News, Events, Publications, and Awards

News, Events, Publications, and Awards

News, Programs, Publications, and Awards

News, Events, Publications, and Awards

Previous article FreeSociety InformationNews, Programs, Publications, and AwardsFull TextPDF Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreNewsAnnouncing The Margaret B. Stillwell Legacy SocietyOrganized in 1904 and incorporated in 1927, the Bibliographical Society of America (BSA) is the oldest scholarly society in North America dedicated to the study of books and manuscripts as physical objects. Member gifts have played an important role in advancing BSA’s scholarly mission over the past century. Contributions and legacy gifts from BSA members have provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote the study of books and manuscripts as textual artifacts and have furnished important financial support to early-career bibliographers and scholars.The Bibliographical Society of America has recently established a Legacy Society named after distinguished bibliographer Margaret Bingham Stillwell (1887–1984). BSA’s intent in founding the Margaret B. Stillwell Legacy Society was to recognize the long tradition of giving at BSA and to ensure a vibrant future for tomorrow’s bibliographical scholars.In the fall of 2019 the Society called upon its members to join the Stillwell Legacy Society as founding members. The Council is humbled and so very proud of the outpouring of support received: more than twenty people stepped forward with promised gifts.Founding members of the Margaret B. Stillwell Society are:Anonymous (1)Martin AntonettiR. Dyke Benjamin in honor of Dr. Barbara A. ShailorJohn BidwellG. Scott ClemonsBruce & Mary CrawfordElizabeth Denlinger in honor of Erin SchreinerJoan M. FriedmanJohn Neal HooverWallace KirsopJennifer Lowe and Gregory PassAndrew and Eleanore Ramsey NadellJustin G. SchillerCaroline F. Schimmel in honor of Miss StillwellErin Schreiner in honor of Joan Cullen PalattellaBarbara A. Shailor in memory of Marjorie G. WynneDaniel J. SliveKenneth SoehnerWilliam P. StonemanDavid J. SupinoJacqueline M. VosslerThe Society celebrates the Stillwell Society’s Founding Members for their generosity, and hopes their leadership inspires others to join them in making a similar legacy gift to BSA. These unrestricted gifts fortify the long-term stability and financial security of BSA, and allow the Society to continue the intergenerational promotion of bibliographical study and the expansion of our scholarly community.Please let us know by letter or email that you have remembered the Bibliographical Society of America’s Stillwell Legacy Fund in your estate plan, and we will be honored to recognize you as a member of the Margaret B. Stillwell Legacy Society. Your membership can be acknowledged in your name. You can also join the Stillwell Legacy Society in honor of—or in memory of—someone close to you. Should you wish, you may choose that your membership remain anonymous. There are no minimum financial requirements for joining—you may pledge any amount that inspires your philanthropy and brings you personal reward. All gifts help to further our mission.Members of the Margaret B. Stillwell Legacy Society will be acknowledged in this journal and on the BSA website, with their permission. Legacy Society members will also be invited to our annual donor recognition event, held each year during Bibliography Week.For more information about the Stillwell Legacy Society and remembering BSA in your estate plan, please contact President Barbara A. Shailor ([email protected]) or Executive Director Erin Schreiner ([email protected]; 212-452-2710). Information is also available on the Support BSA page on the Society’s website (https://bibsocamer.org/support-bsa/). You may also write to the BSA post office box at PO Box 1537, Lenox Hill Station, New York, NY 10021.2021 Annual Meeting & New Scholars ProgramAt its 18 April 2020 meeting the Council voted to host a virtual meeting on 29 January 2021 instead of the traditional in-person gathering in New York City. The presentations in the 2021 New Scholars Program will also be held virtually. This decision reflects the Council’s view that the safety of all those who attend the Annual Meeting is of the highest importance. At this time, large gatherings remain dangerous due to the persistence of and uncertainty surrounding COVID-19. The Society also recognizes that institutional funding for travel to the meeting may be limited, thus prohibiting travel to New York for 2021 Bibliography Week for many regular attendees. Without the ability to anticipate how that might change in an uncertain future, the Council and Executive Director share the view that holding a virtual meeting is the most prudent course of action.Describing the Material TextThanks to a collaborative effort by the