Jason W Dean:

Walters, W. T., Stephen W. Bushell, and William M. Laffan. Oriental Ceramic Art. New York: D. Appleton and Co, 1897. 

Folio. Yellow pictorial boards with silk spine. Each pair of volumes laid into a cloth oriental-style folder with ties.

I almost hate to say it, but this will be the last of the regular Neat Things I Have Cataloged. I have been working on getting the remainder of the rare or special items cataloged over the past few months, and that has provided great material for this series. As that project is winding down, I might post more, but not on a regular basis as I have for the past few months.

So it seems natural to conclude with the finished product of the item that started this series in the first place. Chromolithography was the penultimate “artisanal” printing method, and at the end of the 19th century, there were two experts in this method: Louis Prang and Julius Bien.

After the Civil War, lithography was the most widely used method for creating color images in books. This popularity stems largely from the adaptability of lithographic printing to some form of automation and mechanization. To create a lithograph, an artist prepares the surface typically using what can be described as a greasy pencil to block out areas to repel ink. After applying the pencil, the stone is “fixed” and then inked and printed. This fundamental process went through many iterations in the United States, from hand colored lithographs, to tinted lithographs, and finally to chromolithography. The images produced by these lithographic processes improved in quality over time, as is true of other color printing processes.

The advent of high quality chromolithography in the 1850s created images that were comparable in quality to hand-colored plates at less cost. Chromolithography typically used twelve plates to create a finished color plate. Black would be the first color, but after that, sequencing the colors, choice of specific colors, and registration of the paper on the plate were the purview of craftspeople called chromistes. Even at this late stage with less manual work needed, there was still a significant requirement for professionals trained in the sequencing, coloring, and registration of the lithographic stones. According to Suzanne Low, with just a glance at a color plate, the chromistes could tell how many and which colors were used in the creation of a finished color image. Their expertise, combined with the knowledge of a skilled printer, such as Julius Bien or Louis Prang, could create truly remarkable images.

It was in this arena of high-quality chromolithography that W.T. Walters worked to produce the remarkable book illustrated above. Aware of the high quality of the printing of American and European chromolithographic printers and desiring a catalog of his collection of “Oriental” porcelain and ceramics, Walters set out to choose the best of these printers, and held a competition to see which printing firm was the “best,” as detailed in the introduction to the work (page is illustrated in the fifth image above):

The plates in color with which this work is illustrated were made by Louis Prang, of Boston. The work of every European house of importance was examined before Mr. Prang was asked to make lithographs of three pieces of porcelain of different colors. His immediate success determined the question, and when two years later some twenty of the plates were shown to French lithographers in Paris, their criticism was that the impressions had been fortified by color from the brush; they could not believe that work of such excellence could be produced by simple lithography. This very satisfactory opinion has since been confirmed by many lithographers, and it is conceded that these plates represent the highest type of work that has been reproduced in that branch of art.

The title was printed in an edition of 500 copies, each copy comprised of 5 portfolios of 2 sections in each portfolio. The set are folio sized, and have fabric outer covers, and the sections have yellow pictorial boards, as mentioned and illustrated above.

Considered to be among the finest examples of chromolithographic printing in existence, Louis Prang’s Oriental Ceramic Art, Collection of W.T. Walters… is a breathtaking work to see. Indeed, if you ever have the opportunity to compare the images in the book with the collection photography of the Walters museum, you will see how incredible Prang’s work in this title was, as it rivals digital photography today. While most chromolithographic printers used twelve stones for a completed image, in order to meet Walters’ requirement for color images of the highest quality, the plates in this book used from twenty to forty-four separate stones for each image. Perhaps understanding that this work was the apex of this type of printing and that new methods for printing color were coming into common use in the United States, Prang merged his business with the Taber Art Company in 1897 and retired.

References:

• McClinton, Katerine. The Chromolithographs of Louis Prang. New York: C. N. Potter; distributed by Crown Publishers, 1973.
• Reese, William S. Stamped with a National Character: Nineteenth Century American Color Plate Books : an Exhibition. New York: Grolier Club, 1999, 107.
• Slautterback, Catharina. Chromo-mania!: The Art of Chromolithography in Boston, 1840 –1910, Boston: Boston Athenæum, 2012.
• Dean, Jason W. “In Living Color: Crystal Bridges and its American Color Plate Book Collection;” Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Spring 2013).
• Freeman, Larry. Louis Prang; Color Lithographer; Giant of a Man. Watkins Glen, N.Y.: Century House, 1971.
• L. Prang & Co. [Progressive Proof Book for Walters’ Oriental Ceramic Art]. Boston: L. Prang & Co, 1897.

Hill, John, Joshua Shaw, John Hill, and James Maxwell. Picturesque Views of American Scenery.: 1820. Philadelphia: Published by M. Carey & Son, 1820. 

Remember a few weeks ago when I was talking about creating color images for books by using aquatints? I want to talk with you today about another example of a book produced using aquatints by one of the American masters of the process and his work with another emigrant, Joshua Shaw.

Joshua Shaw’s most well-known book is his Hudson River Portfolio widely considered to be the highest expression both of aqatinting, as well as color view books in the first half of the 19th century. Joshua Shaw came to the United States in 1817, and brought with him training as a landscape painter, a letter of reference from the American ex-pat Benjamin West, and a keen interest in illustrating things that were uniquely American - landscapes being at the forefront of this interest. As a result of this interest, Shaw took a trip from New York to Georgia, and made drawings during the trip. While in the field on this trip, he had the foresight to sign people up on the spot as subscribers to the book  he would create based on the drawings. Shaw’s introduction states:

Our country abounds with Scenery, comprehending all the varieties of the sublime, the beautiful, and the picturesque in nature, worthy to engage the skill of an Artist in their delineation; and as no well-executed work of this description has ever been produced, it is confidently hoped that the present will meet with due encouragement.  Mr. Shaw, whose merits in this line have been honoured with the commendation of Mr. West, is travelling through the different states, for the purpose of taking on the spot, the best and most popular Views…In the course of his tour he will visit nearly EVERY STATE IN THE UNION.

Perhaps realizing both the novelty of the American landscape and its relatively unpublished status vis a vis color images, Shaw set out to make books of American views, both with his Hudson River Portfolio (his most well-known book) as well as this item, his Picturesque Views of American Scenery. His timing was also prescient, as American artists such as Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand began to paint images of the American landscape, referred to colloquially as the Hudson River school of painting.

Shaw was clearly familiar with color printers and engravers of the time, and had the forethought to have John Hill engrave the plates for this book and the Hudson River Portfolio. Like Shaw, Hill was an immigrant to the United States from England, arriving in 1816. He was without any significant rivals in creating aquatints, but initially found little work in the United States, as the process was expensive and relatively unknown, as compared to engravings, the dominant form of the nascent color image printing industry. Early on in his career in the United States, Hill became involved with the Philadelphia publisher Moses Thomas. It was this involvement that led to the production of the Picturesque Views of American Scenery. 

Shaw engaged Moses Thomas to publish this item in 1819, and this first edition is now exceedingly rare. The plates illustrated above are from the second issue of 1820, with the exception of plate 8 (Falls of the St. Anthony) which is from the Ash reprint of 1829 or 1835.

Both Shaw and Hill were quite ambitious, as they announced their desire to create six numbers of six plates each, offered by subscription. Indeed, their ambition is surprising, as the Picturesque Views was the first large-format book of views to be created in the United States. The first publisher, Moses Thomas, backed out of the project after the titlepage plate (illustrated above) was engraved and struck, highlighting the risk and ambition of both Shaw and Hill. At the conclusion of the project, though, only three of the projected six numbers were issued. Despite not living up to its creators grand goal, the Picturesque Views are both a landmark early American color and viewbook, as well as a lovely and interesting set of views by a well-respected artist and master printer. Gloria Deak acknowledges this in her entry for the item, in her Picturing America:

It was a foundation book for American colored-plate publication, being the first publication in the United States of large colored landscapes essentially scenic in effect…Handsome in execution and coloring, the American Scenery encouraged later artists and engravers to reproduce landscapes for sale. Lastly, and more important insofar as Hill was concerned, it directed attention to him as a master of the mysterious medium of aquatint wherein his American predecessors were by comparison mere dabblers’”.

