
#The poisonwood Bible : a novel by Barbara Kingsolver (91/7461)
Wicked by Gregory Maguire (90/8905)
A portrait of the artist as a young man by James Joyce (89/6646)
The picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (89/7165)
Dune by Frank Herbert (89/9222)
The satanic verses by Salman Rushdie (88/3251)
*Gulliver's travels by Jonathan Swift (88/4857)
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (88/5360)
The three musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (87/4127)
The corrections by Jonathan Franzen (84/5066)
The inferno by Dante Alighieri (84/5873)
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (83/4378)
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (83/5795)
To the lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (83/4608)
A clockwork orange by Anthony Burgess (83/6754)
Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (83/4735)
The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay : a novel by Michael Chabon (83/5956)
Persuasion by Jane Austen (82/6479)
One flew over the cuckoo's nest by Ken Kesey (82/5908)
*The scarlet letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (82/7746)
#Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (82/4437)
Anansi boys : a novel by Neil Gaiman (81/6534)
The once and future king by T. H. White (81/4293)
Atonement: A Novel by Ian McEwan (80/6966)
The god of small things by Arundhati Roy (80/5509)
A short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson (79/6266)
Oryx and Crake : a novel by Margaret Atwood (78/3976)
Dubliners by James Joyce (78/5530)
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (78/5385)
Angela's ashes : a memoir by Frank McCourt (77/6349)
Beloved : a novel by Toni Morrison (77/5523) - I think I read this, but I'm not sure
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed by Jared Diamond (76/3822)
The hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo (75/2520)
In cold blood by Truman Capote (75/5473)
Lady Chatterley's lover by D.H. Lawrence (73/3169)
A confederacy of dunces by John Kennedy Toole (73/6061)
*Les misérables by Victor Hugo (73/4694)
*Watership Down by Richard Adams (72/6255)
The prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (72/6363)
The amber spyglass by Philip Pullman (72/6645)
Beowulf : a new verse translation by Anonymous (72/6350)
A farewell to arms by Ernest Hemingway (71/5122)
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance : by Robert M. Pirsig (71/5554)
#The Aeneid by Virgil (71/5057)
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (69/4625)
Sons and lovers by D.H. Lawrence (69/2563)
The personal history of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (69/4311)
The road by Cormac McCarthy (67/5099)
Possession : a romance by A.S. Byatt (67/4128)
#The history of Tom Jones, a foundling by Henry Fielding (67/2131)
The book thief by Markus Zusak (67/3554)
Gravity's rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (66/3261)
The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells (66/3046)
Tender is the night by F. Scott Fitzgerald (66/3131)
Candide, or, Optimism by Voltaire (65/5083)
Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro (65/4317)
The plague by Albert Camus (65/4610)
Jude the obscure by Thomas Hardy (65/2944)
Cold mountain by Charles Frazier (64/4160)
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