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January 31, 2006

Two India Manuscripts Receive National Heritage Status

" Jodhpur: Two rare manuscripts of the medieval period, belonging to the oriental research institute here, have been granted National Heritage Status, a senior official of the institute said here today."

"'Dhwanya Lok Lochan' -an important work of poetics and unpublished so far - dates back to Vikram Samvat 1204, i.e. The 15th century, and is written on paper of that period, Ori Director Fateh Krishna Kalla told reporters. "

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Paulson Investment Company Invests in Libraries and Rare Books

"In 2005, Paulson Investment Company, Inc. made stock donations to the University of Oregon Libraries. The donations have created the Paulson Investment Endowment Fund for Special Collections, a repository housing rare books, manuscripts, photographs and other material. The gift will lead to the renaming of the former Special Collections Reading Room in honor of Paulson Investment Company, Inc."

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The Trials of 19th Century Bibliophilia

"At the Grolier Club last week, Texas A&M University professor Steven Escar Smith spoke about two New York theatrical figures, Williams Evan Burton and Edwin Forrest, who both collected Shakespeare. During the early 19th century, serious American bibliophiles collected Shakespeare more prominently than any other author, Mr. Smith said. The bard was iconic: P.T. Barnum, he said, even tried to buy Shakespeare's family home in 1847 and bring it to America."

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January 30, 2006

Oldest Amercian Library Progresses in the 21st Century

"NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) -- The Redwood Library and Athenaeum has stood as a proud vestige of old-world Newport for more than two and a half centuries, but a dramatic scare two years ago threatened the future of the country's oldest lending library."

"Library director Cheryl Helms rushed to the Redwood on the night of Nov. 19, 2003 to find a portion of the ceiling collapsed and thick chunks of plaster on the ground. "

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India: "Bibliophile with a Heart of Gold"

"The Juma Al Majid Centre for Culture and Heritage has already treated and restored some 30,000 books in the city. They have even been digitalised and preserved for posterity. Al Majid, who was here to take part in the World Urdu Conference, has signed an MoU with Osmania Univeristy for the digitalisation of its books. How much money is he prepared to spend? Majid refuses to spell the amount. "There is no limit. What is important is preserving books," is all that he would say."

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"Alice" at Auction at Christie's

"A RARE book dedicated by Lewis Carroll to the daughter of the Dean of Durham has been snapped up for thousands at auction.
The sought-after first-edition of Carroll's 1886 book Alice's Adventures Under Ground was given by the writer in January 1887 to Alexandra Kitchin, affectionately known as Xie.
The book was expected to fetch up to £3,000 after being put up for sale by the Duke of Gloucester to help pay his father's death duties.
But the rare volume, which was later developed into Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, was snapped up by a mystery buyer for £4,800 at Christie's on Thursday.
Xie's dad, George Kitchin, was the last dean of Durham Cathedral to govern Durham University, where he worked from 1908 until his death in 1912."

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January 27, 2006

Graham Arader and Art Funds

"Arader is a rare books and prints dealer in New York, and he has been struggling to raise $200 million for an art fund that would specialize in American paintings"

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English Heritage Grant for British Cathedral Books

"A one million pound grant from English Heritage, will help save rare books and manuscripts at Durham Cathedral. The grant will be shared by twenty five cathedrals across the country, and the money for Durham will be used to help save transcripts dating back to medieval times."

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Collecting Rare Books in Australia

"EVEN well-heeled collectors occasionally find themselves a bit short of ready cash when something special comes up. Rodney Davidson, the amiable Melbourne former solicitor who has built up a vast collection of rare Australian books, many valued at more than $100,000 apiece, relates an anecdote about his patient pursuit of one of the fabled rarities of Australian exploration - the "unpublished" first edition of Hamilton Hume and William Hovell's Journey of Discovery to Port Phillip, New South Wales of 1831."

"When he was finally offered the elusive work, Davidson reveals in a foreword to the catalogue for his upcoming sale, the asking price left him speechless. Unable to find the sum required but agog with enthusiasm, he rang his bank and asked for an overdraft to buy "something special", after which he promised to treat the bankers to lunch at his club and reveal all."