Development Committee, the BSA has received a grant from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation to fund an exciting new initiative, “Describing the Material Text.” The Society recognizes that today’s broad community of librarians, collectors, students, and booksellers needs opportunities for flexible and accessible, introductory level training in the description of textual artifacts from cuneiform tablets to zines. Through “Describing the Material Text”, we will address this need by:— developing training workshops and accompanying pedagogical resources;— building a small traveling teaching collection;— redesigning the BibSite section of our website as an open source repository, not just for bibliographical datasets, but also for pedagogical resources like syllabi, worksheets, and other materials for instructors.Originally planned as a one-year project, the COVID-19 pandemic will delay the first phase of the initiative, which involves holding workshop design seminars with leading experts in global material textual cultures. While some of these planning seminars may be held virtually, the resulting workshops will be designed around gathering together with textual artifacts in hand.The Society is grateful to the Delmas Foundation for their support of this important initiative and looks forward to making it a reality.New Membership Level for Latin American BibliographersAt the 18 April 2020 meeting of the Society’s Council, a proposal from the Membership Working Group to establish a new dues level for bibliographers from Latin America was approved. Dues for members of this group will be $50 per year. This option is available to bibliographers 36 and older living in Latin America. While the Society continues to conduct its business primarily in English, we hope to foster a more global bibliographic community and offer more Spanish-language programs and digital content that meet this group’s needs.BSA Subtitling and Translation ProjectThe Bibliographical Society of America is committed to improving access to audio-visual recordings of past events available on our YouTube Channel. As of Spring 2020, the Society is working to provide edited English language closed captioning and other language subtitles, with a particular focus on Spanish to reach audiences throughout the Americas.The Society needs English speakers to edit automated transcriptions, and speakers of other languages to translate them in YouTube. Free one-year memberships will be awarded to all who submit complete translations of edited English transcripts of individual videos. Active members in 2020 will be automatically renewed through December 2021. Only one free membership per individual; however, anyone having completed a second translation may specify another individual to receive a gift membership.For more information on this project, including step-by-step guides in English and Spanish, please visit the Virtual Events page on the BSA website (https://bibsocamer.org/programs/virtual-events/).❧EventsSociety Events (In-Person)In the spring of 2020, the Society and indeed the entire world made swift changes to its programs and protocols in response to the COVID-19 crisis. The following events, which in the spring of 2020 we hoped might still be held as scheduled, are now postponed or cancelled:¶ Touch to See: Disability and Bibliography, a workshop at the Wilson Library, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill was not held on 10 June 2020.¶ The Rare Book and Manuscripts (RBMS) Conference and the Society’s sponsored session scheduled therein for 24 June 2020, “Active Learning for Paleography Instruction in Special Collections,” were cancelled. The session may be rescheduled for a future RBMS Conference.¶ The Feminist Bibliography Masterclass led by BSA member Sarah Werner and co-sponsored with the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP), the Institute for English Studies at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, and Maggs Bros. Ltd., was cancelled.¶ “The Long Lives of Early Printed Books,” led by BSA member Aaron T. Pratt, Pforzheimer Curator of Early Books and Manuscripts at the Harry Ransom Center and scheduled for 16–18 July 2020 has been postponed to 2021. This event is co-sponsored with the Harry Ransom Center and the Bibliographical Society (UK).Society Virtual EventsIn light of in-person event cancellations, the Program Committee and BSA Executive Director coordinated a series of free webinars and other virtual sessions offered to members and the general public. Most events are recorded and posted to the Society’s YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUetIQJTMlSn0Zubqa_C8ZQ/.The following virtual events (“webinars”) were held in March, April, May, and June of 2020 (in chronological order):¶ “Using the Archaeology of Reading in the On-line Classroom for Student Learning and Research,” led by Earle Havens, Jaap Geararts, Matthew Symonds, and Neil Weijer, was held 23 March 2020. Recordings of most events are available on YouTube.