Some references for you:

• Koke, Richard J. A Checklist of the American Engravings of John Hill (1770-1850) Master of Aquatint, Together with a List of Prints Colored by Him and a List of His Extant Original Drawings. New York: New York Historical Society, 1961.
• Sparling, Tobin Andrews, John Hill, and J. W. Hill. American Scenery: The Art of John & John William Hill : an Exhibition in the Print Gallery, the New York Public Library, November 9, 1984-January 15, 1985. [New York]: The Library, 1984.
• Deák, Gloria-Gilda. Picturing America, 1497-1899: Prints, Maps, and Drawings Bearing on the New World Discoveries and on the Development of the Territory That Is Now the United States. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988.

Holbrook, John Edwards. Ichthyology of South Carolina. Charleston, S.C.: John Russell, 1855. 

Small folio. Three quarter black morocco and marbled boards.

In keeping with last week’s Neat Things I Have Cataloged, this is a book that initially did not impress, but quickly moved up the list of interesting books for me after some research. I think the first time I saw this book, I thought “well, there are fishes in color” and put it on my to-catalog shelf. As I learned more about it and looked at the plates more closely, I discovered that not only are the plates lovely, but this is an incredibly rare book.

John Edward Holbrook was a graduate of Brown University, and earned his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, then one of the leading medical schools in the United States, in 1818. After his graduation, he traveled in Europe for four years studying medicine and natural history. After his return, he was a practicing physician and professor of anatomy at the Medical College of South Carolina, in Charleston. Despite his career as a physician, he became well-known as a naturalist. His first major published work was American Herpetology, issued in five volumes between 1836 and 1842. This book was reviewed widely and well, and through the publication of his Herpetology, he met Louis Agassiz, who later wrote about his friends life in the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History.

After the success of his Herpetology, Holbrook focused his attention and study on the fish of the south. These efforts resulted in the publication of the first two volumes of Southern Ichthyology. After these two volumes were published, Holbrook realized that perhaps he had underestimated the vast variety of fishes in the south, and decided to focus on a smaller geographical area, and one closer to him as well. The result is the title illustrated above, his Ichthyology of South Carolina.

The twenty-seven plates in the book are lithographs, colored by hand after printing from master illustrations drawn and colored by Holbrook. Daniel McGrath remarked on these illustrations that “not only is the lithography in the twenty-seven plates executed with the care and finesse of a superlative engraving, but the delicacy of the coloring is almost unbelievable. The shading from light to dark on the ventral surfaces of the various fishes is so transparent that one wonders how it could have been done.” Some of this work is illustrated above. Twenty one of the plates were produced by Duval in Philadelphia, and six by Tappan and Bradford in Boston. The title was originally issued in ten parts, here bound later into one volume.

I mentioned that this first edition is exceedingly rare, as indeed it is. Only twenty libraries worldwide have a copy of the first edition, and the reason for this rarity is of some interest. In the preface to the second edition of 1860, Holbrook states:

The great delay in the publication of the Ichthyology of South Carolina has been caused by the destruction of all the plates, stones, and original drawings, in the burning of the “Artists’ Buildings,” in Philadelphia, several years since.

This made it necessary to have new drawings made of all the different fishes, which has been done at great expense; — so great, indeed, that the work could not have been carried on without the aid of the State, which has been freely given. The new drawings are from nature, and have been made by the best artists,—as A. J. Ibbotson and A. Sonrel. The colour of the fish has been, in almost every instance, taken from living specimens, by J. Burkhardt, an artist of great merit.

The delay in the publication of the work has, however, enabled me to give more accurate and highly finished plates, and to correct some errors in the letter-press.

As but few numbers of the work were distributed previous to the destruction of the original plates, &c., and the present edition is so much improved, I have decided to recall the former numbers, and to replace them by those of the new edition, without expense to the present holders.

This fire also worked to Holbrook’s advantage, as he implies above, that he felt that the first edition was not of the quality that he desired. Though perhaps this assessment was a bit unfair, the result is a unique and beautiful work of lithography in American natural history.

• Bennett, Whitman. A Practical Guide to American Nineteenth Century Color Plate Books / By Whitman Bennett. New York: Bennett Book Studios, 1949.
• McGrath, Daniel F. American Colorplate Books, 1800-1900. Thesis—University of Michigan, 1966.
• Meisel, Max. A Bibliography of American Natural History; The Pioneer Century, 1769-1865; the Rôle Played by the Scientific Societies; Scientific Journals; Natural History Museums and Botanic Gardens; State Geological and Natural History Surveys; Federal Exploring Expeditions in the Rise and Progress of American Botany, Geology, Mineralogy, Paleontology and Zoology. Brooklyn, N. Y.: The Premier publishing co, 1924.
• Nissen, Claus. Die zoologische Buchillustration: Ihre Bibliographie und Geschichte. Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1966.
• Sabin, Joseph, Wilberforce Eames, and R. W. G. Vail. Bibliotheca Americana. A Dictionary of Books Relating to America, From Its Discovery to the Present Time. 1868.
• Dean, Bashford, Charles Rochester Eastman, E. W. Gudger, and Arthur Wilbur Henn. A Bibliography of Fishes. New York: The Museum, 1916.
• Turnbull, Robert James. Bibliography of South Carolina, 1563-1950. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1956.
• Agassiz, Louis. “Dr. John E. Holbrook of Charleston, S.C.;” Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History.

Bigelow, Jacob, William B. Annin, and John Redman Coxe. American Medical Botany: Being a Collection of the Native Medicinal Plants of the United States, Containing Their Botanical History and Chemical Analysis, and Properties and Uses in Medicine, Diet and the Arts, with Coloured Engravings. Boston: Published by Cummings and Hilliard, at the Boston Bookstore, no. 1, Cornhill, 1817.

For me, there are books that you look at the first time and even though you know it’s an important book, you are a bit underwhelmed at first viewing. Only after some better background knowledge do you come to truly appreciate the book. This, for me, is one of those books, and I’d like to share it with you for today’s Neat Things I Have Cataloged.

I knew that this was a very early American color book when I first held it in its original boards and looked at its uncut plates and text. Indeed, this is the first materia medica book printed in color in the United States, and that they are lovely. However, as I mentioned above, the book really did not become meaningful to me until I learned not only the fuller version of the backstory, but also the context within which the book was produced.

Jacob Bigelow was a physician and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where his interest in botany was piqued through his studies with Benjamin Smith Barton, one of the leading botanists in the United States at the time. In time, he furthered his knowledge of and interest in botany and materia medica, and became a professor of materia medica at Harvard in 1815. Being a physician, professor, and botanist, he would be familiar with the long history of publishing materia medica books in color, and he would also have known that no color materia medica books existed that covered plants in the Americas  He acknowledges this need in the book:

Under the title of American Medical Botany, it is my intention to offer to the public a series of coloured engravings of those native plants, which possess properties deserving the attention of medical practitioners. The plan will likewise include vegetables of a particular utility in diet and the arts; also poisonous plants which must be known to be avoided. In making the selection, I have endeavoured to be guided by positive evidence of important qualities and not by the insufficient testimony of popular report… I am by no means ambitious to excite an interest in the subjects of this work, by exaggerated accounts of virtues which do not belong to them. Much harm has been done in medicine, by the partial representations of those, who, having a point to prove, have suppressed their unsuccessful experiments, and brought in to view none but favorable facts.

Most books printed in color in the Americas at the time were printed using engravings, which I talked about previously. Engraving required the greatest amount of manual work to produce the end product, and so the books printed in color using engravings were the most expensive generally, as compared to other printing methods such as etchings or lithographs. Bigelow stated that he intended on using engravings to create the hand-colored images in American Medical Botany, and indeed the first half of the first volume are hand-colored engravings. After these were created, he decided that this method was too expensive, and moved to aquatints that were colored using a method described as a la poupée, French for “with the doll.” Bamber Gascoigne describes this term as coming from “the doll-shaped bundle of fabric which is used to dab the ink of differing colours into the grooves and dots recessed in the surface of the plate. In this method the printer is in effect painting the picture on the plate for each impression, and however much care is taken to achieve uniformity each print will be unique in its colouring.”

The plates were printed by William B. Annin and George Girdler Smith as both the engravers as well as the printers of the plates. This was quite an undertaking, as this was the first use of aquatint to produce colored images in the United States. John Hill took this method to some of it’s highest levels, and it’s something discussed previously here. According to Walter Channing’s review of the book in The North-American Review, once Annin and Smith were familiar with the method of aquatinting, they could produce “several hundred” plates per day. At this rate, they probably finished printing the plates in about a year, assuming they were the only ones printing the plates.

Their hard work, along with Bigelow’s, leaves us a beautiful example of American materia medica, and the forerunner of the printing method that supplanted engraving in the United States.