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January 26, 2006

Rare Book School Announced by UCLA

"The University of California–Los Angeles (UCLA) has announced the formation of a rare book school within the Department of Information Studies at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. The chartering of the school comes at a time of "renewed interest in special collections coupled with a growing need for training in the field of rare books and manuscripts," said professor Beverly Lynch, founding director of the new school."

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Newly-Discovered Letter Challenges Upton Sinclair

" LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - He was a man for whom the term muckraker was coined, a crusading journalist and novelist who never hesitated to expose scandal at the highest levels of government and business."

"But now the integrity of Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Upton Sinclair is being questioned 38 years after his death because of the discovery of a letter he wrote in 1929."

"Quotes from the letter in recent news reports make it seem that the man who exposed the horrors of the meat-packing industry in the 1906 book "The Jungle" covered up a confession from a defense lawyer that famous anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were guilty of the murders for which they were executed. Many people thought the two were innocent and prosecuted for political reasons. "

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A Scottish Mystery in the University of Buffalo Library

" One such visitor was Scottish curator Pamela Robertson, an expert on the Arts and Crafts Movement, who recently spent three days in Buffalo."

"Last year, Robertson began trying to catalogue all of the work of turn-of-the-century artist Frances Macdonald McNair for an exhibition that will open later this year in Glasgow, Scotland. She came upon eight or 10 photographs of watercolor paintings that were unsigned and undated, and began trying to figure out who had painted them, when and for what purpose."

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January 25, 2006

Independent Bookstores and Bibliophiles in Ithaca, New York

"But they’re far from the only bookstores in town. A flip through the yellow pages will come up with 15 total bookstores in the Ithaca area, eight of them used bookstores."

“'A lot of people moved to Ithaca back in the ’60s and ’70s when it was a very cool thing to have a bookstore, work in a bookstore,” said David Graff, an employee at Ithaca Books. “Independent bookstores were basically a real force of American life.'”

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A Search to find C. S. Lewis Letter

"An appeal has been issued to find the relatives of an Ulster woman who received a letter from CS Lewis in 1944. The letter was found in a Belfast auction several years ago, but a Co Tyrone-based Lewis biographer believes it might be an entry point into a much bigger story, much like one of Lewis' magic wardrobes."

"Dr Ronnie Bresland, author of The Backward Glance: CS Lewis and Ireland, said: "Although this letter is not very significant it is every collector's dream to find a collectable letter in an old book. "It would be interesting to find the relatives of the addressee today as you never know what further stories would be unearthed." The letter was found in an old copy of the CS Lewis book The Screwtape Letters and was signed by a Jean Walker on May 22, 1944. CS Lewis addressed the letter to Miss Walker and, as the book was found in a Belfast auction, the owner thinks she probably lived in greater Belfast."

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Eastern Washington University Archivist Featured in "The Easterner"

"In books and movies, when information is needed, the characters travel to the bottom level of the castle to read the archives."

"This lower level is portrayed as dark, dreary, and usually covered in dust. The area is covered with scrolls and stacks of old books. The keeper of the archives is given the image of a short, crooked little man that wanders around guided by the light from a torch. It often appears that he has not seen people in many days."

"But that is just for Hollywood."

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January 24, 2006

What is the Future of the Printed Page?

"Every year at the Booker Prize, there's an odd little ritual in which six 21st century writers come face to face with the art and craft of the book as Chaucer knew it. Before the winner is announced, each writer is presented with a sumptuous, hand-tooled, hardback edition of their novel. Once a reaffirmation of a venerable, but vital, tradition, in years to come this ceremony may seem absurdly quaint. All the signs are that the book as we know it may be going the way of the codex and the illuminated manuscript."

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"Wimbledon Green": The Greatest Comic Book Collector

"Seth's masterful graphic novella about the "greatest comic book collector" imagines a world where golden-age funny books sell for small fortunes and collectors have their own private staff and personal transportation, all devoted to tracking down rare comics."

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Google Book Search Marches Onward

"Lost behind the headline-grabbing announcements at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was Google's decision to march on with its controversial Google Book Search project (previously known as Google Print) in the face of stiff resistance from rights-holder groups in the US."

