Month: May 2008

> Today I discovered a very cool site that visualizes–indeed, maps–the spread of the early years of printing. I mean “maps” quite literally: this is a map with multiple layers that shows, year by year, the establishment of new printing presses. You can also show paper mills, and universities, and trade fairs. It’s a great visualization of the commercial relationships that spurred the growth of the printing industry. And it’s fun to play with, too! It’s The Atlas of Early Printing, done by folks at the University of Iowa’s Library, and it is a great resource.

>One of my favorite things about my job is that it gives me the chance to explore books. On the best times, it means that I can go down into the stacks where the rare materials are kept and discover something I hadn’t been looking for. This book comes from one of those occasions. It’s a Vulgate bible printed in Lyon in 1527 by Jaques Mareschal. The text itself isn’t particularly notable–it’s the standard Latin translation of the day. But the physical object is something else, a real window into the act of reading and understanding the text. I had gone down to Deck C with our Curator of Books, Steve Galbraith, in order to find some bibles that we could use in class. I don’t remember why we pulled this one off the shelf–we misread the shelfmark, maybe? In any case, when we pulled it out, we found that…