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Sarah Werner

held a number of roles during her time at the Folger, including Editor of The Collation (2011–2015). She is the author of Studying Early Printed Books 1450-1800: A Practical Guide, co-editor of PBSA (The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America) and occasionally still writes a blog and newsletter, which can be found from her website.
correcting mistakes
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correcting mistakes

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Sarah Werner

In my last post, I wrote about my joy in finding printer’s errors and what we might learn from them about early modern printing. In this one, I want to look at some examples of what printers do to correct…

learning from mistakes
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learning from mistakes

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Sarah Werner

One of my favorite categories of early modern books are those that show errors, small mistakes made in the process of printing them. a leaf that was folded when it was printed I don’t love them because I like to…

One way of looking at many books
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One way of looking at many books

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Sarah Werner

Last week I wrote about two students who worked on (two different copies of) the same book. But looking over the 64 texts that the 66 students I’ve taught over the last five years (in eight different seminars), I’m struck…

Two ways of looking at the same book
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Two ways of looking at the same book

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Sarah Werner

As I’ve written about before, in my Undergraduate Seminars students devote the bulk of their research time to crafting a biography of the book they’ve chosen as their primary focus. They find out who wrote the book and who printed…

Reduce, reuse, recycle
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Reduce, reuse, recycle

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Sarah Werner

Did you think that “reduce, reuse, recycle” was just a modern slogan? Check out this early modern book: That’s an image of the front inside cover and front endleaf of a 1636 edition of Charles Fitz-Geffrey’s The blessed birth-day, which…

'Tis the season
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'Tis the season

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Sarah Werner

For teachers, this is the season of grading; for students, this is the season of exam-taking and paper-writing. For some of you, both students and teachers, you get slammed on both sides (no matter how much you enjoy writing or…

Research aids: understanding catalog records
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Research aids: understanding catalog records

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Sarah Werner

A number of posts and comments in The Collation have discussed the wonderful work that Folger catalogers do. But sometimes we all need assistance to fully grasp what information is being conveyed in those detailed Hamnet records. As I mentioned in…

The books on our shelf
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The books on our shelf

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Sarah Werner

Headers on blogs are sometimes just pretty pictures, just as sometimes books sitting on a shelf are just books sitting there. In this case, however, the books sitting on the shelf in our header image are not only pretty, but…

Undergraduate reports from the Reading Room
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Undergraduate reports from the Reading Room

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Sarah Werner

Today’s post features two accounts from students at The George Washington University who are in this semester’s Folger Undergradaute Seminar. Lyssa Meddin When I first heard about the Folger Shakespeare Library Undergraduate Seminar I was finishing up my freshman year…

Guyot's speciman sheet
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Guyot's speciman sheet

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Sarah Werner

If you’re a type designer (or a type caster, to be more appropriate to the early modern period), how do you show people examples of your wares? You use a specimen sheet: On this sheet, we see a matched set…

Undergrads in the Library
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Undergrads in the Library

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Sarah Werner

Forty-five years ago, Folger Director Louis Wright used his annual report to describe the Library as a haven for student-weary faculty: The time has come when someone should give a word of commendation to long-suffering faculties, and provide them with…

Browsing the #wunderkammer
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Browsing the #wunderkammer

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Sarah Werner

One of the great things about running the @FolgerResearch twitter account is pulling together the Wednesday Wunderkammer from the Folger Digital Image Collection. It’s a chance for me to explore what’s in the constantly growing collection, making new discoveries and…

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