Perhaps that was a bit long-winded, but now you see why a book that elicited a tepid response from me initially became more interesting as I researched it.

• Roylance, Dale. American Graphic Arts: A Chronology to 1900 in Books, Prints, and Drawings. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Library, 1990.
• Wolfe, Richard J. Jacob Bigelow’s American Medical Botany, 1817-1821: An Examination of the Origin, Printing, Binding, and Distribution of America’s First Color Plate Book, with Special Emphasis on the Manner of Making and Printing Its Colored Plates. North Hills, Pa: Bird & Bull Press, 1979.
• Reese, William S. Stamped with a National Character: Nineteenth Century American Color Plate Books : an Exhibition. New York: Grolier Club, 1999.
• Gascoigne, Bamber. How to Identify Prints: A Complete Guide to Manual and Mechanical Processes from Woodcut to Inkjet. London: Thames & Hudson, 2011.
• Channing, Walter. “American Medical Botany, with Coloured Engravings by Jacob Bigelow.” The North-American Review and Miscellaneous Journal Vol. 9, No. 24 (Jun., 1819): pp. 23-26.

Embury, Emma C. [Commonplace Book of Emma C. Embury, with Original Botanical and Ornithological Watercolors, and Original Manuscript Poetry]. S.l: s.n, 1828. 

Continuing (after a fashion) the botanical theme of the last few posts in the Neat Things I Have Cataloged series, let’s take a look at a one-of-a-kind commonplace book by a notable nineteenth century woman.

Emma Catherine Embury was a remarkable woman. Not only was she a poet and an editor, but as illustrated above, she was also an adept amateur artist. Here is what Edgar Allan Poe had to say about Embury in Godey’s Lady’s Book, volume 3, pages 84-85:

MRS. EMBURY is one of the most noted, and certainly one of the most meritorious of our female litterateurs. She has been many years before the public — her earliest compositions, I believe, have been contributed to the “New York Mirror” under the nom de plume “Ianthe.” They attracted very general attention at the time of their appearance and materially aided the paper. They were subsequently, with some other pieces, published in volume form, with the title “Guido and other Poems.” The book has been long out of print. Of late days its author has written but little poetry — that little, however, has at least indicated a poetic capacity of no common order.

Yet as a poetess she is comparatively unknown, her reputation it this regard having been quite overshadowed by that which she has acquired as a writer of tales. In this latter capacity she has, upon the whole, no equal among her sex in America — certainly no superior. She is not so vigorous as Mrs. Stephens, nor so vivacious as Miss Chubbuck, nor so caustic as Miss Leslie, nor so dignified as Miss Sedgwick, nor so graceful, fanciful and “spirituelle” as Mrs. Osgood, but is deficient in none of the qualities for which these ladies are noted, and in certain particulars surpasses them all. Her subjects are fresh, if not always vividly original, and she manages them with more skill than is usually exhibited by our magazinists. She has also much imagination and sensibility, while her style is pure, earnest, and devoid of verbiage and exaggeration. I make a point of reading all tales to which see the name of Mrs. Embury appended. The story by which she has attained most reputation is “Constance Latimer, the Blind Girl.”

Mrs. E. is a daughter of Doctor Manly, an eminent physician of New York city. At an early age she married a gentleman of some wealth and of education, as well as of tastes akin to her own. She is noted for her domestic virtues no less than for literary talents and acquirements.

She is about the medium height; complexion, eyes, and hair, light; arched eyebrows; Grecian nose, the mouth a fine one, and indicative of firmness; the whole countenance pleasing, intellectual, and expressive. The portrait in “Graham’s Magazine” for January, 1843, has no resemblance to her whatever.

In addition, Embury was an early contributor of poetry to the New York Mirror among other publications. Her reputation as an author was doubtless strengthened by her position in high society as the wife of Daniel Embury, president of the Atlantic Bank of Brooklyn. She also had a strong interest in botany, as the watercolors illustrate, and she published American Wild Flowers in Their Native Haunts, a 19th-century American book illustrated with images of wild flowers, in 1845.

This commonplace book is bound in contemporary deep purple morocco, covers with gilt stamping, with a blocked border stamped in blind, and large centrally-placed gilt vignettes on the covers, as well as an ornate gilt spine. The pages between these covers are comprised of 38 leaves (including the endpapers) of colored paper, with five poems, twelve watercolors, and thirty pencil drawings. The poems are in the same hand in ink, the drawings and watercolors by various hands, most unsigned, a few signed “ECE,” “Anna H. Embury,” or “AHE.”

Embury’s name appears in an unattributed hand on the front free endpaper, and three of the watercolors are initialed “ECE.”  While the name “Anna Embury” appears in contemporary manuscript on the rear pastedown and in the lower margin of one watercolor, the remaining watercolors are all similar in style to those initialed by Emma Embury and are presumably by her.  Most of the pencil sketches are unsigned; a few are initialed “AHE.” None of the poems are signed. Four of the five poems appear opposite pencil sketches of their main subject, always a British landmark.

Given the sentimental tone of the poems in this item, it is likely they were written close to 1828, the year Embury was married and published her first volume of poetry. A collected edition of her poems was published in 1869, though none of those poems are included in this commonplace book.

Rochester Litho. Co, Vredenburg & Co, Stetcher Litho. Co, and Webster & Ablee. [Specimen Book of Flowers, Fruits, and Trees]. Rochester, N.Y.: Rochester Litho. Co, 1880. 

As I introduced last week in Neat Things I Have Cataloged, the library where I work holds the largest collection of American nineteenth century color nursery catalogs in the world. The bulk of these catalogs were produced in Rochester, New York, for the use of nursery salesmen. The example illustrated above is a particularly lovely and interesting example.

The printing of plates for nursery catalogs started in the 1850s, with the rise of a large number of nurseries in Rochester. The plates (and the books they were contained in) were used by door-to-door salesmen to sell to individuals in their homes. These books were rarely issued as “normal” books - meaning one edition with the same pagination, illustrations, et cetera. Instead, the nursery companies would purchase individual plates from the printing companies and have them made up into catalogs based on the stock of the nursery at that time. This means that almost every one of the nursery catalogs in our collection have different collations of plates, making each item unique.

Because nurseries used these catalogs for almost sixty years, the plates in these catalogs were printed using a wide variety of methods. The item illustrated above has examples of pochoir prints (a form of coloring using stencils), chromolithographs, photolithographs (combining the use of a photographic image and a lithographic printing stone), and even early hand-colored photographs (very unusual in 1880). These processes together represent the methods chiefly employed by printing firms to make color images in the second half of the nineteenth century in the United States.

Color, though expensive to include in illustrations, was necessary to accurately depict the plants and fruits for sale, and the rarity of color illustrations was likely an added inducement to purchase. Indeed, the expense of these catalogs is often implied through the admonition to the salesman to take great care with the book, lest it be removed from the salesman’s pay. The flyleaf of one of these catalogs states: “Please handle Plate Book carefully, and do not mark prices on the plates. Keep it out of the hands of children, and avoid getting it wet or soiled, as the books are expensive, and must be protected from all unnecessary damage.” The often intricate flaps and bindings show the additional cost borne by some nurseries to protect the plates within to the highest degree possible. Indeed, these efforts helped to ensure that some examples survive today, even after hard use traveling door to door.

For references for this post, check last week’s post, as I referenced all the same publications.

W. Atlee Burpee Company, and W. Atlee Burpee. Burpee’s Farm Annual for 1901 : Quarter Century Edition ; Burpee’s Seed Sense for 1901 : for the First Year of the New Century ; Burpee’s Seeds That Grow for 1901 : Wholesale Catalogue for Market Gardeners, Florists & Farmers’ Clubs, Blue List ; Burpee’s Seeds That Grow for 1901 : Catalogue for Seedsmen and Dealers Only Who Buy to Sell Again, Red List. Philadelphia: W. Atlee Burpee & Co, 1901. 

Though I suppose this is true for most of the items I have featured on Neat Things I Have Cataloged, there are some things that I have unpacked and have been surprised by how amazing they are. This is one of those items. I cataloged and researched this title while I was in the midst of cataloging the chromolithographic nursery catalogs where I work. These catalogs are a part of the color plate book collection, that I have mentioned previously. (Aside: let me know if you all want to know more about this collection.) It is not strictly a nursery catalog, but instead a unique collation of three Burpee seed catalogs for 1901, and a very unique collation as well.

