Tag Archives: Rare Books

National Poetry Month and ARB

Posted on by

By:  Kevin Grace

Poem Illustration of TrumpeterBecause April is celebrated as National Poetry Month, over the next few weeks the Archives & Rare Books Library will blog about some of its significant holdings in the Rare Books Collection.  Perhaps the best subject with which to begin is ARB’s outstanding collection of 18th century poetical pamphlets.  Eighteenth-century literature is one of the hallmarks of the rare books holdings, encompassing drama, poetry, fiction, philosophy, theology, travel, history, and geography.  And the core of this area is what we have traditionally called the Anonymous Poetical Pamphlet Collection.

Poem Illustration Continue reading →

Culture of Books and Reading Students Deposit A Ghost Story in the Archives

Posted on by

By:  Kevin Grace

Recently returned from a study tour to Edinburgh, Scotland over spring break, the students in the University Honors Program seminar “The Culture of Books and Reading” added one of their assignments to the ARB website – a story entitled “The Sin-Eaters Ghost.”  A group project written by each student contributing a page, the story is just one of the assignments for this course in which the traditional and emerging reading habits and the heritage of books are explored in cultures around the world.

Edinburgh Skyline

Continue reading →

ARB's Final Lunchtime Lecture for 2013-2014

Posted on by

By:  Kevin Grace

McCay Little NemoThe Archives & Rare Books Library will hold its final “50 Minutes-1 Book” presentation of the academic year on Thursday, April 17, at 12 noon in 814 Blegen Library.  Greg Hand, associate vice president for Government Relations and University Communications, will talk about Winsor McCay, a recognized pioneer of American comic strips.   McCay’s genius as an artist, cartoonist and animator has been hailed by Maurice Sendak and celebrated by a “Google Doodle.” His “Little Nemo In Slumberland” is recognized as the pinnacle of comic strip art and his “Gertie The Dinosaur” was unsurpassed until the Golden Age of Walt Disney and Chuck Jones. It is little known that McCay spent 13 years in Cincinnati. Continue reading →

A Heart-Shaped Book for Lovers

Posted on by

By Mark Palkovic, CCM Library

In honor of St. Valentine’s Day this Friday, the CCM Library and the Archives and Rare Books Library present an item from the Rare Books Collection, Le Chansonnier Cordiforme, or Chansonnier de Jean de Montchenu. The original manuscript dates from the 1470s and is owned by the Bibliothèque de France (Ms. Occ. Rothschild 2973). The UC Libraries’ copy is a facsimile of the original, bound in red velvet and created by Vicent García Editores of Valencia, Spain in 2007.

Open book

Continue reading →

50 Minutes-1 Book: Arabian Nights and the Middle East

Posted on by

On January 16 , the Archives and Rare Books Library will host its first 50 Minutes-One Book lunchtime talk of 2014.  Elizabeth Frierson, Associate Professor in UC’s Department of History will present,  “A Thousand Nights and a Night: The Arabian Nights and the Middle East.”  Bring your lunch and join us at Noon in the Schott Seminar Room, 814 Blegen Library.

50 minutes - Arabian

 

Upcoming 50 Minutes-1 Book Lunchtime Talk and Welcome Reception for Eira Tansey

Posted on by

smallbookThe December presentation for 50 Minutes-1 Book features CCM Librarian Mark Palkovic talking about the new “World’s Smallest Book!” It is a 22-page micro-book measuring just 0.75 millimeters (or for the metric-impaired, 0.03 inches). Entitled Shiki no Kusabana, this book of flowers was published by Toppan Printing in Japan. Toppan printed the volume using its ultrafine printing technology, the same method used to avoid forgery of paper currency.

Continue reading →

50 Minutes-1 Book: Frankenstein on Halloween

Posted on by

By:  Kevin Grace

Well, ‘tis the season for that old Scottish prayer: “From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord deliver us!”  Yes, we are in our Halloween days in this month of spectres and the quickness of the night, of harvests and the dying away of nature, and, of things resurrected.  So it is appropriate to turn our attention to a subject such as Victor Frankenstein’s monster.

This month’s “50 Minutes-I Book” lunchtime series in the Archives & Rare Books Library will be about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus.  We’ll take a look at some special illustrated versions of her tale and consider what the book tells us about science and literature in the early 19th century.  Please bring your lunch and conversation, along with a nightmare or two if you wish, and join us on the 31st.

50 Minutes - 1 book poster

50 Minutes-1 Book Series Returns to ARB

Posted on by

By:  Kevin Grace

The lunch-time discussion series of wonderful items in the Archives & Rare Books Library is ready to go for the 2013-2014 academic year.  Our first presentation is a repeat of a popular talk on our anthropodermic binding.  The book is one for which we always receive numerous questions because of its curious nature.  So please bring your lunch and conversation on Thursday, September 26, at 12 noon.

Future 50 Minutes-1 Book presentations over the next several months include Frankenstein in October; miniature books, including some of the smallest books you’ll ever barely see; the Arabian Nights; George Moerlein’s A Trip Around the World; William Nicholson’s London Types; and Ireland’s Celtic Revival in the early 20th century.

Human Skin Book

Cead Slan, or, A Farewell to Archives Month

Posted on by

One of the great poets of the ages has died.  Nobel Prize-winning Irishman Seamus Heaney passed way on Friday in Dublin at the age of 74:     http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/kenny-leads-tributes-to-keeper-of-language-seamus-heaney-1.1510607.  It was less than a year ago that Heaney came to Cincinnati to speak at the Mercantile Library for the 2012 Niehoff Lecture Series, and we ran this blog at that time:

October 30, 2012

By Kevin Grace

-Not your colloquial Irish farewell, mind you, because that would have us skipping out when it is our turn to buy a round of drinks, and you just know we would never do that!  Rather, a farewell to Archives Month in Ohio and its 2012 Program for Heaney lecturetheme of “Ethnic Peoples of Ohio.”  In southwest Ohio, the focus has been on Irish heritage and the Celtic contribution to our culture.  From businessmen and women and Civil War soldiers to civic leaders and politicians, to writers and artists, Cincinnati and this corner of the state have been greatly enriched by the Irish.

In addressing this theme in October, we were very fortunate that it coincidentally embraced the annual Niehoff Lecture at the Mercantile Library, presented by Irish poet and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney.  It could have been happenstance, of course, but more likely cinnuint, or destiny to youse guys.  On Saturday evening, October 20, Heaney spoke before an enthralled audience at the Westin Hotel as part of a lecture series that has helped mark the Mercantile as the center for literary life in Cincinnati. Continue reading →