"Two decades ago, architect Kurt Meyer stumbled upon an album of some of these photographs he bought from a friend. Meyer has been a collector of rare books on Central Asia and the Himalayan regions. “The collection literally set me off like a detective to find whatever other photographs that might have still survived,” says the 83-year-old Californian."
"Meyer travelled to the US, Nepal, London and even Kolkata, 'to search for the studio where some of White’s box cameras may be found'".
"In a booth in the Hynes Convention Center, Adrian Harrington Rare Books of London was selling a set of all six British first-edition hardcover Harry Potter books. One of them, a signed copy of "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" marred by two printing errors, is worth an estimated $14,000."
"Blair Cowl, who works for the London-based bookseller, said he expects the books' popularity to endure and boost their value with age."
"I think (Harry Potter) will stand with the Hobbit, the Wind in the Willows or Alice in Wonderland," he said. "When children are 30- or 40-year-old corporate executives, they will still be buying these books."
"Talking to him proves that he knows his history well and knows the value of what he possesses. “During the time of the Mughals, the holy text contained the original verses in Arabic, followed by the translated version in Persian. It is only recently that Persian was replaced by Urdu,” he said. “At present, the book contains the verses in Arabic with the translation in Urdu. I have met many historians. And they all agree that it may be at least 150 years old,” he said. But he rues it’s not in very good condition. “The pages have become very brittle and are breaking into pieces. But I have still managed to preserve the whole thing,” he adds."
"On a recent rainy Thursday, the main entrance hall of the Palmer Seminary was filled with people staring at a book in a cabinet. Bluff-faced men wore suits with significant bulges at their waists and suspiciously watched the crowd, while dignitaries of the seminary and Eastern University loitered."
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"SALEM — A love of poetry — and quick work by firefighters — kept a water-line break last night from ruining the Salem Athenaeum's rare book collection."
"Director Jean Marie Procious said if it were not for an evening poetry reading, no one would have discovered the water line break, which occurred around 8:40 p.m. in the athenaeum's basement. The private library holds Revolutionary-era texts important to the history of the city and surrounding areas."
"AUCTIONEXPLORER's latest on-line rare book auction ended last night, with participation by a number of countries around the world. "These auctions are continuing to attract increasing international interest, and overseas book dealers and collectors are now making up (a considerable) percentage of our clients," says Paul Mills, a director of AuctionExplorer."
"An 1897 McLoughlin Brothers edition of the fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast" has been republished in its original form by the State Historical Society of North Dakota."
" LOUISVILLE, Kentucky: Information about a collection of rare Baptist history materials housed in the Boyce Library at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is now accessible online."
“The archives are an invaluable resource for information about Baptists, particularly in North America,” he said. “Several of our collections, such as our Baptist associational minutes and church minutes collections, our rare book collection and our founders collection, provide resources that give us a window into Baptist identity and Baptist distinctives through the ages. All of these collections are available for Southern Baptists to use.”
"Firestone Curator of Manuscripts Don Skemer has organized an effort to digitize about 200 Islamic manuscripts and electronically catalog more than 10,000 Islamic manuscripts in the Rare Book Division's collection during the next four years."
"The collection, the largest in North America, ranges in age from the earliest Islamic texts in the ninth century to pieces written in the early 20th century during the final collapse of the Ottoman Empire."
Read this article.
"Daryl B. and Rosalie Adrian, Muncie, Ind., recently donated their personal library collections to Tabor College."
"The first collection, donated by the couple, consists of about 2,500 volumes with subjects ranging from British and American literature to humanities and biblical studies."
Read this article.
"Australia will send two Tasmanian devils, a restored tram and a rare children's book to Denmark to celebrate the birth of a son to Denmark's Australian-born Crown Princess Mary."
"Through the years, certain legends have come and gone on campus, but one persists throughout the decades: a haunting in the Archives and Rare Books Department at Blegen Library."
"Among the books is the spirit of a UC Classics professor who was killed in an auto accident in the 1950s."
"Apart from his business and political activities, Lord Leitch is a keen collector of antiquarian books and Scottish landscape paintings. Brought up by his mother and his grandfather at the village of Oakley following the death of his father when he was three, he is also a lifelong follower of Dunfermline Athletic."
"With the addition to the local building, the Center will more easily be able to house the 60,000 volumes of its research library, the largest of its type in the world, according to Kurtz; included are rare books such as all the first editions of Thomas Paine, including "The Age of Reason" and works by Ethan Allen from 1784. Recently, the Center received a shipment of boxes containing the complete library of famed performer Steve Allen, who willed his books and the papers he personally wrote to the Center, where he was a longtime member."