¶ “Ask the Archaeologists: Q&A on Using the Archaeology of Reading in the On-line Classroom for Student Learning and Research,” led by Earle Havens, Jaap Geararts, Matthew Symonds, and Neil Weijer, was held 25 March 2020. Recording available on YouTube.¶ “Learn to Find and Use IIIF Content in the Mirador Digital Collections Viewer,” led by Benjamin Albritton, was held 26 March 2020. Recording available on YouTube.¶ “Mirador as a Personal Research Tool,” led by Benjamin Albritton, was held 30 March 2020.¶ “Teaching with IIIF and Mirador,” led by Benjamin Albritton, was held 1 April 2020. Recording available on YouTube.¶ “What is a Feminist Practice in Bibliography?,” led by Kate Ozment was held 17 April 2020.¶ “Placing Papers,” led by Amy Cheng, was held 18 May 2020. Recording available on YouTube.¶ “Juvenile Marginalia and Other Things Children Leave in Books,” led by Karen Sánchez-Eppler, was held 27 May 2020. Recording available on YouTube.¶ “Mise-en-Page in Medieval Manuscripts,” led by Elaine Treharne, was held 28 May 2020. Recording available on YouTube.¶ “You! Can learn to Read English Secretary Hand at Home,” led by Heather Wolfe, was held 2 June 2020. Recording available on YouTube.¶ “Awesome Table for Bibliographers,” led by Alexandra Wingate, was held 4 June 2020. Recording available on YouTube.¶ “Material Evidence in Incunabula (MEI) in the United States,” led by Cristina Dondi, was held 11 June 2020. Recording available on YouTube.Sessions will be scheduled through February 2021. Registration is required. A schedule of upcoming virtual events is available on the Virtual Events page on the BSA website (https://bibsocamer.org/programs/virtual-events/).The BSA Program Committee Calls for ProposalsIn accordance with our identity as an international, interdisciplinary scholarly organization that fosters the study of books and other textual artifacts in traditional and emerging formats, the Bibliographical Society of America pursues its mission by hosting public programs and collaborating with related organizations to do so. The Program Committee calls for proposals to invite collaborations between the Program Committee, BSA members, and a broader bibliographical public. The BSA aims to sponsor a calendar of varied programs each year, which can include but are not limited to lectures, workshops, conference sessions, and receptions following events which are bibliographical in nature.In all BSA events, the material text—that is, the handwritten, printed, or other textual artifact, broadly conceived—as historical evidence, and/or the theory and practice of descriptive, historical, textual, and/or critical bibliography, should be a central concern to participants and organizers.Proposals for events taking place between January and April of 2021 are due on 15 October 2020. Please visit the Program Committee page on the BSA website to review application guidelines and the application form (https://bibsocamer.org/programs/bsa-programs/).❧ProgramsNew Scholars ProgramThe Bibliographical Society of America each year invites three scholars in the early stages of their careers to present twenty-minute papers on their current, unpublished research in the field of bibliography as members of a panel at the annual meeting of the Society, which normally takes place in New York City in late January. Per the announcement above, the 2021 meeting will be held virtually, and this includes New Scholars’ presentations. The New Scholars Program seeks to promote the work of scholars who are new to the field of bibliography, broadly defined to include any research that deals with the creation, production, publication, distribution, reception, transmission, and subsequent history of textual artifacts (manuscript, print, or digital). Papers presented by the BSA New Scholars are submitted to the editor of the Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America (PBSA) for publication, subject to peer review, and are published in the December issue as part of the proceedings of the annual meeting. The 2020 BSA New Scholars are Dr. Alison Fraser (University at Buffalo, the State University of New York), Dr. Elisa Tersigni (The Folger Shakespeare Library), and Matthew Wills, (University of San Diego, California). Applications to the 2021 New Scholars Program are due on 8 September 2020. International applicants are welcome to apply. Please visit the New Scholars page on the BSA website for further information (https://bibsocamer.org/awards/new-scholars-program/).