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The Collation

The Collation

Research and Exploration at the Folger

The Collation is a gathering of useful information and observations from Folger staff and researchers. Read more about this blog

“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: June 2021
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“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: June 2021

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The Collation

We’re back! Whew! After a few technical difficulties last month, we return to bring you another Crocodile Mystery. We’ll pause while the wild cheering dies down. Please consider the image below and tell us, if you can, what’s going on…

A recipe for brioche (knitting)
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A recipe for brioche (knitting)

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Emily Wahl Rachel B. Dankert

…a Collation KAL (knit-along). Cast on We built our friendship with knits and purls over coffee in the Folger Tea Room. Sharing patterns, exchanging techniques, and giving fiber recommendations are still staple conversation topics for us seven years after we…

Facial Misrecognition
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Facial Misrecognition

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Wan-Chuan Kao

A guest post by Wan-Chuan Kao  Oliver Sacks, who brought to popular awareness many cognitive conditions that are simultaneously debilitating and fascinating—such as visual agnosia, of which face blindness is one type—observes that “our faces bear the stamp of our…

Birds, Beasts, Maps, and Books: The Search for Richard Daniel, Esquire
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Birds, Beasts, Maps, and Books: The Search for Richard Daniel, Esquire

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Danielle Skeehan

A guest post by Danielle Skeehan Even before research libraries shut down in March 2020, digitization efforts had already changed how we access archives and how we can do research. From the comfort of my home, I can do a…

Postcards in the (Home) Archive: Folger Postcards, 1934
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Postcards in the (Home) Archive: Folger Postcards, 1934

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Stephen H. Grant

A guest post by Stephen Grant As I set out with “Folger Postcards 1934” to share my personal collection of Folger postcards in a systematic way with all you Collators, I have to pause. Why am I doing this? Yes, due to…

Play it again, Ham
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Play it again, Ham

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Rachel B. Dankert

As a Folger staff member, I am used to seeing Shakespeare’s face everywhere, but the image from this month’s Crocodile Mystery made even me do a double take. This month’s mystery was a stumper! The Hamlet behind Shakespeare/Yorick was Edwin…

“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: April 2021
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“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: April 2021

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Author
The Collation

Never smile at a crocodile…mystery, that is. Especially when Shakespeare looks this shocked. Which 20th century performer is holding Shakespeare’s terrified, Yorick-ified head? If you’re not too scared, leave your guesses in the comments below and come back next week…

Documenting mistakes in our documentation
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Documenting mistakes in our documentation

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Erin Blake

If someone points out a typo in an online Finding Aid or a Hamnet catalog record, we gratefully say thank-you, fix it, and (usually) move on.For more on the differences between Finding aids and Hamnet records, see Manuscripts in libraries: catalog…

Pre-pandemic phone photo fails
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Pre-pandemic phone photo fails

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Heather Wolfe

As we hit the one year mark of special collections reading rooms closing around the world because of the pandemic, “primary source research” for many of us now consists of scrolling through our phones in search of photos of collection…

Making rum in unexpected places
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Making rum in unexpected places

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Jordan Smith

Note from the editors: we are testing a new image viewer in this post, and there are some bugs still to work out. If any of the images aren’t loading for you and you see a blank box instead, try clearing…

Marks on Bindings
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Marks on Bindings

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Caroline Duroselle-Melish

Thank you for your witty guesses to this month’s Crocodile, they are great! I also need to make a disclaimer: I am far from having collected enough evidence to answer this mystery, so like you, I only have guesses to…

“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: March 2021
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“What manner o’thing is your crocodile?”: March 2021

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Author
The Collation

We’ve come full circle—it’s (almost) March again. Or maybe it’s always been March? Instead of breaking your brain wondering how that can possibly be, here’s a new crocodile mystery to ponder: can you guess what happened to this binding and…

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