Folger Tooltips: Finding aids upgraded with links to digital images
While work continues to add to the Folger Digital Image Collection, and new finding aids continue to be added to the Folger Finding Aid Database, staff and interns are also busy upgrading existing finding aids with links to digital images.…
Fore-edge paintings
Following up on Sarah’s What’s that? post from last week, full marks to everyone who said “fore-edge painting” (also acceptable, though less to the point, “1631 x 401 pixel digital image” and “Wilton House”). Here’s the same image, not cropped…
Another (sort of) happy reunion...
A few months ago I wrote about the joys of bringing together parts of an archive or collection that had gone astray, and provided three recent examples (Manuscript reunions). Well, it has happened again, but this time, the story is…
Spectral Imaging of Shakespeare's "Seventh Signature"
A guest post by Roger L. Easton, Jr. One of the many treasures at the Folger Shakespeare Library is a copy of William Lambarde’s Archaionomia, a book on Anglo-Saxon law published in 1568 and acquired by the Library in 1938.…
Librarians gone wild: an alternative spring break
A guest post by Sarah Wingo I am a student working towards my Masters of Science in Information from the University of Michigan’s School of Information (UM-SI). I recently had the opportunity, along with six of my peers, to volunteer…
The road to Acquisitions Night 2012
This Thursday is Acquisitions Night, the annual benefit to support Folger collections. It’s something of a three-ring circus: buffet dinner in the Great Hall, conservation demonstrations at one end of the Paster Reading Room, and—in the center ring—dozens of newly-acquired…
correcting mistakes
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…
Spotlight on a calligrapher
In an era when many schools don’t even teach cursive handwriting anymore because everyone taps out their messages on screens, it may seem quaint to focus on a woman known for her handwriting. But that’s exactly why we’re attracted to…
learning from mistakes
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…
Woodcut, engraving, or what?
When a reader needs to verify the printmaking technique behind an early modern book illustration, I’m always happy to grab my favorite 10x loupe and head up to the Reading Room to have a closer look. By popular request, here…
Women marking the text
“I beegan, to ourloke this Booke . . . .” These words are written by Lady Anne Clifford on the title page of her copy of John Selden’s Titles of Honor (1631), which is featured in the first case of…
A newly uncovered presentation copy by Margaret Cavendish
Heather: The other day I received an email from the Conservation Lab with the subject line: “Annotation found on the verso of a lined frontispiece,” and a link to a couple of images, one taken under ultraviolet light. The conservators…