❧FellowshipsAnnual FellowshipsEvery year the Society offers a variety of fellowships in support of bibliographical inquiry and research in the history of the book trades and in publishing history:The Katharine Pantzer Senior Fellowship in Bibliography and the British Book Trades ($6,000) supports research in topics relating to book production and distribution in Britain during the hand-press period as well as studies of authorship, reading and collecting based on the examination of British books published in that period, with a special emphasis on descriptive bibliography. 2020 Winner: Kirk Melnikoff, “Bookselling in Early Modern England.”The BSA-ASECS Fellowship for Bibliographical Studies in the Eighteenth Century ($3,000). Recipients must be a member of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies at the time of the award. 2020 Winner: Sarah Bramao-Ramos, “Readers of Manchu Language Books.”The BSA-Harry Ransom Center Pforzheimer Fellowship in Bibliography (two awards at $3,000 each) supports the bibliographical study of early modern books and manuscripts, 1455–1700, held in the Ransom Center’s Pforzheimer Library and in related collections of early printed books and manuscripts, including the Pforzheimer Gutenberg Bible. 2020: No winner.The BSA-Mercantile Library Fellowship in North American Bibliography ($3,000) supports scholarship in North American bibliography, including studies in the North American book trade, production and distribution of North American books, North American book illustration and design, North American collecting and connoisseurship and North American bibliographical history in general. 2020 Winner: Allison Fagan, “Editorial Intimacies, Posthumous Publishing and Toni Morrison’s edition of Toni Cade Bambara’s Those Bones Are Not My Child.”The BSA-Pine Tree Foundation Fellowship in Culinary Bibliography ($3,000) supports the bibliographical study of printed and manuscript cookbooks (once commonly known as receipt books); medical recipe books that also contain culinary recipes; other types of books, manuscript, and printed material that include a substantial body of culinary recipes; treatises on and studies of gastronomy; or memoirs, diary accounts, or descriptions of food and cooking. Projects may cover any period or country. 2020 Winner: Andrea Gutierrez, “Bibliography of the First Print Cookbooks in Tamil.”The BSA-Pine Tree Foundation Fellowship in Hispanic Bibliography ($3,000) supports the bibliographical study of printed and manuscript items: 1) in the Spanish language produced during any period and in any country; or 2) in any language provided they were produced in Spain, or in its overseas dominions during the time of Spanish sovereignty; or 3) the bibliographical study of book and manuscript collections in Spain, or in its overseas dominions during the time of Spanish sovereignty; or 4) the bibliographical study of Spanish-language book and manuscript collections during any period and in any country. 2020 Winner: Daniela Samur Duque, “The Allure of Books: Bookstores and Printshops in Bogotá, 1850s–1920”The Charles J. Tanenbaum Fellowship in Cartographical Bibliography ($3000) supports projects dealing with all aspects of the history, presentation, printing, design, distribution and reception of cartographical documents from Renaissance times to the present, with a special emphasis on eighteenth-century cartography. Funded by the Pine Tree Foundation of New York. 2020 Winners: Jordana Dym and Carla Lois, “Bound Images: A History of Maps in Books.”The Katharine Pantzer Fellowship in the British Book Trades ($3,000) supports bibliographical inquiry as well as research in the history of the book trades and publishing history in Britain. 2020 Winner: Kate Nesbit, “Listening to Books: Reading Aloud and the Novel, 1800–1935.”The Reese Fellowship for American Bibliography and the History of the Book in the Americas ($3,000). The fellowship may be awarded to any scholar, whether academic or independent, whose project explores the history of print culture in the 2020 Winner: American and their Book School 2019 Winner: York ($3,000). The Society also offers a of fellowships bibliographical research as 2020 Winners: as “The in A of Translation by in Manuscripts of and of of the are at or can be by of the Fellowship Committee, Applications for the 2021 Fellowship Program are due 2 Bibliographical Society of America invites for its for Bibliography or on Early British or The for the 2021 is 15 October 2020, and will published after December The of the will receive a of and a membership in the for research on British was to honor at the Research Library at the University of was of the P. and Marjorie of British and and of the was and by at the Library, Alexandra The as an to scholars in bibliographical scholarship on eighteenth-century published in English or in any language but the British and its and for the may on any or printed in but should research of historical evidence, as the of the physical whether