Rare Book Monthly

Articles - May - 2009 Issue

<i>In The News:</i> World Digital Library Opens, ABAA Upgrades Site, Lincoln and Law Exhibitions

The new World Digital Library.


By Michael Stillman

The World Digital Library opened for business on April 21. As the name suggests, there are no desks, stacks, or librarians whispering "shhhh..." This is an online collection promoted by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, with much assistance from the U.S. Library of Congress. Its beginnings are relatively small, but there are no preset limitations as to what it may become in the years ahead. From a beginning of five, there are now 32 contributing libraries, and the doors are open for many others to join.

The project was initially proposed by James H. Billington of the Library of Congress in 2005. As of the opening, there were 1,140 items posted from the 32 libraries, with something about every country a member of UNESCO. The site is searchable in seven languages as well as via a timeline. Contributions come from national libraries of nations as large as China and Russia, as small as Uganda and Qatar. Displayed are books, manuscripts, movies, maps, photographs, journals and recordings. Visitors have access to both the original works and descriptions of them provided by the international librarians. For example, those interested in early Americana will find a digitized copy of Sir Francis Drake's The World Encompassed. There are pre-1900 movies from Lourdes, France, by the pioneering Lumiere company, a seventh century Chinese manuscript "Annals of Creation," and a lettered 1200 B.C. oracle bone. While the total number of items may sound relatively small at this point, the detail of information provided makes this both an informative and exciting place to visit. To book your trip, click here.

A joint agreement to upgrade the e-commerce of the ABAA (Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America) website was recently announced. Book listing website Biblio.com will provide the search engine and e-commerce aspects, while Bibliopolis will provide the design work. The joint operating agreement will run for the next four years.

The ABAA was formed in 1949 and currently has 450 members. They opened their site to e-commerce in 2000, and are now looking to expand their offerings. Among the plans for the upgraded site are expanded search capability, higher resolution photographs with zoom capabilities, and the ability to order books from multiple dealers at the same time. Biblio brings significant experience in online bookselling and high-volume listings to the table. They are the third largest used book seller (after AbeBooks and Alibris) with 50 million online listings.

The Rosenbach Museum and Library of Philadelphia will be hosting an exhibition entitled Finding Lincoln opening this month. The museum is already hosting an online exhibit called 21st Century Abe in honor of Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday. Like its online counterpart, the live exhibition combines recent art, interpretation, and commentary with a collection of documents and materials from Lincoln's lifetime, including letters and speeches. The live exhibition runs from May 27 - August 30, 2009.

An exhibition entitled Landmarks in Law Reporting will be taking place from now through October at the Lillian Goldman Law Library at the Yale Law School in New Haven. Law reporting may not sound important at first, but in the Anglo-American jurisprudence system, it is case law which determines what the common law and legislated rules mean. The exhibit begins with a manuscript collection of cases from the reign of Edward III, copied around 1450. It includes first editions of reports from Plowden and Coke, the first American case reports from Connecticut in 1789, and the first U.S. Supreme Court cases from 1798. The evolution of reporting from manuscript to print, the growth of legal publishing, the connections between legal reporting and education, and the growing need for well-organized reporting of the huge number of cases being decided will all be on display. The exhibition is curated by Rare Book Librarian Mike Widener. If unable to attend, you can follow the exhibition on the Rare Books Blog.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.
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    Modern First Editions
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    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Winston Churchill. The Second World War. Set of First-Edition Volumes. 6,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: A.A. Milne, Ernest H. Shepard. A Collection of The Pooh Books. Set of First-Editions. 18,600 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Salvador Dalí, Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Finely Bound and Signed Limited Edition. 15,000 USD
    Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
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    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ian Fleming. Live and Let Die. First Edition. 9,500 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter Series. Finely Bound First Printing Set of Complete Series. 5,650 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ernest Hemingway. A Farewell to Arms. First Edition, First Printing. 4,200 USD
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    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: LAW REVIEW OFFPRINT SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RUTH BADER GINSBURG. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
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    Catalogue 198 just published
    19th Century Shop. Darwin and Wallace, first printing of the first paper on natural selection
    19th Century Shop. Shakespeare’s Poems, first collected edition
    19th Century Shop. Walt Whitman portrait inscribed with a Leaves of Grass poem
    19th Century Shop. Major Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscript notebook
    19th Century Shop. Spock's Baby Book, original MS
    19th Century Shop. Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, the great celestial atlas
  • Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HARRISON, Benjamin. Document signed (“Benj Harrison”) as governor of Virginia, certifying the service of Daniel Cumbo, a Black Revolutionary soldier. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: ONE OF THE FIRST PRINTED ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. $4,000 to $6,000.
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
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    Part IX
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    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: NEWLY DISCOVERED FIRST PRINTING OF "WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE... " FROM THE ONLY NEWSPAPER ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN LINCOLN’S SECOND INAUGURAL PROCESSION. $4,000 to $8,000.
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    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
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    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
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