In last Sunday's NY Times Book Review there was a short essay by Geoff Dyer about getting books signed. It is quite an enjoyable piece. Please click here to read. [more NY Times: 'The Etiquette of Autographs']

The Rare Book School had some wonderful course offerings this year (as they do every summer!). ABAA member and past President Tom Congalton of Between the Covers-Rare Books, Inc. was there as instructor for his fourth year, co-teaching Printed Books since 1800: Element of Description and Analysis. He wrote a great blog post reviewing his course and experience. Click here for a very enjoyable read! [more Read Past ABAA President Tom Congalton's Report on the Rare Book School]

New to the rare book world and need to brush up on some important trade related jargon? Check out the ABAA's abbreviated Glossary of Terms on abaa.org! [more Abbreviated Glossary of Rare Book Terms]

This year the Caxton Club published Other People's Books: Association Copies and the Stories They Tell, a collection of essays about the stories behind a number of association copies. (An association copy is a book signed by an author and inscribed either to a personal friend or relation of the author, a colleague, or a famous figure.) The book is being distributed by Oak Knoll Books. From their website: Other People's Books provides stories of fifty-two presentation copies from 1470 to 1986, narrating how each book came to be inscribed. Containing 112 illustrations, this work is a lively historical account of the journey of twenty-four books from institutional collections and twenty-eight from private hands. Set in England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States, these books range in topics from astronomy, ornithology, political science, and psychology, to art, film, history, and literature. While many of the books are presentation inscriptions directly from the author, others were inscribed by someone who was closely connected with the author. The book highlights the owners of these volumes now, many of whom are famous names in literature and history or book scholars and collectors. Click here to read a review of the book from Fine Books & Collections. Click to view an excerpt or to purchase. It sounds like a great read for any bibliophile! Endpaper: Stories with a personal history By Association [more "Other People's Books: Association Copies and the Stories They Tell"]

The following review of ABAA member David Bromer's Aun Aprendo: A Comprehensive Bibliography of the Writings of Aldous Leonard Huxley was written by fellow member Brian Cassidy. It appeared in the ABAA Spring 2011 e-Newsletter. Kudos, David! ********************************* Review: Aun Aprendo: A Comprehensive Bibliography of the Writings of Aldous Leonard Huxley by Brian Cassidy Aldous Huxley is primarily rememberedin the popular imagination at leastfor one book, his classic dystopia Brave New World. This is unfortunate. Huxley was one of the most prolific and versatile British writers of the twentieth century. He wrote on everything from philosophy to psychology, history to the paranormal. He was a pioneer in the field of drug literature, clearing the way for Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, and other seminal figures of the counterculture. Huxley authored dozens of books and during his life published well over two thousand short stories, poems, dramas, screenplays, and essays. He worked as an editor, journalist, reviewer, and translator. In other words, any Huxley bibliographer has before him an enormous challenge. It is perhaps not surprising therefore that no comprehensive bibliography of Huxley has been undertaken since before his death in 1963 (Claire John Eschelbach and Joyce Lee Shober'sAldous Huxley: A Bibliography 1916-1959 ) and no descriptive bibliography since R. Duval's in 1939. As explained in James Sexton's foreword to the new Aun Aprendo: A Comprehensive Bib... [more Review: Aun Aprendo: A Comprehensive Bibliography of the Writings of Aldous Leonard Huxley]

Bibliofile, Yale's dedicated site for Book History, has announced the publication of “Rare Book Photography: An Introduction”. This free guide “explains the handling and photographic practices that support libraries' preservation aims and the needs of researchers in clear language accompanied by many illustrations from Yale's Medical Historical and Law Libraries.” Click here to view or download the guide. Bibliofile notes that a larger pdf version is available if anyone would like to have copies printed professionally; email photo.design@yale.edu with your request. Training Manual: Rare Book Photography [more Yale's Free Introductory Guide to Handling & Photographing Rare Books]

Dr. David Culpin of St. Andrew's University came across a rare piece of travel literature while studying at the library of Sir George Grey, who was governor of Cape Colony (today's Capetown) between 1854 and 1861. The book was written in French by Charles-Etienne Boniface and published in South Africa in November 1829. The title has been paraphrased as Account Of The Wreck Of The French Ship The Eole In April 1829; as the title states, it tells the story of the Eole, a French merchant vessel that sank off Africa's coast, and of its eight survivors, who were forced to walk barefoot for three weeks in search of safety. After months of research, Dr. Culpin was able to confirm that the story was true and based on the survivors' accounts. The Eole was a French trading ship which sank during its return voyage from Calcutta. Eight of the 20 passengers and crew survived, and they spent three days with the Xhosa people before their long trek to the nearest European settlement. The book is considered rare for several reasons. It is believed to be the first book published in French and the first travel narrative published in South Africa. The description provided in the book is also of importance. Dr. Culpin notes that "the text offers an eyewitness account of contemporary Cape Town, and describes places like Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth just a few years after these settlements had been established." In addition, although travel literature was a popular genre in the early 19th century... [more Rare South African Book Discovered]

Click here to view a photos of "five architecturally impressive libraries". I was especially intrigued by the fact that Yale's rare book collection is housed in a building built with "marble sliced so thin that it allows filtered light into the interior of the building, while protecting the stacks from harmful ultraviolet radiation." Pretty cool stuff! I would love to see it in person. Houses for Books: Five Architecturally Impressive Libraries [more Curbed Presents Five Architecturally Impressive Libraries]

The Burns Library at Boston College has made a surprising discovery in their own Yeats archiveYeats' unpublished first play, Love and Death, written in 1884 when he was only 18 or 19 years of age. The play was hidden among boxes of journals, notebooks and correspondence that had been long overlooked. It was only last year when the play was re-discovered by the library as part of an in-house project to find "'high impact' candidates for digitization" in BC's archives. A team of more than 15 librarians, archivists, photographers, literary experts and a dedicated transcriber, began working on digitizing the play and taking extra precaution to "present the whole object as if you can hold it in your hands". To accomplish this, the team presents the transcribed text alongside of high-resolution photographs of the handwritten pages. Click here to view the Love and Death website. Regarding digitization, Jane Morris, BC's scholarly communication librarian who is also leading the school's digitization project, says, "It's more than a trend. This is the new work of libraries, to make these things digital and available and discoverable, instead of having them closed off to the lucky few who have the means to travel here.'' This viewpoint echos the idea of the "democratiz access to knowledge", which Robert Darnton spoke about in the Q&A that was previously posted. Boston College gives unpublished Yeats play new life online Love and Death Manuscript Archives [more Burns Library 'Finds' and Digitizes Unpublished Yeats Play]

Click here to read a Q & A with Robert Darnton, a cultural historian and the Director of Harvard University's library system, on the proposed Digital Public Library of America. Mr. Darnton made one comment in particular that speaks to worried murmurs in rare book trade: One thing we have learned from the new discipline known as “the history of the book” is that one means of communication does not displace another. Manuscript publishing actually expanded after the invention of printing by movable type, and it continued to flourish for three centuries after Gutenberg. Instead of lamenting “the death of the book,” I believe we should celebrate new possibilities of combining the printed codex with electronic technology … .The information ecology is getting richer, not thinner. Thoughts? A bookshelf the size of the world [more Q & A with Robert Darnton on the Proposed Digital Public Library of America]