for a or the history of the production, distribution, or reading of scholarship may the form of a book or a or and or research in another as on a website or a scholarship must have been published a or during the year of the or the three calendar a has an it for but an of the period, it may be with a letter by the or editor to the of and must be by a letter from their to their having been further information on the and to learn how to the Society website at G. by G. a in books and past member of the BSA Council, the for Bibliographical on Books is to scholarship in the bibliography of historical brings a of $3,000 and a membership in the which must be in English, may on any book printed the year in any or any should research bibliography and history broadly and should focus on the physical book as historical for topics as the history of book production, publication, distribution, or Studies of the printing, and as these to books, are also scholarship may the form of a published book or a or that has been and or research in another as on a website or a for the will be in spring and will books, and published after December further information on the and to learn how to the Society’s website at Library by the Library at the University of this scholarship in the bibliography of American history and three the brings a of and a membership in the Society. The 2020 was at the Society’s Annual for the Library should on some of American history and culture in that now the United or on by American or for in that now the United should research in bibliography and history broadly and focus on the book physical as historical for topics as the history of book production, publication, distribution, or Studies of the printing, and as these to American history and are may the form of a published book or a or and or research in another as the or must have been published a or the year of the or the three calendar a has an it for but an of the period, it may be with a letter by the or editor to the of and must be by a letter from the their for the will be in spring and will books, and published after December further information on the Library including upcoming and how to the Society website at for for Society you have BSA historical material that may be for the BSA in in with BSA Executive Erin ([email protected]) to for your material to the Library, which is the for the BSA The BSA is in need of and BSA documents from the the of the BSA Working Dyke BSA Working for and A Bibliographical of Books and of American Printed from through its in by the State University for the Bibliographical Society of have and a to American At the has for collecting and and are to submit of and to information published in American and of not or not by and will be published in an as the Bibliographical Society of America’s submit all information and Special Collections Library, University of Box the in is now the United of America and printed, in the form of books or No printed on one or or (two is is that is, printed in the of or to a however, a is on the of a that work is All languages are as well as and is no on place of of the through State University A of edited by A Bibliographical of Books and of American Printed from Through M. The First A History and through The British Book A Bibliography in and The Library of and the American Collections of and and of Book Publishing in The of “The of in and in F. and A of & in New York Early at Studies in the with a to the an on the and by and The The of and on with a of a and and Evidence and A of and Book B. and International in English A Bibliographical History Bibliographical Society of A A Bibliography to A. A of New London, A. of of British Printed in other than English, to B. in B. The of the of to A of the for during the First of the with a of the Gutenberg A Bibliography of to Charles American Bibliography Incunabula in American A of Books in North American Collections and Bibliography of American through and to the of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United and and The Books of and and their by and G. A of Books to from to the and Bibliography of and of the of the at J. of Book for English from Bibliography of and of the of the at and to A Bibliography of the Early Printed of May, “Bibliography of Studies of Eighteenth-Century the and in May, on in Library and Collections May, Studies of Book and including May, Studies of and by or and Printed May, Studies of Book and Reading, May, Studies of in the Long Eighteenth May, Studies on Books Printed as and and May, of in the Long Eighteenth May, of & during the Long Eighteenth to article in 4 Book A of Printed in English with Free Previous article by The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 2020 for the Bibliographical Society of America 2020 Bibliographical Society of America. All no this

