This is a guest post by Reference and Research Services student assistant Ariana Varela. The definition of public history is fluid and debated between the various types of public historians. One form of public history is archival work where documents and other types of media are collected, preserved, and cataloged in order to facilitate research. … Continue reading Public Historian by way of Archives and Reference
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and the same applies to the paper used for lining a book’s binding. Hand bookbinders are a frugal lot, and are notorious for recycling pages from old books in the binding of new books, or else using printed waste paper in the bindings. This practice has yielded many … Continue reading Treasure Trash in the Bindings
Did you know that the Gleeson Library has a collection of miniature books housed in the Donohue Rare Book Room? Have you ever read or handled a miniature book? Books are classified as miniature books when they are 10 cm. or smaller. Ones in the Rare Book Room range from under a half an inch … Continue reading Pop-Up Exhibition
On exhibition in the Donohue Rare Book Room through January 15th is Notes of Beauty, a selection of illuminated gradual leaves from the rare book collection. Graduals are liturgical works that were used by choirs during Mass. The vellum leaves are manuscripts; the notes, text, and decorations were all done by hand. The works on … Continue reading Illuminated Graduals in the Rare Book Room
When I first began working at Gleeson every other year or so at least a few students would stop by the former Periodicals Desk on the second floor looking for material from the 1950s and 1960s relating to poet Allen Ginsberg and/or other Beat Generation material. The Beats were countercultural literary mavericks who broke onto … Continue reading INSPIRATION FROM OUT THE ARCHIVES: Translating a Jorge de Sana poem in honor of Albert Huerta, S.J. & Michael Kotlager, S.J.
Classic rounded back binding is the epitome of a sturdy binding that holds up well against the ravages of time/use and will be the featured binding of this post. This post also marks the last installment of my series about examples of bindings found in Gleeson Library’s Rare Book Room. Thanks to John Hawk, Head of … Continue reading Classic Rounded Back Binding
This is part three in a series of four blog posts about types of bindings found in the Rare Book Room at Gleeson Library. John Hawk, Head of Special Collections, was nice enough to pull some examples for these blog posts. This week I will discuss flat back hard case binding. To me, flat back … Continue reading Flat Back Hard Case Binding
Today’s pop quiz: Who is the patron saint of librarians? Answer: St. Jerome. And his feast day is this Wednesday, September 30th. Who was he? Jerome was born around 347 and died in 420. He was a priest, a noted scholar, historian, and translator. He wrote an important Latin translation of the bible (the “Vulgate”) and many bible … Continue reading Saints and Librarians
Picking up where I left off last week, I write now to present examples of limp vellum bindings held in Gleeson Library’s Rare Book Room. I met with John Hawk, Head of Special Collections, to see examples of four types of bindings: coptic binding, limp vellum binding, flat back hard case binding, and classic rounded … Continue reading Limp Vellum Binding
This past April, I took the Bookbinding Core Certificate Program at the San Francisco Center for the Book, in where I learned how to bind books in four distinct styles: • coptic binding • limp vellum binding (or limp parchment) • flat back hard case binding • classic rounded back cloth or leather binding (with … Continue reading Coptic Book Binding
