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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?”: August 2015
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“What manner o’ thing is your crocodile?”: August 2015

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Author
The Collation

It’s nearly August (where has the summer gone?), and you know what that means! Time for another mystery. At first glance, the “what” of this picture may be obvious. But take a second look. What is this foreign object, and…

Photostats, or, The more things change, the more they stay the same
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Photostats, or, The more things change, the more they stay the same

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Author
Erin Blake

Five weeks, and seventeen back-and-forth notes and letters. That’s what it took for the Folger Shakespeare Library’s first director, William Slade, to overcome the architects’ doubts that the library really did need a costly No. 4 Photostat machine and that it really was worth…

State Papers Online: tips and tricks, part 2
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State Papers Online: tips and tricks, part 2

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Author
Abbie Weinberg

In my first post on the State Papers Online, I discussed how to search the database for a document that you already had some sort of reference to, whether that was the document/entry number, or a page number. In this…

Marginal calculations; or, how old is that book?
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Marginal calculations; or, how old is that book?

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Author
Heather Wolfe

I’d like to make a pitch for recording a specific type of manuscript annotation in printed books and manuscripts: the “book age calculation.” These calculations turn up frequently on pastedowns and endleaves, and sometimes right in the middle of texts.…

“What manner o’ thing is your crocodile?” July 2015
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“What manner o’ thing is your crocodile?” July 2015

Posted
Author
The Collation

Another month, another Crocodile mystery! What’s going on in this image? Submit your comments below, and we’ll provide a full explanation next week (yes, that’s right, we’ve begun our summer schedule, which is weekly, rather than twice-weekly, to give our…

Publishing Against the King: French Civil War Pamphlets
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Publishing Against the King: French Civil War Pamphlets

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Author
Caroline Duroselle-Melish

From 1648 to 1653 a civil war, known as the Fronde, raged in France, with the nobility and most of the people of France on one side, and the royal government under the child-king Louis XIV and his hated chief…

Tagging manuscripts: how much is too much?
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Tagging manuscripts: how much is too much?

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Author
Paul Dingman

When it comes to the subject of tagging or encoding manuscript transcriptions in XML (extensible markup language) for Early Modern Manuscripts Online (EMMO), two important questions are how much should we tag and when should we do it. With thousands…

State Papers Online: tips and tricks, part 1
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State Papers Online: tips and tricks, part 1

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Author
Abbie Weinberg

The Calendar of State Papers is a well-known historical resource for early modernists across a variety of disciplines. This “calendar,” or register, documents the workings of the British government during the reigns of the Tudors and Stuarts, 1509–1714. For decades,…

The mystery of gridded paper
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The mystery of gridded paper

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Author
Austin Plann Curley

A guest post by Austin Plann Curley For a blank sheet of paper, we thought this one was pretty interesting. But before we get to what exactly it is, let’s refresh our understanding of how paper is made. Prior to…

"What manner o' thing is your crocodile?": June 2015
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"What manner o' thing is your crocodile?": June 2015

Posted
Author
The Collation

A new month and a new mystery! What can you tell us about this? What is it and why is it interesting? a mystery to ponder You know the drill: leave us your thoughts in the comments below, and come…

A Renaissance best-seller of love and action
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A Renaissance best-seller of love and action

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Author
Caroline Duroselle-Melish

The Folger Shakespeare Library’s 26 copies of various editions of Lodovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso attest to its success during the 16th and early 17th centuries (a success that continued for much longer, but that is another story). See for example Exercices furieux: à…

Meet the Hamnet HBCN ("Handy Butt-Cover Note")
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Meet the Hamnet HBCN ("Handy Butt-Cover Note")

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Author
Erin Blake

When libraries replaced card catalogs with computer catalogs, researchers lost a crucial piece of information: an at-glance indication of relative trustworthiness. Consider this thin slip of paper from the Folger’s card catalog, for example: Accession-level record from Folger card catalog Looks fairly preliminary, right? That’s because…

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