examines the politics of collecting, preserving, and reprinting colonial books and manuscripts in the nineteenth-century US. Colonial Revivals traces the labors of a cultural network of antiquarians, bibliophiles, amateur historians, and writers as they dug through the nation's attics and private libraries to assemble early American archives and to reprint, or "revive," their holdings. Reprinting old books, they thought, would shield them (and their ideas) from loss due to wear, fire, flood, or the overwhelming tide of oblivion. Their faith in print as an enduring vessel of preservation was, however, complicated by the state of decay in which they found many of their antiquarian treasures. The collections that this network built and the particular colonial stories they selected to tell and preserve reflect the inveterate regional, racial, doctrinal, and political fault lines in the American historical landscape. These materials are also our inheritance, as researchers of the book in America.

News, Programs, Publications, and Awards

News, Programs, Publications, and Awards

News, Programs, Publications, and Awards

News, Programs, Publications, and Awards

News, Programs, Publications, and Awards

News, Programs, Publications, and Awards

News, Programs, Publications, and Awards

Minutes of the 2015 Annual Meeting

The complex image John Smith New England 1 — designed and engraved by Simon de Passe (c.1595–1647) 2 and printed in London by one George Low in 1616/7 — has attracted the attention of many histori...

Reviewed by: Thomas Hardy and Victorian Communication: Letters, Telegrams and Postal Systems by Karin Koehler Sara Malton (bio) Thomas Hardy and Victorian Communication: Letters, Telegrams and Postal Systems by Karin Koehler; pp. 246. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. $124.37 cloth. To say that textual artifacts have a life of their own in the work of Thomas Hardy is no doubt to state the obvious. For if textual inscriptions and the objects on which they are inscribed—valentines, letters, books of the Bible, even human bodies (in the case of William Dare's tattoo)—are anything at all, they are volatile. They move, often in dangerous and even deadly ways. Indeed, we need only recall Father Time's suicide note in Jude the Obscure in order to recognize the intimate, inextricable connection between the written word and death in Hardy's writing. As the epigraph to that novel reminds us from the outset, "the letter killeth" (43). Focused as it is on the mobility of written communication, Karin Koehler's Thomas Hardy and Victorian Communication: Letters, Telegrams and Postal Systems promises to intervene in a crucial area of Hardy's work. Following an introduction that addresses the development of the penny post and Victorian communication systems more generally, Koehler covers an extensive range of Hardy's novels in six subsequent chapters. She reads the novels in relation to a range of critical issues, such as the tension between oral and written culture in Hardy's works; privacy and desire; "postal plots" (131) in the "novels of ingenuity"; and the connection between written communication and social marginalization in the tragedies of Jude the Obscure, The Woodlanders, and Tess of the d'Urbervilles. In connection to the latter, Koehler compellingly shows how Tess's various, wrenching moments of "epistolary failure" (157) serve to "undermin[e] the fiction of epistolary empowerment" (170) promised by the expansion of Victorian communication systems. This is followed by a chapter that addresses Hardy's short fiction and poetry, and a conclusion that wisely turns toward issues raised by Hardy's control of his own correspondence, his "epistolary reserve" (210). One of the most significant aspects of Koehler's book is her treatment of the subject of privacy, in chapter 3. This issue is perhaps especially resonant for today's reader, as we continue to grapple with the increasingly fluid public/private divide when it comes to the expression of our words and intimate thoughts. Here, Koehler effectively observes that women's correspondence is frequently at the locus of suspicions and speculations regarding their sexual (im)purity. On the one hand, this should come as no surprise; we need only think back—as Koehler usefully does in her treatment of the rise and fall of epistolary fiction—to Richardson's Clarissa and Pamela to recall the persistent literary connection drawn between the female body and the textual artifact. Yet Koehler situates Hardy's innovative treatment of this connection in a way that convincingly reveals how "[t]he Victorians' intensified emphasis on privacy may be linked to changes in the social organization of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain" (47). [End Page 310] Detracting from the strength of the study is a matter that is a question of both editorial intervention and argument structure: the author's tendency toward overreliance on secondary criticism. Frequent, often lengthy quotations from other critics have a tendency to disrupt Koehler's sustained analysis. A similar need to reassure the reader emerges in the book's overall structure. The final full chapter, "Epistolary Ghosts," considers the "patterns, continuities, and shifts in [the] representation of written communication" (185) in the short story "On the Western Circuit" and a selection of poetry, including "Thoughts of Phena" and "The Torn Letter." While "An Imaginative Woman" would surely have made a perfect pairing to the book's discussion of "epistolary personae" (195), Koehler rightly points out that Hardy's shorter works are often compelling in their engagement with spectral presences in the very way that they "evoke letters by negation only" (196). Koehler does not claim to do justice here to all of Hardy's poetry, nor can she, and while I am grateful to see both poetry and short...