Having recently taken a course on the history of binding at Rare Book School, I’m more aware than ever of the splendid bindings sitting on our shelves unnoticed. The binding of a book or score is not always indicated in its catalog record, depending on when the item was cataloged, so I recently stumbled completely Read More

If this book should chance to roam/ Box its ears and send it home That bit of doggerel has been inscribed on books for many years in the hopes that if lost, they would be returned to the rightful owner. It came to mind when the story of a book roaming from our collections was Read More

I’m currently cataloging a nice run of English opera imprints from the 18th century, many published by John Walsh. This particular score, William Boyce’s The Chaplet, seemed to be another in much the same vein. These Walsh scores are engraved, and provide a wide variety of printing variations, both expected, and … unexpected. Now granted, Read More

Finding aids for six newly cataloged collections, and preliminary box lists for two recent acquisitions, have been added to the OASIS database this month, including documents concerning Thomas Carlyle’s bequest of his library to Harvard.