Inspired by my colleague’s post about bookplates, I thought I’d like to add a medieval example. Not that the Middle Ages produced bookplates, per se; the earliest one, ‘tis commonly said, is the angel holding a shield with an ox——the bookplate of Hilprand Brandenberg, who in 1505 donated his personal library of some 450 books […]
Bookplates, ex libris
[f. L. ex librs, lit. ‘out of the books’, i.e. ‘from the library’ (of the person whose name follows); mod. Lat. phrase often used in inscriptions indicating the ownership of books.] from the OED Like many rare book libraries, RBML has loads of bookplates pasted into its volumes. Bookplates help establish provenance, and they frequently […]
RBML: Angles in Pink
Just back from a stint at the American Academy in Rome, a community of dedicated, talented, learned people, where you join others at long tables for meals: you chat about cities visited, books read, projects in process, and before you know it, a flash of connection! Jenny Okun! An artist-photographer whose eyes see shapes and […]
Urban Blue
In an article in Sunday’s New York Times about David Rockwell’s designs for this year’s Oscar awards ceremony at the Kodak Theater (“The Little Gold Man In a New Blue World,” February 15, 2009), Patricia Leigh Brown writes: “This year the dominant color scheme will shift from red to a rich, deep blue, a shade […]
Timecapsules
For an archivist, everyday is a potential journey to the center of the earth. Open a box—any box—and you are instantly transported to another place and time. In most cases the creator of those records did not intend for this to be the case. But every now and then you stumble across a voice from […]