Based on the gilt stamping on the cover (illustrated above) this was Washington Atlee Burpee’s personal copy. The first several pages are ruled, with what I assume are Burpee’s general notes written in pencil. After these ruled pages, the three catalogs hold Burpee’s notes, suggestions, and price adjustments for the upcoming year’s catalogs. These catalogs include 2 chromolithographic title pages plus 6 chromolithographic plates, and those plates are the reason for their inclusion in the collection. I will talk more about one of those nursery catalogs mentioned above next week.

References for more information:

• Bennett, Whitman. A Practical Guide to American Nineteenth Century Color Plate Books. New York: Bennett Book Studios, 1949.
• Dean, Jason W. “In Living Color: Crystal Bridges and its American Color Plate Book Collection;” Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Spring 2013).
• McGrath, Daniel F. American Colorplate Books, 1800-1900. Thesis—University of Michigan,1966.
• McIntosh, W. H. History of Monroe County, New York: with Illustrations Descriptive of its Scenery, Palatial Residences, Public Buildings, Fine Blocks and Important Manufactories, from Original Sketches by Artists of the Highest Ability. Philadelphia: Everts, Ensign & Everts, 1877.
• McKelvey, Blake. “The Flower City: Center of Nurseries and Fruit Orchards;” Rochester Historical Society Publications, v18 pt.2, 1940, pp121-169.
• Reese, William S. Stamped with a National Character: Nineteenth Century American Color Plate Books : an Exhibition. New York: Grolier Club, 1999.
• Reynolds, George. “Seedsmen to a Growing Country;” New York- Pennsylvania Collector, March 1990, pp. 15C-17C.
• Rochester Directory of Nurserymen, Seedsmen and Florists of the United States and Canada: Giving Classified List of Names and Addresses, Alphabetically Arranged. Rochester, New York: Rochester Lithographing Co., 1893.
• University of Rochester. Library Bulletin. vXXXV 1982.

Jones, Howard, N. E. Jones, Genevieve Jones, N. E. Jones, and Eliza Jane Shulze. Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio: With Text. Circleville, O.: [N.E. Jones], 1886. 

Large folio in original printed wrappers.

So many times when I talk about color plate books, the first (and usually only) title that comes to a visitor’s mind are the works of John James Audubon and his sons. Audubon deserves this credit, as his ornithological work on the birds was ground-breaking in the areas of natural history, art, and printing. I discussed a smaller version of his famous work on the birds of North America previously, and pointed out there that the library where I work does not hold a copy of the “famous” birds – the double-elephant folio produced by Lizars and Havell in Great Britain. However, for today’s Neat Things I Have Cataloged, I would like to share with you an artist and her work that has recently earned her the posthumous title of “America’s Other Audubon.”

The photos you see above are a sampling of the original twenty-three unbound (as issued) parts of Genevive Jones’ Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio. The twenty-three parts (in nineteen volumes) have sixty-eight hand colored lithographic plates in them of spectacular accuracy and artistry. Elliott Coues, a noted ornithologist in his own right said of the plates that “There has been nothing since Audubon in the way of pictorial illustration of American ornithology to compare with the present work - nothing to claim an equal degree of skill or scientific accuracy.”

It is surprising to note that the production of this book was largely the result of the work of one family in Circleville, Ohio, and the family member chiefly responsible was the younger daughter of the Jones family, Genevive Estelle Jones. After viewing the ornithological studies of John James Audubon in 1876 at the centennial exhibition in Philadelphia, Jones returned home and as a way to fight off depression over a lost suitor, entered into a project to illustrate the nests and eggs of the birds of Ohio - an area very much neglected by Audubon. In her work, she was assisted by her close friend Eliza Shulze, as well as members of both of their families. Jones’ father was a successful physician and so was able to finance the project. Genevive (Gennie) and Eliza practiced illustrating the nests in the Jones’ dining room, using a pair of calipers to ensure accurate reproductions. After finishing the illustrations for all 130 birds in Ohio, the family hired the Adolph Krebs Lithographic Company of Cincinnati to print lithographs of their illustrations. Krebs, a patient man, taught the amateurs how to draw on lithographic stones through the mail, and also several trips from Cincinnati to Circleville to shuttle the sixty-five pound lithographic stones due to errors made by Genevive and Eliza. In time, the stones were produced and the full twenty-three parts sent to subscribers despite the death of Genevive after the publication of the first part in July 1879. After her death, the family looked to the publication of her book as a way to assuage their grief and keep Genevive’s memory with them. As they struggled to keep up with demand (quite a challenge to hand-color each plate necessary to supply the colored plates for the 50 copies of the colored edition), they hired local colorists to ensure the subscribers received their parts.

Despite these difficulties, the reception the book found was remarkable. Subscribers included President Rutherford B. Hayes, and Theodore Roosevelt, among many other prominent ornithologists. Elliott Coues, after seeing the three sample plates of part one sent to ornithological periodicals for review, said, “I had no idea that so sumptuous and elegant a publication was in preparation, and I am pleased that what promises to be one of the great illustrated works on North American Ornithology should be prepared by women.” William Brewster, president of the American Ornithologists’ Union said “The nest of the Wood Thrush is even more admirably delineated and is in its kind a perfect masterpiece. I find that my eyes dwell on it long and lovingly every time I open the work and glance through its pages. Please accept my grateful thanks for part I of your beautiful work, and also my best wishes for the future prosperous continuance of a work that is too good to fail.”

However, the high praise the work received did not ensure its wide distribution and existence today. Indeed, the library where I work holds one of only twenty-seven hand-colored copies known to exist today. Because of this rarity, few people know of this landmark work.

Here are some books that have more information, if you are interested:

• Kiser, Joy M., and Genevieve Jones. America’s Other Audubon. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2012.
• Wessen, Ernest J. 1953. Jones’ Nests and Eggs of the Birds of Ohio. The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America. 47:218-230.
• Sitwell, Sacheverell, Handasyde Buchanan, and James Fisher. Fine Bird Books, 1700-1900. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990.
• Reese, William S. Stamped with a National Character: Nineteenth Century American Color Plate Books : an Exhibition. New York: Grolier Club, 1999.

And here is a link to a piece NPR did on the book:

http://www.npr.org/2012/06/28/155936583/the-other-audubon-a-familys-passion

Holm, Thomas Campanius, Peter Mårtensson Lindeström, Sal Wankijfs, and Johan Heinrich Werner. Kort beskrifning om provincien Nya Swerige uti America,: som nu förtjden af the Engelske kallas Pensylvania. Stockholm: Tryckt uti Kongl. boktr. hos Sal. Wankijfs äkia med egen bekostnad, af J.H. Werner, 1702. 

Continuing the theme of exotic imprints this week on Neat Things I Have Cataloged, we have an item printed in Sweden that describes the Swedish settlement of the Delaware River. I love this for the colorful title page, as well as the lovely maps that are pictured above.

The book itself is a small quarto, bound in morocco covers, with gilt stamping on the covers and the spine.

Holm’s grandfather was a clergyman in the previously mentioned settlement, founded in 1638, and under Swedish control until it was seized by the Dutch in 1655. His grandfather also compiled the printed vocabulary of the Delaware language printed in the book.

The maps and illustrations were originally drawn by Peter Lindstrom, who was in the settlement from 1654 to 1655. (I especially like “Lange Eyland” in the last image.) The illustrations, also by Lindstrom depict Delaware pipes, ornaments, wampum, and an early map of a battle plan. These illustrations are ostensibly why the library where I work holds this copy.

• Pilling, James Constantine. Proof-Sheets of a Bibliography of the Languages of the North American Indians. Brooklyn: Central Book Co, 1967.
• Alden, John Eliot, and Dennis Channing Landis. European Americana: A Chronological Guide to Works Printed in Europe Relating to the Americas, 1493-1776. New York: Readex Books, 1980.

Berthelsen, R., and Âlut Kangermio. Grönlandske folkesagn: opskrevne og meddeelte af indfødte med dansk oversœttelse [i.e. oversættelse]. Godthaab: Trykt i Inspektoratets bogtrykkeri af L. Møller, under tilsyn af hjelpelærer R. Berthelsen, 1859. 

In the realm of Neat Things I Have Cataloged, this item would certainly be in my top 10 for the great illustrations alone, and the interesting story behind this title is icing on the cake, so to speak.

Several of the titles we have talked about thus far come from a collection of books printed on color in the Americas between 1800 and approximately 1910. Of course, the bulk of these items were printed in the United States, but there are some titles from other places (Cuba, Mexico, and Canada come to mind), but this has to be the most exotic one as it was printed in Greenland.

