This morning I attended the publications/editorial committee, where we discussed the new peer-reviewed journal that the CBAA plans to publish (titled Openings: studies in book art). The first issue is planned for November, and we discussed various ways to generate submissions and to attract peer reviewers.

After that I attended a session of three presenters: Michele Burgess (San Diego State U.), Martha Carothers (U. of Delaware), and Kitty Marryat (Scripps College). All of them presented work done by their book arts students, and even though their courses and programs vary in many ways, several issues were brought into focus for me as I plan a small program at Trinity. First and most important: if I wish to encourage and facilitate student work in the book arts, it will require a detailed plan, with specific deadlines and a structure of oversight and advising built into it, as well as a period of brainstorming, to move the project from the head into the hands. This seems obvious, but it must be emphasized at every turn. I simply do not have the time to do what these people do (since my main function is not as a facutly member), but Kitty made the valuable observation that one can customize this work–from a 3-hour project to that of an entire semester. One other necessity is to make sure that all major work is accompanied by a process journal, written by the student.

The next session I attended featured Matthew Aron and Shawn Simmons (book artists and designers), Cynthia Thompson (Memphis College of Art), and Laura Capp (a recent recipient of a PhD in English literature from the University of Iowa). Aron and Simmons gave a theoretical talk on “authorship in graphic design and artists’ books,” which was not particularly useful to me. Thompson’s talk focused on keeping the book arts in the curriculum by incorporating traditional type and book design into the larger design arts (this is, of course, more useful to folks who have design programs, like the Hartford Art School). Laura Capp’s presentation, “On my way to becoming a scholar, I cried and learned calligraphy,” was about how her experience in learning calligraphy in many courses taken at the Iowa Center for the Book provided first a creative escape from, and later a valuable perspective on, her dissertation research. Specifically, Capp described how the act of painstakingly writing out some of the poetry she was studying slowed her down enough to perform a much closer reading of the work than she would have done otherwise. I found this a valuable confirmation of what I already believe–which is that once one educates the hands in the act of producing texts, the head understands and appreciates far more deeply the thousands of original works in special collections. More importantly, that deeper understanding can often lead to more grounded and thorough interpretations.

The last session I attended was on “Librarians and Pedagogy,” and featured Laurie Whitehill-Chong (curator at the Rhode Island School of Design), Ruth Rogers (curator at Wellesley College), and Tony White (Director of the Fine Arts Library at IU). All of them spoke about artist’s books being useful in discussing book structure, and I heard for the first time the concept of “hybrid” as applied to books and media. Most interesting to me was Rogers’ acquisition criteria for artist’s books: relevance to the collection, relevance to the curriculum, the extent to which the book documents contemporary issues, the level of craft present in the book, and that it is a book which has in it “more than one reading,” (i.e., does one wan to read it more than once–a subjective but valuable criteria).

I will not go into the other events (tours and receptions) at the conference for obvious reasons, but I came away with a great deal to think about, and many excellent new colleagues.

The first session was the best of the day:  Martin Antonetti (Smith College) reported on a workshop sponsored by the so-called Alliance to Advance Liberal Arts Colleges (formerly the “Mellon 23”): Amherst, Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Carleton, Denison, DePauw, Furman, Grinnell, Harvey Mudd, Haverford, Macalester, Middlebury, Oberlin, Pomona, Reed, Rhodes, Scripps, Smith, Swarthmore, Vassar, Wellesley, Wesleyan, and Williams.  The workshop was held at Oberlin College (Oct. 29-30, 2010) and its theme was “book studies;” this term was defined as encompassing book history and book arts, and (further) as embracing all formats from cuneiform to digital. The goal of the workshop (2 days of meetings, spurred by a pre-circulated questionnaire) was to explore the role of book studies in liberal arts education. The presentation topics focused on curriculum building, structuring a book studies course, integrating book studies into other courses, and faculty/librarian interaction. The need for blending the hand and the head was acknowledged as primary. Also, book studies speaks to the current revolution in reading and writing digitally, and can be articulated as a timely response to larger technological changes (it can provide a useful historical and theoretical context to new media). One of the conclusions of the workshop was the necessity to minimize costs by embedding aspects of book history in existing courses, and offer summer seminars for faculty members in printing, and other book arts. The central goal of the workshop looking ahead is the publication of a manual or textbook for institutions to use in developing book studies. Some of the obstacles to succes were identified: some institutions had too few rare books for examples; a reluctance of faculty to acknowledge the discipline; the difficulty of assigning the program to a department; the separation between library and departments; curricular negotiations; stigma related to craft; regulations on librarians teaching for- credit courses; the perception of book studies as non-scholarly (antiquarian); and finding political will and financial resources. One concrete outcome in that at Smith, book studies is an approved concentration as of December 2010.