"Google has reportedly responded to the action for copyright infringement brought by the Author's Guild, which represents more than 8,000 writers, by telling a judge that the writers do not own the rights they claim, that Google has a licence to reproduce the works in question and that the suit is prohibited by the US's First Amendment. Meanwhile, the Association of American Publishers has brought a separate action against Google."

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January 23, 2006

Chennai, India: "A Gallery of Old Books"

"Vijayaraghavan is a bibliophile with an interesting range of reading preferences from P G Wodehouse and Tolkien to Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell, not to mention the best of cricket literature. He is also one of the most optimistic people around, always thinking up new projects to attempt. Life’s ups and downs have never managed to deter him from pursuing his dreams. His latest project, a well-appointed lending library at a central location, is all set for a successful future."

"‘Old Books Gallery and Lending Library’ is a smart little outfit at 121, St. Marys Road, Raja Annamalaipuram, is actually quite spacious, with books stacked in two storeys. It is already a fine collection of books and promises to grow bigger and better, thanks in part to Viji’s many friends who have volunteered to contribute books from their personal collections."

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Remainder Book Company Opens in Batlimore

" It was the 1980s and bookstores with coffee shops attached were the new craze."

"But self-proclaimed bookworms Robin Moody and Helaine Harris pooled their money to buy into a part of the book industry with a little less sex appeal. They bought a small distribution center that specialized in overstock and "remainder" books -- the excess inventory that publishing houses sell at discount."

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University College London: Treasures in the Library Stacks

"AS THE RARE BOOKS librarian at University College London, most of my work is fairly routine, if painstaking and methodical."

"But it can be extremely satisfying. I never really know what I will find when I open one of the many old and very precious books I work with. It might have beautiful, hand-colored illustrations; it might be inscribed by the author; or it might contain the bookplate of a famous collector. Such satisfactions might not mean much to outsiders or to people who haven't worked in our rarified world, but to scholars and historians and librarians and archivists, these are the little pleasures that keep us going."

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January 22, 2006

"Book & Magazine Collector" Compares 20th Century Rarities

"RARE first editions of Ulysses by James Joyce have topped a list of the most valuable fiction works of the 20th century."

"Virginia Woolf once said in a review of Ulysses: "Never have I read such tosh." But a 1922 copy printed on Dutch handmade paper and signed by the author is worth £100,000. ($235,600), Book & Magazine Collector magazine reports. The first edition comprised 1000 copies but only 100 had the all-important signature."

"The second most valuable first edition is a 1902 copy of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles, with dust jacket, valued at £80,000."

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Rare Book Collection Finds Home In Appalachian’s Carol Grotnes Belk Library

"More than 600 rare books on British history have a permanent home in Carol Grotnes Belk Library thanks to a gift from New York residents Bill and Maureen Rhinehart."

"Bill Rhinehart is a graduate of Appalachian, earning a bachelor of science degree in 1956 and a master of arts degree in 1957."

"The Bill and Maureen Rhinehart Collection on British History grew from Bill Rhinehart’s interest in the British monarchy, aristocracy and political history and spans the 16th to 19th centuries."

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Russian Duma Approves Return of Hungarian Rare Book Collection

Moscow: "Russia's Duma, parliament's lower house, approved a law on Friday authorising the return of a collection of precious books belonging to the Sarospatak Calvinist College Library in NE Hungary."

"The volumes were taken away by Soviet troops in November 1945. The bill, approved in its third and final reading, provides for the return of 134 volumes, including 96 books in Latin, 33 in Hungarian and six in German. The collection includes prayer books and volumes on medicine, law and history."

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January 18, 2006

University of Illinois Renames Rare Book Library, Creates Book Collectors' Club

" The name change involves a venerable specialty library, the one that houses the rarest treasures of the entire U. of I. Library. As of Jan. 1, 2006, the former Rare Book and Special Collections Library will be known as The Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RB&ML)."

"One of 38 departmental libraries within the University Library, The Rare Book & Manuscript Library is the principal repository for early manuscripts, rare books and literary archives in the broad fields of art, education, history, literature, the natural sciences, technology and theology. The University Library, with more than 10 million volumes, is the largest public university collection in the world."

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"The Harvard Crimson" does a Feature Story on Harvard Square Bookbinder

"A sign in the window of the wedge-like building squeezed into the corner where Brattle meets JFK Street advertises “Old & Used Books, Roman Coins Bought and Sold.” It beckons toward Room 306, home to the Harvard Book and Binding Service and one of Harvard Square’s most venerable and idiosyncratic characters."

