ABAA Member Dan Wechsler's film 'More Than the Rainbow' won the prize for Best Documentary Feature at the 13th Annual Coney Island Film Festival last month. The film was previously posted about on our blog and you can watch the trailer at the link. Kudos, Dan! [more 'More Than the Rainbow' Won Best Documentary Feature at Coney Island Film Festival]

The following item has gone missing during transit from the UK to the US: Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, New Zealand-born British physicist, winner of Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1908   Autograph Letter Signed ('Rutherford') from 'the father of nuclear physics' Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, inviting the anthropologist J. H. Driberg to dinner in Cambridge. On letterhead of Newnham Cottage, Queen's Road, Cambridge. 17 January 1937. 1p., 12mo. Good, on lightly-aged paper. He invites Driberg to dine with him 'in Trinity on Tuesday Feb 2 on the occasion of the Candlemas Feast. He gives further details before ending 'I hope you can come.' If you have any information regarding this item, please contact Gerard Stodolski at gs@gajs.com [more Missing: Ernest Rutherford Letter]

This item is still missing as of 5/28/2019. The following item was reported stolen: Mellis, Daniel. Nothing Beside Remains. Chicago, IL: Daniel Mellis. Limited Edition. Tight, bright, and unmarred. Black cloth boards. 4to. np. Numbered limited edition, one of 25 copies. Fine. If you have any information regarding this item, please contact Brian Cassidy at (301) 589-0789. [more Stolen: Limited Edition of 'Nothing Beside Remains']

In the recording below, F. Scott Fitzgerald reads part of Othello's speech to the Venetian senators in Act 1, Scene 3 (if you have the text in front of you, you'll notice that it is edited). Near the end of his life, Fitzgerald was broke and resorted to writing screenplays for money. He also made recordings of himself reading literary greats like Shakespeare and Keats, but it's unclear who produced the recordings and why. Whatever the details surrounding the recordings are, it's a treat to hear Fitzgerald's sonorous voice. After the jump is a recording of Fitzgerald reading the first three stanzas of Ode to a Nightingale (also slightly altered from the original text). [more Fitzgerald Reading Shakespeare and Keats]

Who would have thought that the University of Pennsylvania's PennApps competition would produce an app beneficial to the rare book world? PennApps is touted as the "premiere college hackathon" and it brings together 1,000 university students from more than 100 institutions across the globe for a 48-hour competition to create hacks and apps for web or mobile platforms. This year three students from the University of SwarthmoreAmy Jin, Sam Zhang, and Zachary Lockett-Streiffwere awarded first place in the Data Visualization category for an app that tracks the provenance of rare manuscripts in the Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts. The concept came to the team in a serendipitous manner. On the way to their work space, the team rode the elevator with a few of UPenn's librarians and chatted about the Schoenberg database. The librarians ment... [more New App Tracks Provenance]

In addition to being a top-notch bookseller, member Dan Wechsler (Sanctuary Books) is also a filmmaker. His latest film is More Than the Rainbow, a documentary chronicling the life of Matt Weber, a NYC taxi driver turned street photographer. The film premiered at New York's documentary film festival DOC NYC last year and was featured as an official selection. It was awarded the same honor at the San Francisco DocFest. Set to the music of jazz legend Thelonious Monk and contemporary jazz musician Keith Gurland, the film goes beyond a character study and "becomes a vibrant conversation about the photographic medium, artistic expression, and New York City." Check out the trailer below. If you're in the NY area, you can see the film tonight, the inaugural night of the Coney Island Film Festival. The screening will take place at the Coney Isla... [more Screening Tonight of Dan Wechsler's Film 'More Than the Rainbow']

The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center is a museum in Hartford, CT located in the house where Stowe and her family moved to in 1873. She resided there for the final 23 years of her life, during which Stowe continued to write, lecture, and made considerable contributions to local art institutions. The Center has a worthy collection: over 12,000 books, 4,000 pamphlets, 180,000 manuscripts, and 12,000 images that illustrate critical issues in nineteenth century American history like abolition and suffrage. It boasts the largest collection of items related to the Beecher and Stowe families as well as prominent members of Hartford society, and, of course, resources related to Uncle Tom's Cabin. The Stowe Center recently received a $150,000 federal grant from the Museums for America program at the Institute of Museum and Library Services to preserve... [more Harriet Beecher Stowe Center's Future Secured with Federal Grant]

Update: these have been recovered as of 5/28/2019. Georgetown College (Georgetown, KY) are missing two volumes from their archive. The volumes are records of the Board of Trustees of Georgetown College. The first volume dates from 1837-1866, the second goes from 1866-1912. They are handwritten and noticeably deteriorated. The volumes would have gone missing sometime between 2007 and 2011. If you have any information on them you can contact the staff archivist, Sandra Baird, at Sandra_Baird@GeorgetownCollege.edu. [more Missing: Georgetown College Board Records]

As mentioned in a post last Friday, there are a number of scholarships available to anyone interested in attending Rare Book School. The 2013 scholarship cycle has just begun and RBS is now accepting applications. The deadline for submission is October 15. Click here for a full list of scholarship opportunities and additional information. [more Rare Book School Now Accepting Scholarship Applications]

This sounds fascinating. All the official info is below& "Authenticity" Rare Book and Special Collections Division The Library of Congress December 6, 2013 The Library of Congress announces a symposium on “Authenticity,” a program that will look at one of the most difficult subjects facing libraries, private collectors, and booksellers todayjudging the genuineness of printed materials. The symposium will not focus on theft or forgery, but rather on the research which curators, scholars, and conservators have been conducting regarding all elements of printing and book production. The program will include specialists who are at the cutting edge of research on printing techniques, paper manufacture, binding construction, and typography. They will include scholars, conservators, scientists, and booksellers who are dedicated to establishi... [more Library of Congress Announces a Symposium on Authenticity]