Miles of Aisles

Today I found myself dancing down the library aisles rocking out to my iPod while searching for literature on the history of books. I spent a few hours wandering the shelves searching for the perfect resources. It was quite the adventure!

First of all, I discovered that although the HBLL (the BYU library) does in fact have a physical catalog, it has not been updated for years... the library has completely switched over to a web-based catalog. After a few frustrating attempts to use the card catalog, I resigned myself to the online one. However I found the search engine to be surprisingly useless! The best I could hope for was to find a book that was related to the subject and then browse the shelf around that book. It worked out quite well! I was able to find a general, printed reference source and proceeded to find the some of the books I needed from there. That too was a long process that required me to read through the summaries until finding a book that seemed like it would be appropriate, searching the online catalog to see if the HBLL had the book, and then running through miles (okay, maybe not miles) of bookshelves to locate the texts! ...only to find the book to be entirely unhelpful!

Approximately 98 miles of bookshelves are found in the HBLL

I have come to the conclusion that there is too much information out there! Not enough of it is useful! But I'll save my rants for another post. :-)

The best experience I had today was reading about unconventional methods of adding images to books and then finding a bright orange book that had all of the pictures pasted in! Stay tuned for the pictures I will post. (I couldn't check it out because I didn't have my BYU ID, but I will get it!)

Annotated Bibliography: History of the Printed Book (studying the incumbula)

McMartie, Douglas C. The Book: The Story of Printing and Bookmaking. Oxford University Press, 1943. [obtained from the general, printed reference book by Winckler (cited below)]
A comprehensive, yet simple, history of printing. This work is often cited even in modern research on the history of printing. Very popular and well-read amongst students and scholars alike. Quoting from the reference book by Winckler, “a favorite textbook in books and printing courses… readable and good introduction.”
http://search.lib.byu.edu/byu/id:byu_unicorn2218634

Pearson, David. Books as History. The British Library and Oak Knoll Press, 2008. [Browsing]
A modern approach to the history of books. Contains many illustrations and actual photographs of ancient texts. Addresses the issue of uniformity between texts that are mass produced and the successes and failures of early attempts to standardize books.
http://search.lib.byu.edu/byu/id:byu_unicorn5090784

Rogers, Frances. Painted Rock to Printed Page. J.B. Lippincott Company, 1960. [Browsing]
A brief history detailing the history of writing from its earliest origins to the printing press. This book explains the events that allowed the invention of the printing press and mass production of texts.
http://search.lib.byu.edu/byu/id:byu_unicorn2175188

Smith, Margaret M. The Design Relationship between the Manuscript and the Incunable. A Millennium of the Book: Production, Design & Illustration in Manuscript & Print 900–1900. St. Paul’s Bibliographies, 1994. [although not quite a journal, it is a compilation of discourses given at a conference on printing]
An article refuting popular views on the reasons why early printed books closely resembled manuscripts. Provides historical background and contemporary ideals to support her claim that early printed books represent a transition period from hand-written to printed books.
http://search.lib.byu.edu/byu/id:byu_unicorn1585205

Thompson, Lawrance. The Development of the Book. Princeton University Press, 1938. [Browsing. The cover caught my attention because it was bright orange!]
This book contains many pictures and illustrations that were actually added in after printing. Instead of actually printing the images to the page, they were printed on separate pages and pasted in. Therefore, this book is valuable not just for the historical information that it provides, but also the unique method of production employed in creating it.
link unavailable (sorry, I couldn’t find any record of it! Even on the HBLL’s own site…)

Winckler, Paul A. History of Books and Printing: A Guide to Information Sources. Gale Research Company, 1979. [Browsing]
This guide is essentially an annotated bibliography of many popular sources about the history of books and printing. It is organized by subject matter serves as a valuable resource in locating books on a particular subject. I modeled my annotations after the summaries found in this book.
http://search.lib.byu.edu/byu/id:byu_unicorn48172