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January 17, 2006

Tribute to a Charlotte, North Carolina Librarian

"In the years before libraries were equipped with computers, there was James Edward. If there were enough others like him, those unsmiling computers might not be needed today."

"James Edward Dial, who had a lifelong love affair with books, died Dec. 27 in his 71st year. He had worked 26 of those years at Charlotte libraries."

"He was hired in the mid-1940s by Allegra Westbrook, whose title was director of public library services to Negroes. That library, opened in 1905, stood at Second and Brevard streets, Allegra said."

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San Francisco Beat Museum Opens

"Decades after the novelists and poets who became known as the Beat Generation inspired a literary and cultural revolution, a museum celebrating the era with rare books, photos and memorabilia opened this weekend in the city that entranced Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti."

"'I see the Beat Generation as an enlightening movement,’’ said founder Jerry Cimino, 51, who kept his collection of beat artifacts at his Monterey home while working in the computer industry. "Because they followed their dreams they changed the world.'’’

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"Rare Book Dealer and Raconteur" Dr Rick Gekoski in New Zealand

"However, the Festival is pleased to announce that this event will proceed with John Campbell hosting writer, rare book dealer and raconteur Dr Rick Gekoski. He was on the judging panel of the prestigious Man Booker Prize in 2005, and having encountered many acclaimed authors such as Graham Greene, and J R R Tolkien, Gekoski has many fascinating stories to tell."

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January 16, 2006

St. Vincent College Given $1 Million

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: "A Derry Township family's $1 million gift will be used to fund improvements to the St. Vincent College Library, which will be renamed in their honor."

"College officials announced the gift from Dale and Darlene Latimer at a news conference Friday morning. The gift will fund a number of programs at the library, which will be known as the Latimer Family Library."

"'This gift will recognize the treasured role that the library has in our Benedictine educational tradition, and it will provide substantial enhancements and resources to ensure that the library continues to meet the needs of current and future students at St. Vincent," said James F. Will, vice chancellor and president of the college near Latrobe. "It will provide immediate support for physical enhancements, as well as provide endowment funding to meet long-term, critical needs and to maintain and expand the library's electronic resources.'"

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TCMNet Does an Article on Rare Book Collecting

"Rare book collecting has always been big business - a first edition of 'Ulysses' recently sold for more than 100,000 - but the web is changing the area. Eoin Burke Kennedy writes about pursuing his passion in an online world."

"The difference between an exclamation mark and a full stop can mean thousands of dollars in the idiosyncratic world of rare book collecting. A dispute over the earliest English-language printing of One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel GarcIa Marquez, came down to the difference between the two punctuation marks. On the inside flap of the book's original 1970 dust jacket, the first paragraph of the blurb ends with an exclamation mark in some copies and a full stop in others."

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Denver, Colorado News Article on Denver's Bookish Residents

"Give yourselves a pat on the back, you book princes and princesses of Denver. You read enough to put the Queen City of the Plains at No. 6 on the 2005 list of America's Most Literate Cities.

It takes a serious commitment to make it nearly to the top of the heap of the nation's 69 largest cities. Researchers at Center Connecticut State University considered newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, education and the expansion of media to online resources. Only Seattle, Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and San Francisco crack the books more than we do. Colorado Springs (19) and Aurora (55) also made the list."

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January 13, 2006

Walter O. Evans: Surgeon, Bibliophile, African-American Art Collector

"Walter O. Evans, a distinguished surgeon and bibliophile, is widely regarded as one of the nation's foremost collectors of African-American art. His collection contains work that spans more than a century of vision and creativity and is an expression of his commitment to the importance of cultural heritage."


"Beginning in 1979 with Evans' first major purchase, which was a portfolio of silkscreen prints by Jacob Lawrence, "The Legend of John Brown," The Walter O. Evans Collection now includes more than 200 original paintings and sculptures representing the work of both 19th- and 20th-century African- American artists. The collection also includes work by artists such as Edward Bannister, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Robert Duncanson, Richard Hunt, Mary Edmonia Lewis, Henry O. Tanner and Charles White."