Originally published in four volumes (the copy here is bound in three volumes - the first and second volumes bound together, and the fourth volume in its original printed boards), this item collected some of the folk tales of Greenland - printed on the first press to operate there, and with hand-colored illustrations (lithographs and woodcuts) by a native Greenland artist. The library where I work is only one of five libraries in the world that hold a copy of this item - so it’s not only fascinating, but also very rare.

The text is in both Danish and Kalâtdlisut as Greenland was a Danish colony at the time of publication. In 1857, the Danish inspector for southern Greenland, Hinrich Rink brought the first “real” press to the island. He used the press to produce both official publications of the Danish government, as well as literary works. Rink was keenly interested in collecting and publishing the legends and folk tales of the native Greenlanders.

Illustrated with 46 woodcuts and 22 lithographs (some hand colored, some with printed color) this title is the result of Rink’s work and printing efforts over five years. The letterpress text as printed in an unheated workshop next to Rink’s house, mostly printed by Lars Møller.

The remarkable oral tradition of the native Greenland peoples, polluted by few outside influences, stretched back to the early Middle Ages. Many of the stories, especially in the first volume, describe the clashes between the Norse and the natives. Rink recognized that some of the tales existed in the realm of pure myth, but that others represented recollections, passed from one generation to the next, of events of many centuries earlier. In the preface to the third volume Rink sets out his theories about the tales, laying the foundation for scholarship on the native Greenland peoples.

Beyond the text, the most remarkable feature of this item are the illustrations. In the first two volumes, the illustrations were created by a native Greenlander named Aron of Kangeq. Aron was a sealer and a walrus hunter who lived in Kangeq. He was stricken with tuberculosis (epidemic in Greenland during that time) and was confined to bed. Apparently, he was an artist of note, as Rink approached him and asked him to create the illustrations, which he did. Rink in turn supplied him with paper, pencils, and tools to create he woodcuts. The images are notable for their power and immediacy. However, in the third volume, Lars Møller, the printer mentioned previously, created illustrations that were printed on the first lithographic press in Greenland. These illustrations, I think, are what really makes this title remarkable. The rarity of the item today speaks to the limited press run for the item, as well as the harsh climate in Greenland.

If you are interested, here are some references for more information:

• Oldendow, Knud. Greenland. Amsterdam: Vangendt, 1969.
• Pfaff, C. G. F., and Peter Lauridsen. Bibliographia Groenlandica, Eller Fortegnelse Paa Værker, Afhandlinger Og Danske Manuskripter, Der Handle Om Grønland Indtil Aaret 1880 Incl. Københaven: Rosenkilde og Bagger, 1979. 
• Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, George A. Miles, and William S. Reese. America Pictured to the Life: Illustrated Works from the Paul Mellon Bequest. New Haven: Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University, 2002.

William Grogan, J. W. Alston, William Cox, Fielding Lucas, Joseph Robinson, William Kneass, and William Strickland. The Art of Drawing, Colouring and Painting Landscapes, in Water Colours.: Accompanied with Ten Engravings. Baltimore: Published by Fielding Lucas, Jun. J. Robinson, printer, 1815. 

This week, for Neat Things I Have CatalogedI would like to share with you a book printed using the same method as the book I talked about last week (aquatint) but with a totally different purpose: instruction.

Between the original paper-backed boards with a printed label on the front cover lies a series of aquatints that illustrate the text of one of the earliest American instruction books on how to paint. Fielding Lucas published this early color title, adding to his reputation for publishing adventurous titles. This title in particular was especially adventurous for Lucas, as it was the first book he produced that used color illustrations. This, though, was only the first in a long series of titles produced in color by Lucas. As I have mentioned previously, using color illustrations in books in the 19th century was expensive and labor-intensive. Publishers drastically limited their market when they used color, as the price of the book was far higher than a title with only black and white illustrations. After creating the aquatint plate, it would be printed in black and white, and colored in by hand typically with watercolors. Notably, the illustrations were created by William Strickland, who apprenticed with Benjamin H. Latrobe.

The illustrations show a wide variety of subjects, from land to sea, and day to night. They also include the color diagrams you see above.

For more information on this book, take a look at this title:

• Drepperd, Carl William. American Drawing Books. New York: The New York Public Library, 1946.

Fisher, George, and Edy, John. Six Views in North America (Lower Canada) by Lieut. Fisher, engraved by Edy. With Descriptions. 1795. 

Today on Neat Things I Have Cataloged, I want to share with you a set of six views in North America, produced by J.W. Edy, after the original artwork of George Buteel Fisher. My interest in this item was initially piqued, as there are three libraries in the world that have a copy - where I work, the British Library, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. According to their catalog, the British Library has a copy as it was given to that library by George IV, the views originally were given to George III.

As indicated in the title, the item is composed of six loose hand-colored aquatint prints, which in this copy are mounted on archival boards. The publication details of each image (the last three images above) have been cut from the bottom of the prints and kept separately.

G.B. Fisher was a noted artist, having exhibited at the Royal Academy. While in Canada on a four year tour of duty in the army, Fisher served closely with members of the royal family - which might explain the royal provenance of the British Library’s copy. The images he created are some of Canada’s most striking landscapes. John William Edy’s talents as a creator of aquatints matched Fisher’s talents as a painter, and the series of views they created has long been considered among the most beautiful images of early Canada.

These prints are renowned for their sweeping, dramatic portrayal of the Canadian landscape. In each image can be found Native Americans, ships, or other devices enabling the artist to add perspective to the landscapes. Together, the six views provide an excellent sense of 18th-century Canada as it would appear to its residents, being at once both harsh and intimidating.

Beyond the images themselves and their rarity, the prints are notable for the method used to create the plates they were printed from. The most commonly used method of creating a print at this time was an engraving - usually printed from a metal plate, with material removed by hand from the plate. The areas that have had the material removed from holds ink, and creates a positive image on the page. Engravings were expensive and labor-intensive to produce, and they did not allow for gradual transitions of tone or color from dark to light. Etchings had the potential to be less expensive, and were also capable of producing much smoother gradation from light to dark. Engraving was gradually supplanted by etchings, with etchings being the dominant form of color printing in the 1820s. Etchings and engravings both use metal plates for printing, but they each create the negative image on the plate using different methods. The etching uses acid, rather than a tool, to remove material from the printing plate to create the image. Aquatint was far and away the primary method of creating etchings in the United States, for the reasons I mention above. An aquatint is created using a metal plate that is covered in rosin dust, then heated so that the rosin melts and creates a uniform surface on top of the metal plate. The area that the printer does not want affected by the acid is stopped out with acid-resistant varnish, and the plate is placed in an acid bath. This acid bath is where the name aquatint originates—the acid used was generally nitric acid, the Latin name for which is aqua fortis. After several baths in acid with various areas stopped out, the resulting image creates a gradual transition from light to dark, as the first areas etched become deeper with each successive immersion in the nitric acid.

For more information about aquatints:

• Susanne M. Low and John James Audubon. A Guide to Audubon’s Birds of America: A Concordance Containing Current Names of the Birds, Plate Names with Descriptions of Plate Variants, A Description of the Bien Edition, and Corresponding Indexes (New Haven: William Reese Co. & Donald A. Heald, 2002), 12–13.
• Bamber Gascoigne, How to Identify Prints: A Complete Guide to Manual and Mechanical Processes from Woodcut to Inkjet (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2004).

For more information about these six views, check these out:

• Spendlove, F. St. George. The Face of Early Canada; Pictures of Canada Which Have Helped to Make History. Illustrated by Examples from the Sigmund Samuel Canadiana Collection, Royal Ontario Museum. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1958, p. 22-25. 
• Deák, Gloria-Gilda. Picturing America, 1497-1899: Prints, Maps, and Drawings Bearing on the New World Discoveries and on the Development of the Territory That Is Now the United States. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988.

Catlin, George, and Thomas Phillipps. Mandan Village. 1840.

A bit of a departure from the illustrated works previously featured on Neat Things I Have Cataloged. The only documentation that came with this item to assist in cataloging was the supplied title - Mandan Village. Most of the books I’ve featured thus far have helpful documentation supplied with them that provide a good point to start researching these titles for cataloging and bibliography. As I mentioned, this item did not have any kind of significant documentation, other than a reference to Middle Hill Press.

After some research, I determined that this is a printer’s proof of one of the sections from Catlin’s work Letters and notes on the manners … of the North American Indians. There are no illustrations, so this is a tyesetting proof for the press. Among the libraries that hold this item are the Grolier Club, the British Library, and the Beinecke Library at Yale University.