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"Their shop of about 30,000 titles in 1,700 square feet is cozy compared with the Super Target store across the street or the big chain bookstores like Borders or Barnes & Noble in the regional malls of the suburban Northside."
"A large part of the exhibition is made up of Stanley Marcus’ collection. Marcus is known for Neiman Marcus, his store that originated in Dallas. In addition to being a legend in retail, Marcus was also a fine book collector. SMU received his personal collection in 2003."
"Marcus’ collection is still being catalogued, but the collection is massive and strong in British and American literature. The current number of works totals around 8,000 and Martin said there could be as many as 2,000 more works not yet counted."
"Early edition Cecil Aldin dog books are highly sought after by collectors. As with his artwork, it is important to read the fine print in the item description, as new editions of these books are still being published today."
Read this article.
" A rare book that holds the earliest surviving examples of written Welsh is returning to its roots after 10 centuries away."
"The Llandeilo Gospels Book, a beautifully illuminated Biblical manuscript, is coming back to Wales in virtual form thanks in part to Carmarthenshire County Council."
"Some of the notable elements of the exhibit include the original Treaty of Peace signed in 1765 by the Delaware Nation, agreeing to become allies of the King of England, a $5 receipt signed by Geronimo in 1896, and a non-English Bible published in 1685 by John Eliot, a preacher in the Massachusetts Bay area. Selected works of artists such as George Catlin and Karl Bodner are also displayed, among other works of art chronicling Native American life as far back as the 16th century."
"If there is a direct hit on the building, the collection of 96 oil paintings, 125 watercolors, 1,500 prints and 100 other pieces including rare books could be wiped out, even if secured. While the collection is insured, she said the works can never be replaced."
Read this article.
"Over five million rare and one-off books and items stored in the underground vaults of the Rs 100-crore Bhasha Bhavan building and the old annexe of the National Library are in danger of being damaged by water seepage.
At risk of being destroyed are original manuscripts of Tagore and Netaji, their letters and rare, one-off world maps.
The books and manuscripts, preserved in the two-storeyed underground vaults, were ruined after water seeped through the walls and flooded the room. At the old annexe, the ground floor, which houses the maps and rare books departments, is water-bound."
Read this article.
"Aesop’s Village is a recreation of 17th century European country houses, built by the maker of Legoland (Germany), the Canadian designing company Forex."
"Aesop’s Fables Book Exhibit- Six ancient books published in 1694 will be on display, along with 13 books of Aesop’s Fables translated in various languages."
"The 12th annual Banff Mountain Book Festival will include readings and book signings by authors, and a book fair featuring new titles in mountain literature."
"Whereas westerly throughout South Wales, produces some fine Welsh antique furniture including dressers and decorative items from various specialist dealers and several auction rooms including a weekly Sunday sale near Newport. The area extends as far as the tiny Welsh border town of Hay on Wye, renowned for it’s seemingly endless supply of 39 antiquarian book shops and the annual Hay Literary Festival which attracts 80,000 worldwide visitors."
"She wrote about all these things, and how important it is that people are fed properly and that wards are properly aired and cleaned, along with simple things like washing hands.
"She talks about all of that in her book Notes on Nursing, published well over 150 years ago, but nothing much has changed nowadays. In fact if anything, it has got worse."
The memory of Miss Nightingale has been brought to life thanks to the university's School of Nursing and Midwifery, forming part of its 10th celebrations as part of the university.
The exhibition features a mixture of artefacts on loan from the Nightingale Exhibition in London, including Miss Nightingale's Bible, which has handwritten comments, as well as pieces from personal collections.
These include handwritten original letters, an original amputation set used in field hospitals and a replica of an army lamp that Florence would have used – all personal items owned Mrs MacKinnon and her brother Michael Crumplin, an archivist for the Royal College of Surgeons."
"Both Meaders are longtime supporters of WMU, and Edwin E. Meader is a former adjunct professor of geography at the University. The W. H. Upjohn Rotunda, the entrance to WMU's main library, was also named for Mary Meader's father, in recognition of the Meaders' leadership gift to the expansion and complete renovation of that facility in the early 1990s. W.H. Upjohn was an early executive of the Kalamazoo-based Upjohn Co., which is now part of Pfizer Inc. and remains the Kalamazoo area's largest employer."
"The library's Meader Rare Books Room was named in honor of the Meaders' continued support of the University Libraries and its rare books collection. Their gift to establish the Upjohn Center is one of the largest individual gifts the University has received."
Read this article.