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Sleuthing Out San Francisco Mystery Novels

"With its storied history, signature landmarks, and abundant atmospheric fog, San Francisco has long been a favored stomping ground of literary sleuths. Just how much crime has bloodied this ground is apparent by visiting Golden Gate Mysteries, an annotated bibliography found on the Berkeley Library website. There mystery fans will find the titles of hundreds of novels set in San Francisco and environs, featuring gumshoes as diverse as the names in a Frisco phone book and plots as twisted as Lombard Street."

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North Hollywood Bookstore is Closing Shop

" People would rather sit at a computer and order their books than go out to a great, old bookstore, such as Dutton's, and meet interesting people while browsing the aisles. Go figure."

"No official closing date has been set, but Dutton said he figures he'll be out by mid-March. He's thinning out his stock now with a 50-percent-off sale before he shifts his rare book business online from his home in Washington, where he and his wife, Judy, are moving."

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January 12, 2006

Welsh Researcher Explores Hemingway Archive

"A lecturer from the University of Wales, Swansea, has been granted access to the unpublished archive of Ernest Hemingway's life in Cuba, the first time the material has been made available to anyone outside the country."

"Philip Melling, a reader in the department of American studies, has been given permission to study research conducted by Cuban writers and academics over the past 40 years."

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Trinidad Bibliophile Doctor Murdered

"The doctor was described by acquaintances as a recluse who loved to read and who had a book collection worth hundreds of thousands of dollars."

"Despite his wealth, Maharaj walked from home to his office each day with a knapsack slung on his back."

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University of Richmond Library Receives a NEH Preservation Grant

"The humanities collections that will be the focus of the project include circulating books, bound periodicals and rare books and other special collections. The latter group includes some 12,500 volumes, ranging from an 11th-century hand-inscribed Latin prayer book to a 1998 facsimile of the 'Leningrad Codex.'"

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January 11, 2006

Michelle Williams: Book Collector

" When the name of Heath Ledger's baby daughter was revealed as Matilda Rose, we rejoiced."

"Our newest Oscar-hyped sensation had chosen a fair dinkum name that reminded him of home instead of a piece of fruit like the rest of Hollywood. But it was in fact his American actor fiance Michelle Williams who chose the name. An avid literary buff – she apparently collects rare books and owns a first edition of The Great Gatsby – Williams told Strewth "it just popped into my head one day on the subway and I didn't realise that it was such an iconic Australian name". The three-month old babe is named after Matilda, the Roald Dahl book of the same name."

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African-American History at William and Mary University Library

"The Special Collections Research Center at the Earl Gregg Swem Library features a wealth of material relating to African-American history. Among the holdings are 76 collections with content concerning slavery. The collections range from the well-known family papers of Tucker-Coleman, Skipwith, Tyler, Jerdone and Austin-Twyman to some little known and quite early documents from Warwick County, dating from 1700, including an indenture (1717) of “Batteran” to be a carpenter’s apprentice. The collections include 13 letters written by slaves—letters which show the struggle to keep the family together during the horrors of bondage. Also included are manuscript account books, which include not only financial records regarding slaves but occasionally record births and deaths."

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Libraries Have Books Bound in Human Skin

"PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Brown University’s library boasts an anatomy book that combines form and function in macabre fashion. Its cover — tanned and polished to a smooth golden brown, like fine leather — is made of human skin."

"In fact, several of the nation’s finest libraries, including Harvard’s, have such books in their collections. The practice of binding books in human skin was not uncommon in centuries past, even if it was not always discussed in polite society."

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January 10, 2006

India: Ulloor Memorial Library Celebrates Silver Jubilee

"THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Mahakavi Ulloor Memorial Library and Research Institute Thiruvananthapuram is celebrating its silver jubilee. Chief Minister Oommen Chandy will inaugurate the silver jubilee celebrations on January 11. The meeting will be chaired by N.P.Unni, president of the Ulloor Memorial. G.Balamohan Thampy, president of the Kerala State Library Council will deliver the Dr.P.K.Narayana Pillai memorial lecture."

