Beyond the Reading Room

Welcome to the University of Michigan Library’s Book Arts Studio, a place for students, faculty, and the community to learn and practice the craft of letterpress printing, offering the opportunity to engage in other related activities, such as bookbinding and the book arts.

Guest post by Brian Bocking, Heid Fellow, on his research in the Harry Alverson Franck Papers. Brian is Professor Emeritus of the Study of Religions at University College Cork (Cork, Ireland).

Join us on Thursday, 11 May 3-5 pm for a panel honoring the impact of collector, donor, and adjunct curator Janice B. Longone (1933-2022) through her work building the renowned Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive (JBLCA). The JBLCA encompasses more than 25,000 items including 19th and early 20th century cookbooks, charity cookbooks, immigrant cookbooks, food-related advertising ephemera, and restaurant menus.

Cookbooks can reveal so much about the time in which they were written through their recipes and their authors. For instance, many cookbooks were written for a particular audience, most often women because historically they were the ones cooking or keeping up in the kitchen. In the 20th century, more and more cookbooks were published that sought to bring cuisines of the world to American housewives. The Chinese-Japanese cookbook (1914) is an early example of one.

We are excited to announce a special collaboration between the Special Collections Research Center, the William L. Clements Library, and the students of ALA 264 Much Depends on Dinner. From April 17 to May 8th, you will be able to find culinary history across campus on Diag Boards and Campus Bus Signs. To see all five selected items together, scroll through this blog post or visit the Shapiro Screens (April 16-May 7) on the first floor of the Shapiro Library.

Join us next Friday 14 April 3-5 pm in the Hatcher Gallery for an event with writer and director John Sayles! Sayles will kick off the Bilmes Visiting Filmmaker series by sharing items of interest he discovered while looking through the archives of fellow maverick directors Orson Welles and Robert Altman.

Join the Special Collections Research Center in Hatcher next Tuesday (11 April) at 4 pm for our final After Hours open house of the Winter term, exploring a selection of moveable books!

You are all cordially invited to attend the public lecture, "The Place of Greek Paleography in the Cultural and Literary History of Byzantium." Professor Elena Velkovska (University of Siena, Italy) will help us understand the international significance of the many treasured and valuable Byzantine Greek liturgical manuscripts held in the U-M Library's Special Collections Research Center.

Join us this Wednesday, 8 March, at 4 pm for refreshments, viewing, and casual conversation with the student curators of "Openings: Title Pages in the History of Printed Books"!

Join the Special Collections Research Center in Hatcher next Tuesday (14 March) at 4 pm for our third After Hours open house of the Winter term, exploring a selection of early rare books and prints containing images printed with the technique of relief (woodcuts) and intaglio (copperplate engravings).