"Search giant Google Inc. has expanded Google Print, its controversial book-scanning project, into eight European countries."
"Native language sites have been launched in France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Spain. At each of the new Google Print locations, users can see snippets of the book where their search term appears."
"Mr. Bromsen amassed the "finest collection of manuscript and iconographic items" in the United States related to Simon Bolivar, a leader in the struggle for South American independence, said Norman Fiering, director and librarian at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. Mr. Bromsen donated his Bolivar collection to the library in 2000."
"At a celebratory ceremony, the campus gingerly offered a glimpse of scraps of Homer's "Odyssey" and other invaluable texts on ancient papyrus that were unearthed in Egypt more than a century ago but experienced a delivery delay on their way to the Berkeley campus."
"The Harrison County Library System lost around 175,000 volumes, totaling $3.5 million, to its book collection alone. The storm destroyed first-edition William Faulkner books, local genealogy records, two-thirds of the books in Biloxi's library and all of the children's and fiction books in Gulfport."
"He said that teaching has given meaning to his life and that there is no joy greater than reading. He is a self-described bibliophile who lives in a home with books in every room. He especially enjoys reading biographies that, he said, combine the best qualities of history in a personalized context."
"The Huntington Library holds one of the richest collections in the world of Shakespeare's writings in the original published editions. This generously illustrated volume introduces readers to Shakespeare the man, the poet, and the playwright using examples from the Huntington's quartos, folios, and other rare books. The book discusses the first, second, third, and fourth folios, gives special emphasis to the Library's collection of quarto copies of many of the plays and poems published in Shakespeare's lifetime, and addresses many other aspects of Shakespeare scholarship."
"The rare manuscripts, which make up 16 pages, date from his student days at the University of Minnesota.
A Christie's spokesperson says, "While some of the poems are rooted in his daily university life and reference his Jewish heritage with Yiddish phrases, the wit and irony pervasive in his later songwriting are already evident."
The poems are expected to fetch between $60,000"
PROVIDENCE -- The Rhode Island Historical Society has come across a rare and lucky find: a document written by the state's founder, Roger Williams.
The first edition of the 1644 writings, ''The Bloudy Tenent," were found by a librarian in August, but only recently verified as authentic. The work was found tucked inside some other historical writings on a shelf with rare books."
"The reach of his forgeries — from Emily Dickinson to Mark Twain, George Washington to Joseph Smith — and the cunning with which he tricked a nation's document collectors continue to intrigue authors and investigators. So far, seven books have been written about him. This weekend, yet another symposium is being held to analyze his crimes, as forensic document examiners from 33 states gather in Salt Lake City to talk about the arcane details of ink and paper."
"Today the library, which is a nonprofit organization, has archives that contain approximately 5,000 books by or about African Americans, 500 rare books and pamphlets and 2,500 boxes of other archives.
The society, believed to be the oldest continuously operating African American historical and cultural institution west of the Rockies, is at 762 Fulton St. in the Fillmore neighborhood. The three-story building is decorated inside and out with brightly colored murals and images of noted African Americans such as Duke Ellington and Eartha Kitt and society founders Jim Herndon and Francis Miller. The library is on the second floor."
Lawrence, Kansas. "Nearly 10,000 books, pamphlets and periodicals and more than 100,000 fliers, brochures, mailings, clippings and bumper stickers -- will celebrate its 40th anniversary next month at the University of Kansas.
The Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements at KU's Spencer Research Library was established in 1965 when the university purchased student Laird Wilcox's collection of pamphlets, books, periodicals and other materials on contemporary political activity."
"Only the University of Glasgow, United Kingdom, has an emblem book collection larger than the University. The large size of the University's collection owes largely to one man, Professor Henri Stegemeier, one of the first scholars to study and write about emblem books. When he arrived at the University in 1942, the library had only 25 emblem books, and "not all of them were what we today would call an emblem book," Stegemeier later said in a library document. The University now has a collection of over 600 emblem books."
Read this article.
"The exhibition, titled ’Rome to Jerusalem’, has been seen as an important cultural and diplomatic step between the Vatican and Israel.
It includes such rare manuscripts such as a 15th century version of the Rambam’s ’Mishne Torah’. This is the first time that manuscripts from the Vatican’s extensive library have been shown in Israel."
"Later this month the Berkeley division of the Librarians Association of the University of California will honor two of its own, the recipients of the 2005 Distinguished Librarian Award: John Roberts of the Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library and Daniel Krummes of the Harmer E. Davis Transportation Library. Each represents what the association calls "the highest ideals of librarianship on the Berkeley campus."
