Curiosa: Lobster Shells

[nebroadwe]

What a fortnight it's been at work.

My current assignment in our large, grant-funded cataloging project are several shelves of Very Large Objects, usually book-like in nature, but not always. (Current question on the boss's desk: "What am I supposed to do with these probably-Scottish, probably nineteenth-century newspaper clippings reporting seventeenth-century witch trials?") The first Very Large Object I hauled down to my desk was a box full of indulgences, including two incunables (anything printed before 1500 is considered to be from the cradle -- L. incunabulum -- of the art; cf. Lord Peter Wimsey's collection). These incunables were indulgences issued by Pope Sixtus IV beginning in 1480 as part of a campaign to raise funds for the defense of Europe against the Turks (subsequently defeated at the Battle of Otranto, but the fund-raising went on for a year or so afterward in the Germanies anyway, because once you've thrown the Turks back from Europe you can start dreaming about retaking the Holy Land). One was printed in 1483 from type; one in 1482 from a woodblock. (That last was a terrible headache to catalog, since none of the standard reference works on incunables treated it as anything other than a footnote to the woodblock's typographic "parent." We're going to try to get that corrected now. Heh.) Both of them were probably recovered from the bindings of other books before they came to us and weren't in the prettiest of shape, but still: incunables! And rare ones, to boot -- only a few other institutions in North America seem to have either one of these indulgences. Whee! I had Big Bosses stopping by my desk off and on all week to ogle (and at one point to abscond with the woodblock in order to impress our Board of Overseers). Distracting, but fun.

My paraprofessional colleague, slaving away on a wholly different cataloging project, was not to be outdone. Once the initial furore over my discovery died down, he promptly turned up two sixteenth-century books autographed by Martin Luther to one of his students. We're pretty sure they're not forgeries -- as sure as we can be, short of putting them on the auction block and having them analyzed by someone from Christie's or Sotheby's. I think we've got the beginning of a small exhibition here: indulgences, Martin Luther ... all we need is Pope Leo X and a church door and we can rerun the Protestant Reformation. (We've got to have a Luther Bible upstairs somewhere ...)

All in all, not a usual week-and-change at the office. The hullaballoo has died down somewhat, but the last time the Head of Special Collections caught me removing a book from the closed stacks, he stopped to inquire, "And who signed this one? God?" (Sadly, no, though it was another very early printed book that no one knew we had and required almost as much research to catalog as the other two. I love my job, even -- no, especially -- when it requires me to play literary detective.)

I'm also investigating this whole Dreamwidth thing; I'm not sure what will come of it, but it's got kanji mood widgets. Everything is better with kanji mood widgets.

Comments

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

Wow! I can't imagine what it must be like to work on those. Thrilling! And yes, I recognized the term from Lord Peter too.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine what it must be like to work on those.

It involved a lot of head-scratching over the woodblock one. Also some power-Googling (how did people catalog before Google?), which turned up a very informative entry in the Bodleian Library's catalog of incunables (not usually one of our first stops; the British Museum's catalog takes precedence, even if it is oddly organized and not properly indexed. Grump.). Somebody over there did enough of a paper study to make a well-informed guess about the identity of the printer, who turns out not to be the printer of the typographic parent, as most of the libraries who actually have a copy of this thing seem to have assumed. My boss and I are feeling quite smug about the record (http://www.franklin.library.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v2=3&ti=1,3&SEQ=20090502214453&Search_Arg=indulgentia&SL=None&Search_Code=TALL&CNT=50&PID=sINtphSxGipWlJL70eAcXaY701sV&SID=1) we eventually loaded into the database; it's at least more comprehensive than anyone else's, if I do say so myself. She's also suggested that the electronic text'n'image people digitize both and add them to our online collection; I hope that goes through. It's fun showing these things off.

The other indulgence was interesting for being a version specifically for use by women; the printer of this one (an otherwise anonymous person known only as The Printer of the Rochus Legende) did up a men's form and a women's form, the distinction showing in the declension of the Latin adjectives (e.g. "devota" and "devotus" in the opening line, right before the space for the name). And the woodblock one was for use by groups because it had plural adjectives. Funky.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

*drools quietly - but not on the books themselves*

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

And the woodblock one was for use by groups because it had plural adjectives.