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"Egypt Today": Profile of Bibliophile Aldo Ambron

"Perhaps the most prominent members of this community were Aldo and Amelia Ambron and their children. One of the wealthiest families in Alexandria, the Ambrons were themselves artists. Aldo Ambron was a noted art and book collector and a founding member of the Les amis de l’art (The Friends of Art) society. Amelia and one daughter, Gilda, were portrait artists; another daughter, Nora, was an accomplished musician; and their son Emilio, also an artist, later created a magnificent art collection (now the basis for a museum), in Bali, Indonesia."

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Yale Investigates 18th Century Theologian John Edwards

"Boxes of Edwards' manuscripts - often folded and placed in 4-inch envelopes - lay dispersed throughout the stacks of Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, donated to Yale in 1901 by Edwards' descendants. However, the center had to track down many of his works in the hands of collectors as well as in repositories throughout the United States and Great Britain."

"Once the majority of those works were located, the historians began the tedious, eye-straining work of transcribing very, very small, slanted handwriting, typing the work word-for-word into a computer and, after an intense editorial review, finally posting their entries into a searchable online database. To add to the labor, Team Edwards decided to add to the website the entire 26-volume series published by Yale Press."

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January 09, 2006

"The Boston Globe" Explores Vermont Bookshops

"RUTLAND, Vt. -- They're shelved away in the strangest spots, often in tiny villages far off the beaten track. Their inventories are massive, their customer traffic sparse, and their staff usually a single person, all of which makes you wonder how they survive. Yet they do."

"The country's highest per capita concentrations of used and antiquarian bookstores; at least 70 are open year-round, offering bibliophiles hours of solitary, undisturbed browsing, a collection often far broader than the local library, and an occasional spectacular find, like a Jules Verne first edition, for example, or an exquisitely illustrated fairy tale, mint condition, in the original Russian."

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Web Site to Provide Link to Rare Ben Franklin Writings

"This portal will open access to some of the most fascinating works of Ben Franklin within the state library," says M. Clare Zales, Pennsylvania's deputy secretary for libraries. "It provides a wonderful opportunity for students of all ages to learn about this famous American."

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Libraries Own Books Bound in Human Skin

"A number of prestigious libraries — including Harvard University's — have such books in their collections. While the idea of making leather from human skin seems bizarre and cruel today, it was not uncommon in centuries past, said Laura Hartman, a rare book cataloger at the National Library of Medicine in Maryland and author of a paper on the subject."

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January 06, 2006

Bookworm's Dream in Aix-en-Provence

"Lovers of books looking for great deals on a wide range of literature should head to the fabled French city of Aix-en-Provence."

"On the first Sunday of every month old and rare books are on display and for sale in the city's main square, the Place de l'Hotel de Ville."

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Collection Donated to Duke University: a Gold Mine of Newspaper History

" Thus, from the British Library's castoffs -- rescued by a New England champion of the printed word -- a major collection of American newspapers from the 19th and early 20th centuries now resides at Duke University."

"More than 6,000 bound volumes make up the American Newspaper Repository that Duke received a year ago from Nicholson Baker, a Maine novelist and old-newspaper enthusiast. Baker housed them temporarily in a New Hampshire warehouse before donating them to Duke."

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"Washington Post" Book Review: "The Manifold Beauties of Books"

"Nicholas Basbanes has had books and writers running through his veins for most of his lifetime, which makes picking up "Every Book Its Reader" the equivalent of browsing through a rare-book store, spending the morning in a public library, and visiting your most literate friend -- all in the course of a few hours."

"Here Basbanes sets out to identify and showcase some of the world's most famous and most forgotten books. One of his many wanderings takes him to a secondhand bookstore in Oberlin, Ohio, where he spends $2 on "A Reader's Guide Book," an essay collection by May Lamberton Becker. It turns out that her columns in the Saturday Review played an Oprah Winfrey-like role in the 1920s. One of her picks, the 1893 novel "The Heavenly Twins" by Sarah Grand, is still in print and is described as "a fascinating exploration of gender issues and feminist agendas" by the University of Michigan Press."

Read this review.


January 05, 2006

Maulana University to Create Urdu Museum

"Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANNU) Vice-Chancellor A M Pathan today said the varsity would establish an Urdu Museum soon."

"The proposed museum would have collection of rare manuscripts related to Urdu language, literature and its history, Prof Pathan said, inaugurating the three-day workshop on 'Preventive and Curative Conservation of Manuscripts and Documents'".