"From a 443-year-old Latin copy of "Diogenis," to a seven-year-old Columbus State University catalog, the CSU Archives is displaying the marvelous and the mundane this month.
The items on the first floor of CSU's Schwob Library are part of an exhibit celebrating the archives' 30th anniversary. They are a tease toward the third floor, where the archives have been since 1975."
"KAZINFORM. /Yelena Ilyinskaya/ - The cultural heritage of Kazakhstan has been replenished with 77 ancient manuscripts about the history, culture and economy of ancient Kazakhstan.
The files were brought from Europe by the scientific research bibliographic expedition of the National Library as a part of the Cultural Heritage Program of Kazakhstan for the years of 2004-2006. This news has been discussed today at the conference in Almaty National Library."
"Alibris has created an online Gulf Coast book wishlist at http://www.alibris.com,
where customers can donate new or used books to libraries in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi that were destroyed or damaged by Hurricane Katrina. For each book donated by a customer, Alibris will donate a book to the drive."
The Man Booker Prize: "For the judges it began at 1.30pm when they met to choose the winner (from the shortlist of six) over a three-hour lunch at the Clerkenwell home of Lindsay Duguid, fiction editor of the TLS. Rick Gekoski, the rare-book dealer, proposed they each speak up for their favourite book. He chose Banville's The Sea, which he regards as "up there in the context of high modernism with TS Eliot, Joyce, Nabokov, Wallace Stevens". Others spoke for Zadie Smith's On Beauty and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go."
"National Library exhibition marks 100th anniversary. A stone inscription that is 1,366 years old, centuries-old Khampee Bailan – sacred writing on palm leaf – and a royal harp and piano will be just some of the exhibits put on show as part of the National Library of Thailand’s centenary celebrations, which start tomorrow.
To promote public learning, a number of important pieces from the country’s intellectual heritage have been selected to make up the exhibition featuring nine “treasure troves” at the library, said Orapin Limsakul, director of the National Library."
"For book lovers, there's nothing like thumbing through a book once held by Benjamin Franklin. Or studying the debate a reader had with author James Thomson Callender - in beautiful script, on page after page - in The History of the United States for 1796; Including a Variety of Interesting Particulars Relative to the Federal Government Previous to That Period.
Those are among the delights found at the Library Company of Philadelphia, the country's oldest cultural institution and its first lending library."
"Randy Silverman, preservation librarian of the University of Utah, went to Katrina-ravaged areas to help preserve books and historical items, such as a Bible from the Old Spanish Fort Museum in Pascagoula, Mississippi."
"The idea for Bookstore Tourism came to Larry Portzline in 2003. At the time Portzline was a writing and literature teacher in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. One day he was talking to a colleague about “backdoor” restaurant tours in New York City, and it struck Portzline, a man so in love with books that he’s starting a blog called Over-Readers Anonymous, that the concept could be adapted to bookstore tours. The first trip he organized—a bus tour of the indie bookstores of Greenwich Village, New York—sold out in two weeks, and Bookstore Tourism was born."
"Spertus has more than a half a million pieces in its collections, including rare books, maps, music, film and records of the Chicago Jewish archives that need to be stored in humidity- and temperature-controlled areas."
"A 1493 copy of Christopher Columbus' letter describing his first voyage to the New World has been sitting among the rare books and manuscripts in Yale University's Beinecke library for more than 50 years, but now the owner wants it back - to sell.
The European explorer's account of his search for treasure and a new route to Asia established his fame around Europe. Today those words could be worth more than $1 million."
"Kadapa (Andhra Pradesh): Professor Abdul Gaffoor loved his mother so much that he preserved her body for 20 years after her death, and "consulted her" regularly on important matters.
The preserved body was discovered only on October 2 when Gaffoor, 69, died at his house in Siddavatam village in Andhra Pradesh's Kadapa district. Gaffoor and his mother, Syeda Rahamat Bi, were laid to rest side by side the same day. Rahamat Bi had died on September 11, 1985, when Gaffoor was head of the English department at Madras University."
Russian Center in Bangladesh:" This centre has a library that is not only truly worth visiting but also for getting immersed into for its infinite riches. Of special interest is a unique collection of rare books. The precious collection offers books by prominent European writers, philosophers, theologians, explorers and well-known scholars. The library has a collection of newspapers and magazines of the ancient and current time. The library preserves all our national dailies, magazines and different special issues. For this reason, avid readers and learned person are regularly thronging the place to slake their thirst for knowledge."