• Munby, A. N. L. Phillipps Studies. London: University Press, 1951.
• Holzenberg, Eric, G. Thomas Tanselle, and Jerry Kelly. The Middle Hill Press A Checklist of the Horblit Collection of Books, Tracts, Leaflets, and Broadsides Printed by Sir Thomas Phillipps at His Press at Middle Hill, or Elsewhere to His Order, Now in the Library of the Grolier Club. New York: Grolier Club, 1997. 

Bowles, Carington. [Twelve Remarkable Views in North America and West Indies]. London: Printed for Carrington Bowles, 1790. 

For this week’s installment of Neat Things I Have Cataloged, we have this small “book” of engravings of scenes in the Americas from 1790. The library where I work is the only library in the world that lists a copy.

The “book” (there are no covers, and the pages are simply stitched together) is a collection of twelve views of Quebec, Louisbourg, New York, Havana, and other scenes in the Americas, all derived from the Scenographia Americana. The Scenographia was first published in London in 1768, and gathered images from a variety of sources in order to take the viewer on an illustrated tour of America. Most of the images depict British possessions, though other local town and city views were also represented, adding to the pastoral understanding of America at that time. Capitalizing on the collection’s success, the views were offered in varying groups and formats over the next two decades.

This publication matches one offered in Carington Bowles’ catalog for 1790, and is fully described by I.N. Phelps Stokes in Iconography of Manhattan:

The catalogue describes…a collection of ‘Twelve remarkable Views in North America and the West Indies, viz.’ [see list below]  These views are described as printed on half sheets of demy paper, twelve prints in a book, each eleven inches wide and seven inches deep, price 3 s. plain or 8 s. each set colored. No 8. of this series, ‘A south west view of the city of New York,’ is an exact reduction from the Howdell-Canot view, except that a group of three men and a dog has been added in the meadow south of the Rutgers house…A note in the catalogue (p.144) explains: “The preceding sets of demy prints are adapted to be viewed in the diagonal mirror, and are kept properly colored for that purpose; or to frame and glaze for furniture; also designed to instruct, amuse, and draw after.”

• Stokes, I. N. Phelps, Victor Hugo Paltsits, and F. C. Wieder. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909: Compiled from Original Sources and Illustrated by Photo-Intaglio Reproductions of Important Maps, Plans, Views, and Documents in Public and Private Collections. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915.
• Deák, Gloria-Gilda. Picturing America, 1497-1899: Prints, Maps, and Drawings Bearing on the New World Discoveries and on the Development of the Territory That Is Now the United States. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988.

Prince, S. Fred. Some Butterflies and Other Insects of the Marvel Cave Ozarks. S.l: S. Fred Prince, 1939.

For a special Valentine’s Day edition of Neat things I have cataloged, I thought I would share a book that has a tangential relationship to Valentines - one all about butterflies. Specifically butterflies that lived near a cave in southern Missouri.

This book is a book in that it is bound as a codex - but it binds together 27 pages of manuscript and watercolor illustrations by S. Fred Prince. Prince was a self-taught scientific and botanical illustrator. He worked as an illustrator for several universities in the midwest, mostly in Kansas. According to my research, he had what one might call a nervous breakdown in 1894, and was also invited to survey Marvel Cave near Branson, Missouri. Prince lived in a tent in the cave, surveying, and making notes and drawings of the local insects and animals. Long after he left the cave, between 1939 and 1941, Prince created the pages of this manuscript book. He used watercolor paper, but first used blank plates in impress a “rubric” on the pages, as illustrated above. He then painted with watercolors varieties of insects (chiefly butterflies) in the upper area, with his notes below.

When I first saw this book, I had little idea who Prince was and the context in which he created this remarkable text. There was a small bookplate (pictured above) in the book, of Mildred Bliss at Dumbarton Oaks. Thanks to some digging and research by my colleagues at the present-day Dumbarton Oaks, I was able to find out more about Prince, as well as the location of some of his other work. This information is available in a research file for this item. Oftentimes the research for good cataloging can be as captivating as the item in hand.

The only information of any length I have found on Prince online is located here:

• Wilson, Suzanne. “S. Fred Prince.” Missouri Conservationist, December 1998.

Hello readers, I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. Jen, Winston and I had a lovely season – one about which I will share more in another post. As it’s now 2013, and the official time for best of/looking back posts, I thought I’d share what I read in 2012, as I have in the past (with varying success). As I mentioned last year, I started tracking my reading with Goodreads, to my delight in writing this post! Here’s a photo:

And you can click the photo for more details about what I read this year. In brief, I read 38 books last year, which is far less than I would like to have read, but it was three books a month. I read 12,725 pages overall, and this is not counting our periodicals. The longest book I read was The Lincoln Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Legacy from 1860 to Now edited by Harold Holzer. So, without further ado, here are the 38 books I read in 2012. Check back next week for my top 5 books from last year!

1. Rembrandt’s Eyes
   Schama, Simon
   Jan 26, 2012
2. Makers of Modern Architecture: From Frank Lloyd Wright to Frank Gehry
   Filler, Martin
   Feb 02, 2012
3. Louis Kahn: Essential Texts
   Kahn, Louis I.
   Feb 11, 2012
4. Thomas Eakins: Art, Medicine, and Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia
   Werbel, Amy
   Feb 26, 2012
5. Logotopia: The Library in Architecture, Art and the Imagination
   Klant, Diane
   Mar 2012
6. The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
   Gleick, James
   Mar 14, 2012
7. The American Future: A History
   Schama, Simon
   Mar 31, 2012
8. Pure Drivel
   Martin, Steve
   Mar 31, 2012
9. The Night Bookmobile
   Niffenegger, Audrey
   Mar 31, 2012
10. Books: A Living History
    Lyons, Martyn
    Apr 2012
11. The Lincoln Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Legacy from 1860 to Now
    Holzer, Harold
    Apr 14, 2012
12. Light in Architecture and Art : The Work of Dan Flavin
    Bell, Tiffany
    Apr 15, 2012
13. The Art of Raising a Puppy
    Skete, Monks of New
    May 25, 2012
14. How to Be Your Dog’s Best Friend: The Classic Manual for Dog Owners
    Skete, Monks of New
    May 28, 2012
15. The Passage of Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #4)
    Caro, Robert A.
    Jun 14, 2012
16. Hark! A Vagrant
    Beaton, Kate
    Jun 15, 2012
17. Joan Mitchell: Lady Painter
    Albers, Patricia
    Jun 16, 2012
18. Never Learn Anything From History
    Beaton, Kate
    Jun 19, 2012
19. Just My Type: A Book About Fonts
    Garfield, Simon
    Jul 04, 2012
20. Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean
    Wolk, Douglas
    Jul 18, 2012
21. The Well-Made Book: Lectures by Daniel Berkeley Updike
    Updike, Daniel Berkeley
    Jul 19, 2012
22. Floating Worlds: The Letters of Edward Gorey & Peter F. Neumeyer
    Gorey, Edward
    Jul 21, 2012
23. Horoscopes for the Dead
    Collins, Billy
    Jul 24, 2012
24. Call for the Dead (George Smiley, #1)
    Carré, John le
    Aug 03, 2012
25. A Murder of Quality (George Smiley, #2)
    Carré, John le
    Aug 06, 2012
26. The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (George Smiley #3)
    Carré, John le
    Aug 09, 2012
27. The Looking Glass War (George Smiley, #4)
    Carré, John le
    Aug 20, 2012
28. London: A Social History
    Porter, Roy
    Aug 20, 2012
29. Mellon: An American Life
    Cannadine, David
    Sep 19, 2012
30. A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald
    Morris, Errol
    Sep 24, 2012
31. Through the Children’s Gate: A Home in New York
    Gopnik, Adam
    Sep 26, 2012
32. Thomas Eakins
    Goodrich, Lloyd
    Oct 28, 2012
33. Casino Royale (James Bond, #1)
    Fleming, Ian
    Nov 09, 2012
34. Live and Let Die (James Bond, #2)
    Fleming, Ian
    Nov 20, 2012
35. Moonraker (James Bond, #3)
    Fleming, Ian
    Nov 23, 2012
36. Wolf Hall (Wolf Hall, #1)
    Mantel, Hilary
    Dec 06, 2012
37. Zeitoun
    Eggers, Dave
    Dec 09, 2012
38. The American Leonardo: A Tale of Obsession, Art and Money
    Brewer, John
    Dec 20, 2012

You all probably have an impression that I am a bit of a luddite when it comes to reading. I don’t think this would be an unfair or inaccurate assessment, but perhaps it’s not entirely true anymore. For our anniversary, Jen and I got Nooks.

