Taking the Law into Your Own Hands: Establishing an In-house Book Repair Program

Law collections pose some unique problems in terms of their physical care due to filing and updating practices, use patterns and special binding structures such as loose-leafs and pocket parts. This workshop is designed to address specific preservation needs of law collections through lecture, demonstration and hands-on opportunities. Participants will learn the fundamentals of book repair, treatment options and decision-making, and preservation best practices. Emphasis will be placed on moving knowledge into practice through guidelines for establishing institution-appropriate in house book repair programs, by training the trainers in basic book repair techniques and providing all participants with a start-up tool kit.

Zur Geschichte der Juden in Wien : nach archival. Urkunden

von G. Wolf

Joseph Wertheimer : ein Lebens- und Zeitbild : Beiträge zur Geschichte d. Juden Oesterreich's in neuester Zeit ; mit Benützung archival. Quellen

von G. Wolf

Apes’ tracking of objects and collections

Recent research suggests that great apes are less vulnerable to cohesion violations than human infants are. In contrast to human infants, apes successfully track nonsolid substances or split solid objects through occlusion (Cacchione & Call, 2010a; Cacchione, Hrubesch, & Call, 2012, 2013). The present study aims to investigate whether the lower vulnerability of great apes to cohesion violations also manifests when they are tracking collections. While even very young human infants appreciate the continuous existence of solid bound objects, they fail to show similar intuitions when tracking collections of objects (Chiang & Wynn, 2000). In a manual search task inspired by recent infant research, we tested whether humans’ closest relatives, the great apes, showed a similar contrast in their reasoning about single solid objects and objects within collections. The results suggest that, in contrast to human infants, great apes appreciate the continuous existence of objects within collections and successfully track them through occlusion. This confirms the view that great apes are generally less vulnerable to cohesion violations than human infants.

An Inexpensive Alternative to CS Photoshop & Bridge: Archival Master Image Capture and Batch Derivative Creation in Canon Scan Gear & Adobe Photoshop Elements 7

This presentation was made at the Connecticut State Library Service Center, Willimantic, CT, April 14, 2009. It focused on digital capture workflows for both archival and derivative image creation using accepted current standards. Tools used were inexpensive by choice and focused towards the needs of small to mid-sized cultural heritage institutions who wish to begin digital capture in their own facilities.

Fine Bird Books

The Department of Special Collections is fortunate to have a number of 19th Century illustrated bird books. These books, filled with hand-colored plates, were produced at a time when there was tremendous interest in the descriptions of new species of birds. At the same time, a new printing technique, lithography, made illustration of new species a simpler process. This combination of art and science resulted in lovely volumes like those on display.

Illustrated Botanical Books, Fifteenth, Sixteenth, Seventeenth Centuries

No attempt has been made for a comprehensive coverage of the many outstanding illustrated botanical books for this three hundred year period. Rather the aim has been for a combination of interesting illustrators and famous botanists. Like the exhibit on fine bird books, these books on display have been taken from the Rare Books division of Special Collections.