The second presenter of the first session was Ruth Rogers (Wellesley), who discussed her team-taught course “Papyrus to print to pixel: a history of the technologies of the word” (or “P3” for short). Wellesley has a full book arts program, and its director (Katherine Ruffin) is an inspiration. Rogers and Ruffin taught the course, but it became so unmanageable in scope (and popular) that they had to divide it into two courses.

The second session (with three presentations) was less interesting but still useful, in that two of the presenters were library school students, and had solid special collections-centered projects. One student had examined two scrapbooks created by John Ruskin, held at the Lilly, and the other presented on the 1960s artists’ journal De-coll/age as not only a work of art in its own right, but as a source of writings by artists and a record of otherwise unrecorded art events. The final presenter offered a critical appreciation of the work of book artist Gaylord Schanilec.

Finally, there was a 2-hour keynote by well-known artist Ann Hamilton about her work, but I found little of use in it.

For the next two days I’ll be attending (and blogging about) the second biannual conference of the College Book Arts Association (founded in 2008, see www.collegebookart.org), “a non-profit organization fundamentally committed to the teaching of book arts at the college and university level.” The conference is at Indiana University, where I went to library school over a dozen years ago. As I begin to plan out a program focused on the book arts and the history and future of publishing at the Watkinson, I’ll need to grow a network of professionals I can rely on for advice and collaboration. In fact, this has already begun—Kitty Maryatt of Scripps College (and a CBAA member) gave me some great advice and contacts for getting the Washington press up and running. It was Kitty who led me to my press “expert,” and she also suggested I attend this conference. Her website at Scripps is also a fount of useful information.

I was SUPPOSED to attend the opening reception tonight at the Lilly Library, where I cut my teeth on rare books, but the Philadelphia airport got in my way.  First we had no pilot, then no crew, and by the time I got to IU (14 hours after I left my house), it was all over.  I trust tomorrow will be more productive.

As one wise bookman said, “the only way to begin is to begin.”  Saturday night I began educating my hands instead of my brain, in my first letterpress class.  This is one of three sessions I am taking (on Saturdays) from my friends and colleagues at the AS220 Community Printshop (http://www.as220.org/printshop/), which is just opening its expanded facility.  They were happy to see me (finally) in front of a case of type (we’ve been collaborating on projects for 3 years), and I have to say that my first experience setting type (5 lines from a Tennyson poem in 24-point Kennerly italic) was one of immense satisfaction.  Composing stick in hand set at 21 pica, hunting for letters and placing (and spacing) them, was actually more fun than I thought possible.  “That’s a good sign,” commented Morgan Calderini, head of the printshop.  “Most people find that the tedious part.”  I’m sure I will find it so eventually, but all I could think about was how VALUABLE it would be to an undergraduate to hand-set a few lines of type in terms of understanding the sheer labor involved in producing a book on the hand press.  It is a small (but profound) window into a wider world of understanding. 

Our instructor was Katherine “Kat” Cummings, a Brown graduate of a few years back who worked for a while in the financial district and then decided to feed her soul.  Aside from AS220, she  also works with Dan Wood (http://www.dwriletterpress.net/), and is an excellent teacher (shown here with me).  The four students in the class set our lines, locked the “form” into a chase with wooden furniture and quoins, and placed it  on a Vandercook proof press (a much easier machine to work than my Washington press, but these are my baby steps).  We tightened any lines that were loose with wafer thin spacers of copper, tapped it all with a wood block (not sure of the term), and spread silver ink (we were printing on red paper) onto the rollers.  We all had a turn cranking them over the type, and we made about two dozen copies.  We cleaned up with vegetable oil (it’s a green shop), re-distributed the type, and put everything away.