As with so many things on the blog, I feel as though this needs a bit of preface. Jen and I subscribe to a number of magazines – Dwell, the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, The Paris Review and the New York Times. We flirt with many others (namely, Foreign Affairs, The New Criterion, and a few others) but are faithful to most of those. Dwell is, at last discussion, getting cancelled. Still we have a fair amount of periodical reading to do on any given week. I typically have at least one New Yorker and New York Review of Books in my work bag, which can be a bit unwieldy. We also love in a remote area for mail, and so are typically one to two weeks out of sync with the rest of the country in receiving magazines – a problem when your magazines are published weekly or bi-weekly. We also are trying to live greener lives, and the energy that goes into shipping and printing seems to be wasteful. Of course, I am turning a blind eye to the manufacturing of the Nook itself – but I imagine that in the long run, it will be better for the environment.

I much prefer reading the Times on the Nook than I do to reading it online, or even on my iPhone. As there is no delivery of the paper Times to where we live, these are the only ways in which we can read it. I suppose I had just enough experience with the traditional analog newspaper to get accustomed to the organization of the physical paper – something blurred online. Being able to navigate sections of the paper in succession is quite nice, and makes the paper make a bit more sense to me. I feel as though I read more of the paper than I would otherwise.

I also think that for periodicals and newspapers, the reading experience is better than the formats we read from in general. The screen (as I mentioned) is much better for reading (I think) than the LCD screens of a computer or smartphone. The back lighting seems to fatigue my eyes much more quickly – and being able to read these things without the interference of advertisements is great as well. As an aside, one of the reasons why we picked the Nook over the Kindle was the page turn buttons on the bezel of the device – really helps to make the reading experience better, I think. It’s also nice not to have the ink come off in your hands, as well as being able to read the Nook in much smaller spaces (think: airplanes and bars) than I would feel comfortable reading a large-format periodical, like the Times or the NYRB. We’ve only had them about a week, and so I am sure we will think more about the Nook and such.

All of this to say that while we are reading electronic versions of our magazines and such, we are most certainly not abandoning analog books. I simply cannot bring myself to do that!

In other news, I am wrapping up editing and revising my first academic journal article –I’ll share more soon.

This has been a lovely week for us here – I have had the week off from work, and have spent the workweek at home, chauffeuring Jen about, and spending some quality time with Winston. This time with him has been lovely, and there are a few things after spending so much time with him I want to share.

First, being a Saint Bernard, he drools. It’s not pervasive, but he really has a fair amount when we go for a walk, he’s excited, or he has his food and water. I think people have a perception that Saints drool all the time, but this is really not the case, at least for Winston. Having lots of towels is important, though as when the drool comes, it comes!

I am glad Winston is a smooth coat (short hair) Saint as he sheds quite a bit, and I can only imagine how much hair we would have floating around if he was a long hair! We’ve been needing to run our Mint floor cleaner more frequently to keep up, but that’s not a big deal, really. I imagine when he changes from his summer to his winter coat, the pace will pick up.

Without a doubt, Winston’s favorite activity is sleeping. He’s sleeping as I write this as a matter of fact. Our breeders told us Saints sleep about 80 percent of their lives – and that’s absolutely true for Winston. Here’s a photo of him sleeping on the couch while I read:

And finally, I don’t think there’s a better buddy in the land for us. He loves to just be around us, loves snuggles, and loves to be petted. He’s a great dog, and I hope you all can meet him sometime!

Jen, Winston, and I all live in Fayetteville in the house I imagine you all have read about. Fayetteville is a great town – it’s a college town, and has the feel that we really like. People are friendly and have a different mindset than that of other towns in northwest Arkansas. The downside of this is that I have to commute into work. Now, if this were a nice commute (think light rail/subway) I don’t think I would complain too much. But this being the south with an intense aversion to almost all forms of public transit, I must drive to work.

For a long while, I just listened to NPR on my way into work – but that is usually very depressing with all the news coming in about Syria, et cetera. Not that it isn’t important – I just would like to start my day on a positive note. I recently downloaded Apple’s free podcasts app onto my iPhone, and have started listening to podcasts on my way into work in the mornings through the car stereo. It’s a nice way to listen to either things I am already interested in, or things I am curious about. Here’s a couple of my favorites thus far:

• Modern Art Notes with Robert Adams – I really first got into the work of Robert Adams (after ignoring his work for years, as it was next to Ansel Adams’) when Jen got a copy of his great book Summer Nights, Walking. Adams is a great thinker about photography, and how the idea and reality of the American West has changed over time.
• Interview with Jodi Utter – I worked some with Jodi while I was at the Carter, she;s super sharp and passionate about her job. Also, I love hearing conservators talk about their work – it is absolutely fascinating.

On my way home, I usually will listen to NPR, or will listen to some music from the iPod. I am really excited to listen to some Bach performed by Christian Tetzlaff after reading this fascinating article in the New Yorker yesterday.

Hi readers,

If you’ve found your way back here after our four month hiatus here at the files, welcome back. If you’re a new reader, I am glad you are here. In sitting down to write this post, I see it has been far too long since my last post. I thought perhaps I owe it to you all to fill you in on some of the happenings around here at the files…

Probably the biggest single change has been the addition of a dog to our home. Here’s a photo of him and me a few weeks ago…

He is, as I am sure you astute readers can deduce, a Saint Bernard. We got him from George and Carol Ghering at Swiss Star Saints in Cleburne, Texas. They have a house full of Saints, all of them lovely, and loving. Carol and George are among the kindest people we have ever met, and we are so thankful for everything they have done for us, and for Winston. Rest assured, you’ll be reading about our new life with Winston – travels, training, and everything in between!

You might notice that silver wagon in the background – we bought a Subaru Outback to accommodate our boy – Carol said she think’s he’ll weigh at least 200 pounds when he is fully grown!

Along with incorporating a new dog into our lives, we’ve made a concerted effort to change up our evening schedule, and have been taking nightly walks at Lake Fayetteville, Gulley Park, and the University. We usually cook a nice meal, walk, and read until bedtime. To be fair, we have been watching some of the BBC’s Hercule Poirots (love those) as well as re-watching the West Wing. I’ve also renewed my passion for writing letters – some of you readers have been beneficiaries of this, I think!

On the travel front – Jen and I are going to Salem and Boston next month! I will be attending the Art Museum Libraries Symposium at the Peabody Essex on the 20th and 21st, and Jen will come up for a long weekend in Boston. This will be our first time in Boston, and so we are really excited. For my librarian readers, I will be posting here things worth sharing from the symposium, as well as from our trip!

Finally, wehad the good fortune to attend most of the KUAF/Fulbright Summer Chamber Music Festival. Rather than blather on about it, here’s one of our favorite pieces:

Come back next week for another post – and thanks for sticking with us!

One of the joys of our new home is reading. I’ve read two lengthy nonfiction books since we moved in – and that is with the work we have done to get everything in the house usable and accessible. Just about the time we were moving in, I heard a piece on Fresh Air on NPR about habits and how we form them. According to the author, the times when we can form new habits are times of major change – birth of a child, or moving. With this in mind, I have been making a special effort to create a reading habit in our new home.

My love of reading is no surprise to you I am sure, but these efforts come from my summer reading several years ago. My grandparents lived in a small town in southern Indiana with a population of 2,000 and I spent two summers there while I was finishing my undergraduate degree. One summer I read all three of Robert Caro’s books on Lyndon Johnson. It seems idyllic now – a comfortable chair and few distractions reading interesting and challenging material. Of course, in the interest of full disclosure, Fayetteville has many more entertainment options than Rockport with dial-up internet and tv selections made by my grandparents.

Jen has been doing a great deal of work on her two term papers for her classes this semester, and this has provided me with forced quiet time. There are so many distractions – phones, computers, iPads – that having a time when I need to be still and quiet to let Jen work has been a great boon to my reading habits. It’s usually during these two (or so) hours a night that I read.

An integral part of my reading is having a good chair to read in. The chair (above) that I usually sit in and read I bought before Jen and I got married for that express purpose – reading in – but it rarely got used. I usually read in bed, despite hearing that that is a bad habit to be in for good sleep patterns. However, the two levels in our home helped to solve that – I now read downstairs and sleep upstairs. The chair is facing our bookshelves, which provides a nice (but not distracting) background against which I can read. Jen can speak to my problems with attention and TVs at restaurants – but that could be another post.

