NEW SOURCES FOR BOOK HISTORY

When Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin’s L’apparition du livre (Paris, 1958; BL: 9010.a.1/49) was first published, a new research field was opened up, launching an innovative approach to book history. Studies started to appear not only on the production, distribution and reading of books, but also more widely on the materiality, multiple uses, forms, meanings and influences of the book within a given society. Decades of systematic cataloguing, the integration of records into large databases, the development of digital tools and resources which can handle huge quantities of high-quality bibliographical data now make it possible to undertake new kinds of research.

The main focus of this one-day conference was to investigate what sources and methodologies are now used by librarians, historians and other such users, and what the possible outcomes of a combined methodology are.

The conference was organised by Laura Carnelos (Marie Curie Fellow at CERL), Stephen Parkin (Curator, Printed Heritage, British Library), and Cristina Dondi (Professor of Early European Book Heritage, Fellow of Lincoln College). Conference and videos were sponsored by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skolodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 659625.

Watch the papers in CERL’s You Tube Channel, download and read them, and explore the wonderful posters below!

Welcome: Kristian Jensen, Head of Collections and Curation, British Library

Introduction: Stephen Parkin, Curator, Printed Heritage Collections (1450-1600), British Library

1st session Chair: Scot McKendrick
Ivan Boserup (The Royal Library, Copenhagen), Strategies for Separating Authentic and Forged Colonial Manuscripts of the Private Collezione Miccinelli in Naples
WATCH: https://youtu.be/RUjFw7fkEAI

Angéline Rais (University of Oxford), Sir Thomas Phillipps’s purchases of manuscripts in Switzerland: an analysis of sources
WATCH: https://youtu.be/ERQ_1uxsosI
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Richard Sharpe (University of Oxford), A hidden collection of Irish manuscripts
WATCH: https://youtu.be/QcleKEgHiyI

2nd session Chair: Karen Limper-Herz
Bettina Wagner (Staatsbibliothek, Bamberg), Methodological approaches to 15th-century blockbooks
WATCH: https://youtu.be/bBfdzh0LryY

Claire Bolton (Oxford), Measuring skeletons - discovering the printer
WATCH: https://youtu.be/rfWZSuJHCV8
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Sabrina Minuzzi (University of Oxford), New tricks for provenance lost in miscellanies: documentary evidence, coloured edges and historical catalogues in MEI
WATCH: https://youtu.be/_gDx6w4F4ak

3rd session Chair: Giles Mandelbrote
Cristina Dondi (University of Oxford, CERL), From liturgical data to historical evidence in the study of books of hours
WATCH: https://youtu.be/lN0T441PnMQ

Paolo Sachet (Università della Svizzera Italiana), Exploiting Antiquarian Sale Catalogues: Blueprint for the Study of Sixteenth-Century Books on Blue Paper
WATCH: https://youtu.be/N4N1hq3w0O4
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Francesca Tancini (University of Bologna), New sources for dating illustrated Victorian popular books: illustrators’ diaries, printers’ ledgers, woodblocks and drawings
WATCH: https://youtu.be/fZLhvliPnkA
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Laura Carnelos (CERL), The study of rare popular books through PATRIMONiT: a combined methodological approach
WATCH: https://youtu.be/cWyXkc6wXFk
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4th session Chair: Stephen Parkin
Toby Burrows (University of Western Australia and of Oxford), Combining and visualising evidence for manuscript provenance: a digital environment for reconstructing the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps
WATCH: https://youtu.be/M2KCS1FpbJo
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Ilaria Andreoli (CNRS-ITEM, Paris; Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice), Ilenia Maschietto (Giorgio Cini Foundation, Venice), The Essling project: the census and the copies
WATCH: https://youtu.be/Js19TaL5fWA
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Veronika Girininkaitė (University Library of Vilnius), Creating the database of the correspondence of Early Modern Vilnius university professors
WATCH: https://youtu.be/p2Ed9UpGpSg
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William Stoneman (Houghton Library, Harvard), Temporary Exhibition Catalogues as a Source for Book History
WATCH: https://youtu.be/mLfLUYM_-lA

Anna de Wilde, Helwi Blom, Rindert Jagersma, Juliette Reboul (Radboud University, The Netherlands), MEDIATE: Printed catalogues of private libraries as a source for European Book History; Potentialities and Challenges
WATCH: https://youtu.be/y1tk2GyXAQc
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Sofie Arneberg (National Library of Norway), A digital pursuit of mass produced images of the 19th century
WATCH: https://youtu.be/4NLNSiuRTj4
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Other posters
Irène Fabry-Tehranchi (Cambridge University Library, Cambridge)
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Simona Inserra, Marco Palma and their group (Catania City Library, Catania)
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Cristiana Iommi (Biblioteca civica Romolo Spezioli, Fermo)
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Rosa Parlavecchia (Calabria and Salerno Universities)
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Christian Scheidegger (Zentralbibliothek, Zürich)
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Sonja Svoljšak and Urša Kocjan (National and University Library’s Early Prints Collection, Ljubljana)
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