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"Guardian Unlimited" Does a Story about the Byron Manuscript

"A librarian at University College London has discovered a previously unknown manuscript version of a poem by Lord Byron during a routine cataloguing session. The 12-line poem was inscribed in the front of a copy of an 1810 edition of The Pleasures of Memory by Samuel Rogers, which had been given to the poet by the author."

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Singapore: Smooth Passage from Books to Bytes

" A FIVE-MINUTE walk away from the Bugis station of Singapore's Mass Rail Transit system, a spanking new sixteen-storey tower block is testimony to the fact that the era of digital libraries is already here. While e-books or electronic versions of books have been available for at least two decades, the island state is arguably the first to translate the technology into a virtual reality for its citizens."

"And not just for readers in Singapore. From Bangalore, I could register within minutes to become a user of Singapore's National Library at its portal, www.nlb.gov.sg and access an awesome range of resources — including its newly created digital library."

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January 04, 2006

Christmas Tree Fire Destroys Rare Scottish Books

"Among a collection of antiquarian books consumed in the fire were limited edition leather-bound copies of novels by Mr Linklater's father, Eric, which were a gift from his publisher."

"The most valuable book in the collection was a first edition work by Sir Walter Scott."

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Book Review: "Professor and the Madman"

"The "Oxford English Dictionary" is one of the greatest achievements in English literature, but it didn't happen overnight. In "Professor and the Madman," Simon Winchester delves into the mysterious history of this great text. Along the way, he highlights several of the major contributors. It's really their story..."

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Librarian Finds Byron Manuscript

"The only known manuscript of a poem by Lord Byron has been found within the archives of University College London."

"Librarian Susan Stead stumbled across the original, which had been assumed lost, in an 1810 edition of The Pleasures of Memory by Samuel Rogers."

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January 03, 2006

India: 2005 was the " Year of the Bibliophile"

"2005 has been the year of the bibliophile. With a sudden revival of interest in books and bookstores, booksellers have never had it so good. Be it the tale of a ‘teenage wizard’ or an ‘argumentative economic’, book lovers have had a field day when it came to choosing a tome of their choice."

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Bookshops are Staying Alive in Kalamazoo, Michigan

"The recent closing of Athena Books, the oldest independent bookstore in Kalamazoo, has sent waves cascading around other independent bookstores in the area.

"Who is going to go under next? The independents are hoping that the marketing niches they've developed will keep them afloat."

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Edwin Firmage: LDS Rare Book Collector

"Recently, sitting in his home stacked with volumes of rare books - some written by his great-great grandfather Brigham Young - Firmage seems accepting if not content with an extraordinary life that has enabled him to transcend societal boundaries."

"He has journeyed from Brigham Young University to the University of Chicago Law School to the office of Democratic Vice President Hubert Humphrey in Washington, D.C. He has worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and has a lasting friendship with the Dalai Lama."

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January 02, 2006

"San Francisco Chronicle" Discusses Book Collection Databases

"Q: We need to catalog my husband's book collection. He has about 3,000 volumes, and the inventory seems to keep growing. I want to list the books by author, title and subject, and because many are old, I want to write a brief description and initial cost. Any ideas? When I have asked at the computer stores, the clerks glaze over because this is not the high-tech question they prefer."

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"Going Home after a Century, a U.S. Writer's Library "

"Copeland, the president and chief executive of the Mount restoration project, happened to meet Christopher Tugendhat, an English lord visiting friends near the Mount in Massachusetts."

"Tugendhat, a former journalist, politician, European Union commissioner and current investment banker, is also an avid collector of rare first editions and has, he said, an almost complete collection of Wharton's works."

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Redoute on Exhibit at New York Botanical Garden

"From the herbarium I wandered upstairs into the William D. Rondina and Giovanni Foroni LoFaro Gallery, where there is (through Jan. 22) a luxurious show about the French botanical illustrator Pierre-Joseph Redouté. Redouté, who inspired Audubon, learned from Dutch still life artists, and was the draftsman to Marie Antoinette. He produced books of roses and lilies from Empress Joséphine's Château Malmaison that are among the greatest of all botanical illustrations. Many of these come from the library's own rare book collection."

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