Another thing that struck me was how well Kat demystified the whole process.  Printers (like some librarians, and other specialists I could name) tend to create an aura of mystery and difficulty around their work; understandable, I suppose, because everyone likes to be perceived as having a unique skill. However, as one of my mentors often says, “even rocket science isn’t rocket science.”  Most anything can be learned, with an applied will.  I’m eagerly anticipating a time when I have all the materials to hand and can work with the press in earnest.

Johannes Praetorius and Franciscus Romanus Bruno (respondent).  Disputatio historico-physica, de Crotalistria tepidi temporis hospita ([Leipzig], 1702).  First published in 1656, this is a treatise with a ponderous learned apparatus on the flights of migratory birds.  Johannes Praetorius, according to one authority, “had an open eye and a sharp ear for all wonder stories, witch tales, and accounts of ghosts and sorcery current among the people.  He indefatigably collected all information on remarkable subjects and happenings, and was fond of popular gossip, even of the uncouth type.”  The author makes an exhaustive search of classical to modern literature that deals with the migratory behavior of birds, extensively footnoted, with observations of bird flights from the Nile to Nova Zembla (among others).

[Contextual note:  This article argues against the “personal” tax (income tax).  In 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution made the income tax a permanent fixture in the U.S. tax system. The amendment gave Congress legal authority to tax income and resulted in a revenue law that taxed incomes of both individuals and corporations.]

December 13, 1910

“Lawson Purdy on Taxation; Prominent Alumnus Argues Against Personal Tax”

“In a recent address before the Albany Historical Society, Lawson Purdy, ’84, president of the New York City Commission of Taxes and Assessments, made a strong plea for the abolition of the personal tax.  Mr Purdy has made a special study of taxation for many years and is considered an expert on the subject.  He argues that because personal property cannot be taxed equitably and by the same method as real estate, the tax on it should be removed.  He has advocated several bills before the legislature which would wipe out all such taxes.  Mr. Purdy claims further that special taxes have withdrawn certain forms of personal property from general taxation.  He offers the following remedies: In that assessors are hampered by the fact that no deeds contain the true consideration for the conveyance of real estate unless they are made by executors and trustees, the law should provide that the true consideration for the transfer of real estate should be stated.  He argues that assessors should be appointed and not elected.  The men who do the actual work should be appointed under civil service rules, which would protect them from dismissal except for cause.  Mr. Purdy says also that the simplest way to deal with the remnant of personal property, now subject to the general property tax, is to abolish the tax.  The loss of the revenue would be more than made good by the increased value of real estate due to the relief from the danger inherent in the system of personal property.  Mr. Purdy’s views were quoted also in the American Magazine for December.  He is president of the Trinity Alumni Association.

View of the Russian empire during the reign of Catharine the Second, and to the close of the eighteenth century, by William Tooke (1744-1820).  (London, 1800).

 This is the second edition, following the first of 1799 (we have two copies of the second, and one of the first–a testament to the work’s importance, and the development of the Watkinson as a “library of reference.”  A recent antiquarian bookseller’s catalogue describes it thus:

 “Extensive overview of the peoples, customs, laws, religion, natural history, etc. of “the arctic eagle” (p. v), compiled from primary and secondary sources by a member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and of the Free Economical Society at St. Petersburg. The Rev. Tooke was an “intelligent and observant Russophile” (DNB) responsible for several original works as well as a number of English translations (with added substance and critical apparati) of significant works on that country, including Georgi’s Russia, or, A Compleat Historical Account of All the Nations which Compose that Empire  and Castéra’s Life of Catharine II, Empress of Russia. The state of the Russian military forces is here described at length. The commerce section includes chapters on viniculture, sericulture, and apiculture, as well as mining and salt harvesting; at the back of the third volume are extensive tables of Russian imports and exports, merchant ships arrived and sailed, duties and taxes, and names of the most active St. Petersburg merchants. Coins and measures are also examined.”

