Collecting: a changing perspective
It was, not so long ago, established thinking that book collections, with some exceptions, would be a collection of books. This is the way it was for generations. The basic unit of book collections was of course the book, and over the past 150 years impressive, increasingly complete bibliographies were created and revised to reflect ever-broadening perspective. The book field and all its component parts became knowable. Books however were never the exclusive component of book collections, only their most common part. Manuscripts also found a place, as did maps, objects, and ephemera. Bu...