Columbia University’s collection of Judaica and Hebraica is the third largest in the country, and the largest of any non-religious institution. The following link connects to the online version of the current exhibition being held at the RBML from September 12, 2012 through January 25, 2013. Spanning the 10th to the 20th centuries, the exhibition features […]
Book History Colloquium: “The Golden Age of Theatrical Scrapbooks, 1880-1930”
Sharon Marcus, Orlando Harriman Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University December 3, 2012 (Monday) Butler Library, Room 523 from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Theatrical scrapbooks are some of the least utilized documents in theater history archives, yet also among the most useful, replete with cast lists, advertising imagery, ticket […]
“Processing the Andrew Sarris Papers or ‘Is Harry Too Dirty?'”
Megan Darlington, RBML Intern (summer, 2012) As an intern at RBML this past summer, I had the pleasure of processing the papers of prominent film critic and Columbia professor, the late Andrew Sarris (1928-2012). The papers reveal a rare glimpse into Sarris’s life and work, and document major trends in theory and criticism during a […]
Floral-strewn mathematics
Printers’ flowers, pieces of type bearing designs (generally floral and arabesque) rather than letterforms, are a convenient and traditional way for a printer to pretty-up a text, as the ornaments combine easily within the page of type for printing. The samples above and below, both from Agostino dal Pozzo’s Gnomonices biformis, Venice 1679 (Plimpton 513 1679 […]
Pretty Mathematics
We have restarted a project to finish cataloging the Plimpton Collection. George Arthur Plimpton (1855-1936) collected “our tools of learning,” pretty broadly described, and gave the collection to Columbia shortly before his death. I’ve been enjoying reviewing the early books — though I’ve been a little surprised by how many books printed before 1800 remain […]