In the bowels of the Watkinson I discovered a printing press. 

It is tucked into the corner of a former ladies’ bathroom (plumbing removed, pipes stoppered), behind a heavy cabinet full of type, and an old card catalog with glass slides depicting ruins and documents related to ancient Greece (cast-offs from the Classics department).

It is a Washington hand press, made by the Hoe company (aside from being an industrialist, Robert Hoe was also a very famous book collector). Samuel Rust first patented the design in 1821 (with an acorn frame), and re-designed it (the way ours looks) in 1829.  The Hoe Company bought the patent in 1835.  This model was one of the standard pieces of equipment for job-printing from the 1840s-1880s, and many of them, once they were “retired,” made their way into private press shops in the early 20thC.  This one was employed by the Cellar Press (Bloomfield, CT) from the 1930s to the 1960s. 

I say “discovered,” but of course the staff knew it was here.  It has been here since the late 1960s, when Mr. Peter Knapp (currently the College Archivist, but back then a reference librarian) had it removed from the Art department, and tried, in his pithy and self-deprecating words, to “mess around with it.”  It was donated, as many such presses were (and are), in the hopes  that it could still be useful, and not scrapped.  I find it heartening that this is happening–that the old technologies are not being cast out of hand (so to speak–if you know the language of printing, this will resonate as a pun).

Immediately upon discovering the press and the dozen or so trays of type (mostly Garamond, 10 to 24 pt), I began scheming.  That’s what I do.  I try to exploit every potential asset that comes into my hand.  So here, I thought, is an opportunity.

Most special collections programs use their historic presses to focus on printing as it relates to the “book arts” or “book history.”  That will certainly happen at Trinity, but more than that, I want to focus on using the press as a centerpiece for discussing writing and publishing (its history and future).  This seems to me a more forward-looking approach, and I hope it will engage a broader range of students (not just the artists and book-nerds, but all writers and readers on campus).  I’m just settling down with Richard Gabriel-Rummonds’ Printing on the Iron Handpress (1997), the definitive work on the subject, and fortuitous to me for the following reason:

“This manual is intended primarily for users of Washington-style handpresses, although many of the procedures will also be applicable to most other makes of iron handpresses, and some of the procedures will even be helpful for printers using manually operated cylinder presses, such as Vandercook proof presses.  I have singled out the Washington-style press because it is the most frequently found hand press in the United States” (Preface).

Up to now, I have only studied printing in the abstract–its history, and the basic outlines of its practices during the handpress period (1450-1850).  I intend to use this blog to document every stage of my transformation from an ignorant neophyte to a (hopefully) skilled amateur printer.  Stay tuned!

John Josselyn.  An account of two voyages to New England (London, 1674). 

“The first complete description of the flora and fauna of the Middle Atlantic and New England States” (Justin Winsor, Narrative & Critical History, III (360)).  This work is also the best contemporary English description of New Netherland, Josselyn having included that colony under the name New England.  His inclusion of the list of “prices of all necessaries for furnishing a Planter and his Family at his first coming” shows that this was a practical work for prospective settlers, an early immigrants’ guide.  Josselyn’s first-hand accounts are based on two residences in America, the first in 1638-39 and the second from 1663-71.  He was a gentleman traveler trained as a physician and surgeon, and his brother Henry was a principal representative in Maine of the Mason and Gorges heirs, whose interests conflicted with those of the Massachusetts Bay Colony—which perhaps accounts for Josselyn’s occasionally hostile remarks upon the latter colony.  Josselyn’s work is notable for his many knowledgeable comments on the medicinal uses of various flora and fauna, including tobacco, the cranberry and the blueberry.  The wild turkey and other northeastern species of birds and other animals are fully described for the first time.  Josselyn’s prose and poetry is now included by scholars within the canon of early American literature.  He published only two works, the present book and New England’s Rarities Discovered (London: 1672).  According to the Dictionary of American Biography, “the Account of Two Voyages is the more ambitious work:  it is a rather strange compound of scientific lore, suggestions for settlers, bits of local history and much general observation.”