What You Will

A 1632 print of ‘The Twelfth Night’ by William Shakespeare, a letter from Mahatma Ghandi dated 1931 and a Nazi Germany newspaper are some of the items that may be viewed at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Steven Cox, Special Collections Librarian and University Archivist explained that the collection does not focus on just one them or collection but are a number of eclectic items.

The Antiquarian Curiosities will be on display at the new Lupton Library Special Collections until 1 June 2010.

Designer Bookbinders exhibition at Grolier Club

The Grolier Club in May welcomes an exhibition of the work of some of the best bookbinders worldwide. Bound for Success features 117 superb bindings that were judged the best out of 240 entries in the 2009 international bookbinding competition, organized by Designer Bookbinders in conjunction with the Bodleian Library Oxford. Binders representing 21 countries offer highly creative and surprisingly diverse interpretations on the theme of ‘water.’

Each competition entrant received a specially commissioned book entitled Water, an anthology of poems in several languages with images that complement the poems. Produced by Incline Press of Oldham England, in a limited edition, this fine press purposely planned the book to give binders maximum flexibility with design and structure. The bindings on display show remarkable ingenuity, technical skill and sophistication in the way binders have responded to the theme of water, and viewing the range of cultural and geographical differences makes this exhibition a fascinating overview of the work of contemporary designer binders in the 21st century.

The bindings were first exhibited at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, as part of their Summer exhibition “An Artful Craft: Historic Bookbindings from the Broxbourne Library and other Collections.”

The first prize was awarded to Alain Taral of France, and the second prize was won by Jenni Grey of the UK. Both prizes were given by Mark Getty in honour of his father Sir Paul Getty (1932-2003).

In his Foreword to the accompanying exhibition catalogue, Mark Getty says: ‘My father began collecting bookbindings while he was still a young man. I am therefore delighted to have had the opportunity to sponsor this competition and in particular to have sponsored the top prizes in honour of my father. The Sir Paul Getty Bodleian Bookbinding Prize recognises the best current bookbinding in the world, and it is fitting that the Bodleian Library and the Library at Wormsley should add these two prize books to their collections, and that the name of Getty should continue to be associated with the most creative work in one of the most compelling fields of contemporary art and craft.’

The US Tour of Bound for Success is sponsored by Bonhams Auction House together with the Friends of Designer Bookbinders.

Designer Bookbinders is one of the foremost societies devoted to the craft of fine bookbinding. Founded over fifty years ago it has, by means of exhibitions and publications, helped to establish the reputation of British bookbinding worldwide. For further information, visit the Society website:   

Catalogue: An accompanying catalogue for the Designer Bookbinders International Competition 2009 is available to purchase: Bound for Success: Catalogue for Designer Bookbinders International Competition 2009 by Jeanette Koch (editor), hardcover, 144 pp, ISBN: 978-1851243525.

Location and Times: Bound for Success will be on exhibition at the Grolier Club from May 19  July 31, 2010, Monday through Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm, with the exception of May 31 and July 3. For more information, visit the Grolier Club website:

Footnotes on Official History Celebrating Dr Hocken’s Pamphlet Collection

On 31 March 1910, Lord Plunket officiated at the opening of the Hocken Wing, a purpose-built structure at the Otago Museum designed to house Dr Thomas Morland Hocken’s collection of some 4,300 printed books and pamphlets, as well as a large number of photographs, manuscripts, maps, drawings and paintings. While many items were already in situ, the occasion signalled the physical transfer of Dr Hocken’s collection, deemed one of the best in the Dominion. As is well known, Hocken was too ill to attend the opening ceremony; he died 17 May 1910, aged 74.

Among the treasures transferred to the Hocken Wing were some 2,800 pamphlets, bound into 218 thick, separately titled volumes. A pamphlet is defined as a short piece of polemical writing, intended for wide circulation, printed and issued as an unbound publication, with either stapled or sewn pages (Glaister, 2001). George Orwell was a little more expansive: ‘Probably a true pamphlet will always be somewhere between 500 and 10,000 words, and it will always be unbound and obtainable for a few pence. A pamphlet is never written primarily to give entertainment or to make money. It is written because there is something that one wants to say now, and because one believes there is no other way of getting a hearing.’ Orwell added that ‘the great function of the pamphlet is to act as a sort of footnote or marginal comment on official history.’ An ever-increasing number of pamphlets have tumbled off the press from a wide variety of organisations, institutions, and individuals. The range is enormous, from Conservatives, Socialists, Communists, and Anarchists, through to vegetarians, anti-vivisectionists, pro- decimalization advocates, and literary squibbers. Indeed, it is hard to count the growing number of ranting works by quacks and the quirky.