"Mervat Seifeddin, director of the Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria, announced that the museum would close for two years as it is a subject of a development project for comprehensive restoration of the building, which was constructed in 1895. Showcases will also be renewed, and display methods developed to bring it in line with the latest museological standards. Seifeddin told the Weekly that the development project would also rearrange the museum garden with a view to developing it into an open air museum as well as installing new lighting and ventilation systems. To facilitate the visitor's path, a number of information billboards would be provided along the museum corridors. The museum's library, which includes an overwhelming number of Arabic, English and French volumes written by travellers who visited Egypt from the 11th century to modern times, will be also restored, and all its rare books will be documented on CD to make them available for students, researchers and whoever is interested in such topics."
"The oldest surviving manuscript of Euclid’s Elements, probably the most influential work in the history of mathematics, has been published in digital form for the first time thanks to a collaboration between the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library, the Clay Mathematics Institute and Octavo Corporation."
"Thanks to the Internet, used books have become today's powerhouse, driven by price and the convenience of finding just about any title without leaving home. However, used books have become a threat to be reckoned with for booksellers across the country.
"We are becoming an endangered species," says John K. King, Metro Detroit's leading dealer in used and rare books and owner of John K. King Used & Rare Books. He was reacting to a study just released by the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), a national nonprofit research organization."
"Stony Brook University has many rare and useful resources for students to use, which the Special Collections department & University Archives work to preserve. This department, located in the Frank Melville, Jr. Memorial Library, consists of librarians and archivists including Ms. Kristen J. Nyitray, Head of the department, and Mr. F. Jason Torre, the University Archivist."
"The longest going-out-of-business sale on Hollywood Boulevard is ending. Book City Collectibles, the once-cavernous landmark beloved by neighborhood book junkies and film buffs for 32 years, is finally leaving.
Probably.
When the sign announcing Book City's closure went up in the front window four years ago, area bibliophiles panicked. Ten thousand people signed a petition declaring its importance to the neighborhood. Then, somehow, owner Alan Siegel, 76, never left."
"Johannesburg - Ancient manuscripts from Africa's desert north, appearing in public for the first time, have gone on display in Johannesburg after South African President Thabo Mbeki launched an appeal for funds to save a vital element of African cultural history.
The manuscripts are from the National Ahmed Baba Centre for Documentation and Research in Timbuktu in Mali, which was once an important cultural crossroads that attracted scholars from far afield in the African and Arab worlds."
"ANN ARBOR, Mich.—The University of Michigan's Special Collections Library invites the world to learn more about locomotives and railroading through its extensive collection of railroad material.
The collection contains more than 14,000 items and through digitization a monthly magazine titled "The Locomotive World" is now available.
"Google's internet library project will face competition from Yahoo!, but also from a less predictable rival: the European Commission announced its own plan on Friday. And it has an advantage: if copyright laws interfere with its plans it can change the laws."
"The National Archives Experience announced that the "Americans in Paris" exhibit, showing at the Lawrence F. O`Brien Gallery in the National Archives building on Constitution Avenue, is open through October 10, 2005, and that the Magna Carta Exhibition is now open in the West Rotunda Gallery."
"To celebrate the 150th anniversary of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," the University of South Carolina's Thomas Cooper Library is hosting an exhibit, through Oct. 20, that features materials from the school's Whitman collections."
"The original purpose of Ted Bishop 's trip was to study Virginia Woolf material, but curiosity about the extraordinary blue covers of the first edition of Ulysses -- Joyce wanted them to imitate the colour of the Greek flag that Sylvia Beach hung in front of her Paris bookstore to announce Ulysses' imminent publication -- led to a new project: a study of the many covers of the book.
The idea grew out of a simple question: Why had no current publisher ever tried to reproduce the blue colour of the original edition? Soon, Bishop was exploring the history of the book, discovering along the way colourful librarians, rare-book dealers and collectors."
"Richard Chalfin, owner of The Better Book Getter on the upper West Side, said modern technology has put serious pressure on him and the scores of rare book dealers in the city.
"In the '70s and '80s, there were 16 to 20 bookstores on Fourth Ave. in Manhattan where you could go and find anything you needed," he said. "Those businesses aren't there anymore.
"More people are using the Internet and places like eBay. If you have a computer, you can do what I do. Fortunately, the people who want our services want our personal touch."
"FOR AS LONG as there has been a publishing industry, there have been markets for used books — a supposedly quaint world of polymaths and antiquarians poking about musty, cluttered stores for titles few readers would know.
But a landmark study released this week confirms what publishers, authors and booksellers have believed — and feared — since the rise of the Internet: Used books have become a modern powerhouse, driven by high prices for new works and by the convenience of finding any title, new or old, without leaving your home.
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