Beyond the Reading Room

Join us Thursday, 4 April for a public lecture with conservator and researcher Cheryl Porter! Refreshments will be served.

We are pleased to announce the launching of our most recent Omeka exhibit: Marks in Books. In this online exhibit, the term "marks" refers to physical elements that have been added to manuscripts and early printed books throughout time, that is, from the instance when they were being made until they arrived to our shelves. Mostly, these marks were not intended by the authors, scribes and printers as they originally envisioned their books, but were later included in the form of corrections, readers' marginalia, drawings, and traces of subsequent ownerships as shown in bookplates and bindings. These marks are extraordinary witnesses offering unique information on various aspects of book history such as production, textual transmission, reception, and provenance history.

In honor of Pi Day, we offer no less than five lemon pies from the Day Nursery Association's 1924 Cook Book, published in Richmond, Indiana. Read on and judge for yourself whether Mrs. Fred Pollitz, Mrs. Thomas Nicholson, Mrs. A.H. Wilson, Mrs. George Eggemeyer, or Mrs. George Fox would win the blue ribbon for lemon pie.

You are invited to see highlights from the library's extraordinary collection of manuscripts and early printed books describing the early history of astrology and astronomy. Mark your calendars for this Tuesday (3/12/19; 4:00-7:00 pm). The selection will range from ancient papyri to richly illustrated books that made possible the scientific revolution in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including first editions of the works of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler.

When cataloging this fifteenth-century Italian manuscript, I saw that some of the pages have been damaged by brushing a chemical reagent on some areas that were difficult to read. While in the short term this substance was designed to make traces of ink more legible, the long-term impact on the manuscript is disastrous as shown in the image below.

The Special Collections Research Center is pleased to announce the opening of a new exhibit, Free Poems and Functional Art: 50 Years of The Alternative Press. This exhibit celebrates the 50th anniversary of the founding of The Alternative Press, an experimental small press publisher in Michigan.

Join us on Tuesday, 12 February for our next After Hours open house event! This month we'll explore the materiality of books and manuscripts. Come "read" these objects with us from 4-7 on the 6th floor of Hatcher!

The Special Collections Research Center is pleased to announce a new exhibit: What Are Little Books Made Of? Visit the Special Collections Exhibit Gallery in our 6th floor space (660J Hatcher South) to see children's books printed on cotton, linen, and linenette from February 5 - March 22, 2019.

With the new semester comes a new slate of special collections meet and greets! These pop-up exhibits bring rare materials out of the library and into Weiser Hall, where we'll be sharing selections from the Joseph A. Labadie Collection. Visitors making their way through Weiser's busy halls will have an opportunity to take a look at books, pamphlets, ephemera, and even LPs while chatting with staff to learn more about our collections.

Join us on Tuesday, January 15 for the next Special Collections After Hours event! This month, we're feeling the winter chill and offering up a frosty selection from our collections. Come see materials related to snow and winter, as well as some toasty recipes to take the edge off the Michigan chill.