This full spectrum was available to Hocken, yet he steeled himself against the in-coming tide. Like the serious collector that he was, he remained focussed on his own personal collecting interests such as the New Zealand Company, Otago and Southern settlements, Maori and Polynesian histories, and travels, including emigration guides. There was little deviation. Other New Zealand-based collectors such as Sir George Grey, Justice Chapman, Alexander Turnbull, Downie Stewart and Robert MacNab were seduced by these ephemeral publications and in cases collected on a wider scope. Their pamphlet collections are now institutionalized (Auckland City Libraries; University of Otago; Turnbull Library; Dunedin Public Library).

There are good pamphlets and there are bad ones. Many fall into the latter category; now unreadable, with some bordering on the illegal or scurrilous. Yet they remain a phenomenon, rising and falling in popularity and usage over the years as trends of censorship, writing, causes and their subsequent propaganda, and the press dictate. 

Footnotes on Official History: Celebrating Dr Hocken’s Pamphlet Collection not only marks Dr Hocken’s gift to the University 100 years ago, but also highlights a lesser known but highly used component of his collection. Disregarding Thomas Bodley’s famous interdiction that pamphlets were ‘not worth the custody in suche a Librarie’, Dr Hocken saved them, and by this attached an intrinsic value to them beyond their own time and place. Their significance is twofold: as a cumulative collection, they add to the store of intellectual knowledge in New Zealand, and they remain important relics of well-established print culture tradition. 

Exhibition: 8 February to 7 May 2010
Special Collections, de Beer Gallery, 1st Floor, Central University Library
For further details, contact: Dr Donald Kerr, Donald.kerr@otago.ac.nz
Phone: (03) 479-8330

Royal Society’s 350th anniversary year

Extraordinary 17th century predictions for the future of science, including flight, organ transplants, pinpointing geographic locations accurately, commercial agriculture and psychotropic drugs, will be displayed in public for the first time next week as part of a new Royal Society exhibition. The list was written in the 1660s by Robert Boyle, a founding Fellow of the Royal Society, and outlines his hopes for what science would achieve.

Detailing 24 forecasts for the future of science, the document includes predictions ranging from ‘the art of flying’ to ‘the cure of diseases at a distance or at least by transplantation’. Some predictions, such as ‘the recovery of youth, or at least some of the marks of it, as new teeth, new hair coloured as in youth’ are readily seen in society today, whereas some, such as ‘the transmutation of species in minerals, animals and vegetables’ remain at science’s cutting edge. The manuscript forms part of the new exhibition The Royal Society: 350 Years of Science, open until 19 November.

Jonathan Ashmore, Fellow of the Royal Society and spokesperson for the exhibition, commented on the Robert Boyle document:

“This document reveals just how forward-thinking the Society and its Fellows have been since the Society’s inception 350 years ago. Boyle’s predictions on the future of science are quite remarkable. His hopes for the cure of diseases by transplantation and drugs to appease pain and aid sleep have both become inherent features of contemporary medicine and yet these were predictions he was making over 300 years ago. We have also seen numerous of his other predictions realized in various ways, including flight, modern healthcare prolonging life, Kevlar body armour, underwater exploration and GPS navigation. This document provides us with an amazing window into one of the most extraordinary minds of the 17th Century and is one of the many fascinating artefacts on display at the exhibition.”

The exhibition is part of the Society's 350th anniversary year celebrations and displays material from the Society's foundation in 1660 to the present day. This is the first major exhibition of the Royal Society’s new Centre for History of Science. The establishment of the Centre is just one of the highlights of the Royal Society’s 350th anniversary year.

Two exhibitions

have been unveiled at two separate Smithsonian museums on the National Mall. One called “Picturing Words: The Power of Book Illustration” displays some wonderful illustrations from the Libraries’ collection of Rare books. This exhibition is on display until January 4 2010 at the Smithsonian Institution Libraries Gallery at the National Museum of American History. The other exhibition the “Art of African Exploration” will be on display until August 16 2010 in the Constitution Avenue Lobby of the National Museum of Natural History.

Guest curators Helena Wright and Joan Boudreau, “Picturing Words: The Power of Book Illustration” explores how visual images have influenced readers throughout the centuries. Museum visitors are invited to learn about three printmaking processes (relief, intaglio and lithograph) through an educational video demonstrating these techniques.

The “Art of African Exploration” exhibition displays the Russell E. Train Africana Collection. Curators Kirsten van der Veen and Daria Wingreen-Mason feature printed illustrations, original art, portraits, book-cover art and field sketches from Western scientists, missionaries, artists and journalists who visited Africa in the 1800s. Artists and scientists played a large role in African expeditions in which explorers encountered uncharted territories, peoples, plants and animals.

'

To Contact Ibookcollector