Whoops. I meant its typographic parent, which we've also got a copy of (but that's not as interesting because everybody already knew we had it. The unknown is vastly more sexy than the known.).

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Rare book librarians frown upon drooling patrons.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Which is why bibs should be handed out immediately, along with those gloves.

[ishte.livejournal.com]

You just totally have the coolest job evar. How can I get a job doing cool stuff like that?

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Sneak into the local university library system as a stacker and work your way up. :-) (It also helps to have studied Latin and medieval/Renaissance literature and history -- one reason I get to play with these things is that I can handle the language and the context. The other reason is that my boss is now so busy she can't keep all the cool stuff for herself anymore; she's the one who taught me how to catalog incunables.)

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Bibs, ha. Some of my colleagues use full lab coats. I'm beginning to think I should get one, too, after all the leather dust that's fallen on me lately.

Gloves, though, no. You lose too much fineness of touch when handling delicate materials, or for deciding what kind of paper/leather you're dealing with. One washes up and grasps with care, avoiding sensitive areas (e.g. no touching the illuminations! Not that I see many of those, though -- they're more of a manuscript phenomenon -- an expensive manuscript phenomenon. The closest I get is moderately elaborate rubrication or hand-colored woodcuts. Usually. One exception to that I need to write up at some point ...)

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Ahh, I thought there was always the concern of oils on hands marring paper but I suppose yes, that gloves would hinder a true 'feeling' of the work.

[nateprentice.livejournal.com]

Dreamwidth looks too much like LJ. What's the ROI?

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

I've been lurking for some time via RSS, but this is cool enough to bring me out. :) Woodblock print! Were these pieces from a bequest or purchase, or are they just things that had been around, imperfectly described?

(We were very glancingly acquainted on r.a.sf.w, once upon a time; I doubt you'd remember my legal name. I remembered yours mostly because (on Usenet) it came with .sig. Anyway, fellow person with medievalist training now working for a rare-books library--though I'm in digital pubs, not cataloging--says hi.)

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

ROI?

[nateprentice.livejournal.com]

Return On Investment.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

There's some concern about touching, but for most of the stuff I've worked with, the idea is just to minimize touch. Old paper is pretty tough (old vellum even tougher, usually, as long as it's been treated properly).

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Ah. Difficult to say, just now. I'm hoping it'll be a fun place to hang out, but clearly the community is still getting its feet down.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Woodblock print! Were these pieces from a bequest or purchase, or are they just things that had been around, imperfectly described?

The latter. We're on an institution-wide push to deal with uncataloged material; these incunables were part of a substantial but reasonably focused collection of such that turned out to be prime grant fodder.

(We were very glancingly acquainted on r.a.sf.w, once upon a time; I doubt you'd remember my legal name. I remembered yours mostly because (on Usenet) it came with .sig. Anyway, fellow person with medievalist training now working for a rare-books library--though I'm in digital pubs, not cataloging--says hi.)

Hi! Maybe we'll cross paths at some rare-book focused RL event someday and confound the other attendees by discussing SF. :-)

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

old vellum even tougher, usually, as long as it's been treated properly

And not been scraped past the point of no return? :/

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

That, too. I usually get the stuff that's drying out and curling up, though.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm. And then what? I mean, we'd just toss a little water and some bricks on stuff like that. But obviously, you can't do that sort of thing. Well, maybe a variation on the theme, but.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Usually we just leave it be. If it's in really awful shape, it gets sent out for conservation, where they engage in mysterious practices of which I wot not. Yet, anyway. Who knows what I'll have learned by the time I retire, gibbering, into the Paraprofessionals Who Delved Too Deeply Into Things They Were Not Meant To Know Wing of the Old Librarians' Home ...

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

As long as books don't come snuffling after you, dragging behind trailing binding threads and crumpled or torn pages....

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

They're more likely to wait on a shelf and then avalanche down on me.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Having watched Ghostbusters! again recently, I'd be worried about all of that.

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

So many potential disasters, so little time to worry.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Ghost-attractor; weird things like me. :D