Author: wrbg

June 11, 2023 , 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EDT
11AM Pacific/ 2PM Eastern/ 7PM UK

Join the Zoom Webinar on June 11

Join LCSNA members and friends as they go on a virtual tour of some very special Carrollian collections. In addition to exclusive looks at exquisite ephemera, they’ll explore what drives collectors to collect, and how they settle on specialty and scope.

We are very excited to welcome Dr. Catherine Richards, Clare Imholtz and Joel Birenbaum.

Catherine Richards will give an introduction to the important field of Carrollian Deltiology, sharing some of her favourite specimens, and showing how they can lead to some fascinating research.

Joel Birenbaum, serious and not so serious collector of all things Alice, will present Welcome to My Wonderland.

Clare Imholtz will share her Alice-themed yearbook collection!

Meet Your Collectors

Catherine Richards has been collecting and researching Lewis Carroll for over 40 years. The Richards collection is wide-ranging, and one particular focus is upon Carroll-related postcards, which in themselves cover every conceivable topic.

Joel Birenbaum is a member and ex-president of the LCSNA, Creator and Administrator of the Alice in Wonderland Collectors Network and Organizer of Alice150.

Clare Imholtz is a long-time LCSNA member who has been collecting Alice books and ephemera since the 1980s. She discovered Alice-themed yearbooks, many of which include extraordinary student art and writing, on eBay.

Washington Rare Book Group member Michael Glenn Thomas has a new publication to share:

Learn more at the publisher’s website here!

Jackie Coleburn, Library of Congress, Rare Book Cataloger, and Anthony Mullan, Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, Cartographic Specialist (retired), will give a talk on Samuel Griswold’s innovative methods of teaching geography to his young readers as a companion more than as a tutor, telling stories and creating adventures to convey concepts of history and geography. Griswold’s books, under the pseudonym Peter Parley, were immensely popular, selling in multiple editions and millions of copies. The lecture will offer a window into the prevailing opinions and assumptions of pre-Civil War America with Goodrich’s books on geography for children.

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Questions? Contact Sara Karrer saka@loc.gov or call 202-707-6150.

The next meeting of the Washington Area Group for Print Culture Studies 2022-2023 series will take place on Friday, February 10, from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. (EST) via Zoom.

Lilla Vekerdy, Head of Special Collections at the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, will deliver a talk entitled “How Do Book Bindings Get to Sing?”

Zoom link:  https://wcupa.zoom.us/j/93439549048?pwd=alVCaE54RWVVeGNUdGQxbjlaQzlKQT09

Abstract:
How Do Book Bindings Get to Sing? will discuss a group of Renaissance and Early Modern books that are bound in fragments of music manuscripts from the Middle Ages.  These “singing bindings” are hundreds of years older than the texts they cover.  Furthermore, the texts inside are on mathematics, physics, astronomy, and one even about the Devil itself, but absolutely none is on music.  Lilla Vekerdy will shed light on how and why these discrepancies happened.  The volumes examined are selected from the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives’ Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology.

Biography:
Lilla Vekerdy earned her two master’s degrees in Literature, Linguistics and Library Sciences in Budapest, Hungary in 1984, and completed her doctoral coursework in Medieval and Renaissance History at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri in 2005.  She has been the Head of Special Collections at the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives since 2008, where she oversees all rare materials in 16 library research centers, and also serves as the Curator of Physical Sciences Rare Books.  Her research interest and publications are in the history of science and medicine as well as in rare book studies, and often cover the overlay of these fields. 

Please join us for Lilla Vekerdy’s talk and discussion afterwards.

For further information, consult the Washington Area Group for Print Culture Studies website at http://wagpcs.wordpress.com/, or contact Sabrina Baron and Eleanor Shevlin at the above emails.

Introduction to Western Codicology

Instructor: Ilya Dines
Location: Smithsonian / Washington D.C.
Mode: In-person
Dates: August 14 – August 18
Tuition: $1200.00

Course Description:

This course focuses on the skills required to analyze, research and understand medieval Western manuscripts as physical objects, from the way manuscripts must be handled and measured, through their binding and construction, and finally through the organization of quires and their writing surface. Ultimately, students will understand how all the elements work in tandem to produce a manuscript. After mastering these skills, students will proceed to the methods by which medieval manuscripts are described from a codicological point of view. This course is based primarily on the holdings of the Smithsonian institute as well as on my extensive image archive, and on visits to the rare and special collections of the Library of Congress.

For more information visit: https://www.calrbs.org/program/courses/introduction-to-western-codicology/

The American Printing History Association (APHA) is now accepting applications for the 2023 Mark Samuels Lasner Fellowship in Printing History. An award of up to $2,000 is available for research in any area of the history of printing, including all the arts and technologies relevant to printing, the book arts, and letter forms.

The Mark Samuels Lasner Fellowship supports the study of printing history, in any time period or geographic region. The topic may be biographical, analytical, technical, or bibliographical in nature. Studio work or study with a recognized printer, if focused on printing history, may be supported. APHA fellowships are open to individuals of any nationality. Applicants need not be academics, and an advanced degree is not required. Previous applicants are invited to re-apply. The fellowship can be used to pay for travel, living, and other expenses, including internet access, dependent care during the period of research, or fees for image reproduction.

Applications and supporting materials are due by Sunday, January 8, 2023. The fellowship will be formally awarded at the annual meeting of the American Printing History Association on Saturday, January 28, 2023. The annual meeting will be virtual. Full information, the application form, and a sample budget may be found on the APHA Fellowship page at https://printinghistory.org/programs/fellowship/.

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J. Fernando Peña
President, American Printing History Association
https://printinghistory.org/