Our home was built to be as energy efficient as possible, and so is well-insulated with six inch thick walls (normal walls are four inches thick). This added insulation helps to dampen sounds from outside when needed. We also have windows that we open in the evenings (especially with this lovely spring we have been enjoying) so we can hear the crickets and Cosby “talking” with the group of neighborhood cats we have.

When I take a break from reading, I look up at our books on their shelves and think about our moving, unpacking, and organizing our library. Our library is a reflection of Jen and me as individuals, and as a couple. I can connect certain memories and events to some of our books (like my Lincoln anthology with Maine, or the Caro books to Indiana) and how the books are arranged on our shelves to their significance and their context.

Our library is modest – about 300 titles, but very meaningful. I think our books are a reflection both of who we are, and who we want to be. As usual, Alberto Manguel says this better than I:

We can imagine the books we’d like to read, even if they have not yet been written, and we can imagine libraries full of books we would like to possess, even if they are well beyond our reach, because we enjoy dreaming up a library that reflects every one of our interests and every one of our foibles–a library that, in its variety and complexity, fully reflects the reader we are.

By my count, it has been a bit over a month since posting here at The Dean Files, and it’s nice to be back. My hiatus was prompted by Jen and I buying and moving into our first home in Fayetteville, Arkansas. I know Jen will want to tell you all about that, but here’s a photo from a couple of weeks ago of our new living room:

On my commute into work today, I was listening to a story about The New Republic on Morning Edition. Chris Hughes, one of the founders of Facebook purchased that nearly century-old magazine, and hopes to use it to re inspire reading long-form writing and journalism. A couple of things piqued my interest that he mentioned. Hughes seems to think that there is a real lack of that kind of reporting out there, and that The New Republic will be one of a few in a vastly under served market. Also, that tablet computers are the best new way to consume long-form writing.

His implication that his newly purchased magazine will fill a void of long-form, insightful writing and journalism just does not hold water. I subscribe to two paragons of this genre – The New Yorker, and The New York Review of Books. It’s all I can do to keep up with these two, but I am tempted by the wiles of Mother Jones, The Atlantic, and Harper’s about every three months. Those are five magazines that regularly publish long-form works that I can name off the top of my head, and I am sure there are many more out there. I am curious to see how TNR will establish itself in a niche that is already fairly full.

However, what bothered me more than Hughes’ assertion that TNR will be the only publication in this niche was his statement that the tablet is uniquely well-suited to reading long-form periodical writing. It makes little difference to me what people choose to read from – a book, a Nook, an iPad, or a Kindle, but making this statement with Hughes’ reasoning bothered me. This was his reasoning:

And he sees a growing ability to connect long-form journalism to digital users, thanks to tablets that allow users to “pause, linger, read and process very important ideas.”

As someone who has used a tablet to read long-form journalism, I take strong objection to this argument. Indeed, in an article published this week in The New York Times, some cogent and insightful thoughts were shared on just this very topic – reading on a tablet/ereader. To quote from that article:

Can you concentrate on Flaubert when Facebook is only a swipe away, or give your true devotion to Mr. Darcy while Twitter beckons?

People who read e-books on tablets like the iPad are realizing that while a book in print or on a black-and-white Kindle is straightforward and immersive, a tablet offers a menu of distractions that can fragment the reading experience, or stop it in its tracks.

As someone who has used both – I really still prefer the print version of a magazine for long-form journalism and writing. I read the Times on my iPhone in the mornings, but for anything longer than that, I think that the print version just cannot be beat. I think my coworkers ask for my read copies of The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books for that same reason – to read in print that which (for the most part) can be accessed online or in tablet format.

Readers, this is my final post for the Library Day in the Life, Round 8 project. As you can imagine, Friday was a day with all sorts of different tasks to accomplish, and I have even included some more photos as it’s Friday.

As usual, I turned on a few of the computers for the staff as I walked in and went and got settled in my office. The library director handed me a few new books I needed to invoice and mark as received in our ILS. I mentioned in the first couple of posts this week that I have been working with a new acquisitions workflow, and it seems to be going well, with a modicum of tweaking and adjustment. I also checked our funds in the ILS to make sure things were running there as they should, and indeed they were. Using this system gives us item by item tracking, which is really great. I also cataloged a couple of new acquisitions.

Some of our rare and framed items arrived at the museum today, and so I needed to move those items from the library into our secure collection storage area. I always love doing this, because I get to make sure all the items that are down there are where they are supposed to be, and doing well. Unfortunately, I cannot say much beyond that – but it’s certainly one of the perks of my job!

Friday is the day I deal with our “Needs Attention” shelf – the items that come back to me after a problem arises with the item and the catalog. Usually, it’s an issue of a record that just did not load properly, and sometimes the problem is a bit more complex. Today I had a multi-volume set that did not have barcodes and labels for each item in the set – just the first volume. So I took the time to barcode and label each volume, creating an item record for each volume. Here’s the result:

It takes a while to do these sets, and so I just correct them as they come across my desk. I also corrected any issues with the other “Needs Attention” books, so that’s clear again!

Our volunteers came in, and covered 19 hardcover books with mylar. They are extremely good at this, so I save all our dust jackets for them! I helped them get settled and checked in on them from time to time. Because they were both covering books, I sat at the reference desk for the quietest shift I have ever had here. I cataloged a book from our backlog that a curator requested and checked our funds again to make sure everything is posting as it should.

After our volunteers left, I moved the books they covered out and integrated them into our new books area I talked about earlier this week.

Friday is also the day that I check our reflection areas, which are seating areas with books and iPads. Here’s a photo of my favorite one:

Basically, I straighten the books and check the iPads. It’s also a great time to see the art in the building. For example, here is our recently installed Claes Oldenburg:

And, simply because it was raining outside, here’s a photo of the rain coming off the roof of the restaurant:

And that’s it folks. I hope you are having a great Friday!

I am a day late on this, the fourth installment of my Library Day in the Life project this week. It was a busy day yesterday, and I am excited to tell you about it. I am slightly altering my list format from last time, and I will try to include approximate times.

• 9:00-11:00 AM – As part of our consortial arrangement with the University of Arkansas, I serve on a few committees, one of which is the Innovative Review Committee. I really love being involved with the University and being able to gain knowledge of a large academic library by being integrally involved in their work. They are great people, and I always feel as though I learn so much from them.
• 11:00 AM-12:00 PM – Lunch with my wife! Yay!
• 12:00-12:30 PM – Return to the office.
• 12:30-1:00 PM – When I was at my meeting, a staff member sent me some questions about an item that was displaying some odd information in the catalog. I had to go into our ILS and look at the record to see what was going on with it. It was just on order – but remember that new acquisitions process? Yeah, that was the reason for the odd display. I talked to her, and set up a notify message for when it’s cataloged so she can be the first to check it out!
• 1:00-2:30 PM – Assist our library volunteers with shelving and other questions they have.
• 2:30-4:00 PM – A group of library managers from the Fayetteville Public Library came for a library tour. The library director and I showed them around. It was also a great opportunity to talk to some of my colleagues there about the presentation I am working on for them in March.
• 4:00-5:00 PM – Return emails and voicemails.

I felt as though I got a lot accomplished, and it’s Friday tomorrow!

Well, it’s my third post this week of Library Day in the Life and today has by far been the busiest for me. And, rather than some repetitive narrative for my day, how about a list to change things up.

• I had to call Syracuse to get copies of my transcript. More to follow on this later.
• Turned on the computers for employees to use (and a few did later on).
• Had a brief conversation about things ahead with the library director.
• We are trying our new acquisitions workflow, so I needed to test some things and do some research before I moved some new books through the system.
• I cataloged 2 gifts to the library, both of which were copy records.
• I then cataloged the new acquisitions and took notes about the workflow. Needs some tweaking, but the system is workable!
• Moved the new books (books I cataloged in the last month) out into the main stacks for browsing. Here’s a photo!

• Greeted our volunteer for the morning, answered her questions, and helped her check in many books.
• A colleague at the University alerted me to a problem we were having with circulation and our patrons, and I worked with him to get this solved.
• Had researchers ask for books on two specific female artists. Required some after the fact tweaking in the catalog, but the books were found and are now in the catalog.
• Another staff member asked us to generate a report on the value of items that met certain criteria in the library collection. This was really challenging, and required all of my searching tools to get the results back from the database. I also needed to send this information as an Excel spreadsheet – which was done after some research on the best way to get the data out of our ILS and into Excel.

Busy day, but I feel as though I was productive and wore lots of hats today – always fun! Check back tomorrow!