News about medieval manuscripts, rare books and other special collections from the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford
In 2011, conservator Andrew Honey wrote about a frisket in the Bodleian’s Broxbourne collection. We repost Andrew’s piece here with a full image and with a link to further information on colour printing with friskets. The Conservation Section is currently devising a new mount for a parchment frisket cover from the Broxbourne collection. A frisket … Continue reading “Cut Out for Colour: More Manuscripts in Unusual Places”
From 24-28 June, the Bodleian Libraries, in collaboration with the Oxford Colleges Conservation Consortium, hosted a workshop taught by Jiří Vnouček, of the Royal Library in Copenhagen. He led a team of conservators through the physical process of converting animal skins into parchment. At a lecture to a larger group of students, academics and library … Continue reading “Understanding parchment”
Masterclass on 12 November 2012, 2:15 pm Lecture Room, Pitt Rivers Museum Chris Fletcher (Keeper of Special collections and fellow of Exeter College) and Marinita Stiglitz (Bodleian Libraries Conservation) will explore a recently acquired commonplace book kept by the Misses Parkyns (and Aunt), Byron’s early friends at Newstead Abbey. The session will look at the … Continue reading ““Leaves, feathers, pins, poetry and pity” – Masterclass with Chris Fletcher and Marinita Stiglitz, 12 Nov. 2012″
Susan Rennie will lead a masterclass examining the Bodleian manuscript which she recently identified as James Boswell’s materials for an intended dictionary of Scots words. Andrew Honey, of the Bodleian’s Conservation section, provides commentary on the material evidence which helps to tell the story of the manuscript since it left Boswell’s hands. See: http://boswellian.com/rediscovery/ The … Continue reading “Boswell’s dictionary of Scots words: masterclass with Susan Rennie, 8 Oct. 2012”
The Bodleian’s original copy of the First Folio of William Shakespeare’s plays is the subject of a campaign to stabilize the volume through a conservation program,digitize the volume, and publish it freely online. This “Sprint for Shakespeare” echoes an earlier effort, over a century ago, to ensure that the book would be housed in the … Continue reading “The Bodleian’s original First Folio of Shakespeare”
from Alexandra Franklin, Bodleian Libraries Centre for the Study of the Book This course combined practical and historical studies of paper as it related to all aspects of book and manuscript production in the hand-press period. The principal lecturers, Mark Bland (DeMontfort University) and Andrew Honey (Bodleian Libraries Conservation and Collection Care), described the techniques … Continue reading “Bodleian CSB Summer School, July 2012: “Bibliography and the study of paper””
In 1975, Michael Turner (then of Special Collections, later Head of Conservation) with Bodley’s Librarian Robert Shackleton and the Keeper of Printed Books, Julian Roberts, opened the first of 900 packing cases containing the collection of Walter Harding of Chicago. This legacy from a transplanted Englishman raised in Chicago brought a wealth of music into … Continue reading “Walter Harding’s collection celebrated”
http://seldenmap.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/blog See the link above for a report of research and conservation work on the Selden Map of China, now on display (until December 2011) in the exhibition, Treasures of the Bodleian
The Conservation Section is currently devising a new mount for a parchment frisket cover from the Broxbourne collection. A frisket is the part of a printing press that holds the paper in place during printing. Often covered with parchment, a frisket also acted as a mask to keep inky parts of the press bed from … Continue reading “Many uses of a piece of parchment”
The second Medieval Manuscripts Masterclass for 2010 was given on 1st November by Christopher Clarkson. Clarkson’s contributions to the field have been in his practical expertise; which has been in demand across the world from Florence in the 1960s to Slovenia and Egypt today, his inventions (of the foam book-rest system, phase-boxing and many other … Continue reading “Medieval manuscripts 2010: Bindings masterclass”