See HCL News for the full story on the discoveries made by paper conservator Christopher Sokolowski in the course of treating a number of items damaged in a water leak in 2008. Perhaps the most interesting of these relates to a collection of drawings from an early-17th century French ballet. Under x-ray fluorescence analysis, Sokolowski…
Gian Vincenzo Pinelli and His Library
The Humanities Center Seminar in the History of the Book and Houghton Library, Harvard University, are pleased to present the following lecture by Professor Angela Nuovo of the Universita di Udine: Gian Vincenzo Pinelli (1535-1601) and His Library: Book Collecting and the Republic of Letters in Late Renaissance Italy Thursday, October 14, 5pm Barker Center…
Early Maps of Siberia Digitized
[Public Services Assistant Emilie Hardman contributed this post about the recently completed digitization of a set of 17th-century maps of Siberia.] This person grew up and became rooted In a bright-blue country, So great that it could not be encircled in flight By nine waves of white-headed cranes Even in nine full years… Traditional poetry…
John Ward and His Magnificent Collection
[This post was contributed by William Stoneman, Florence Fearrington Librarian of Houghton Library.] John Ward and His Magnificent Collection, edited by Gordon Hollis and published earlier this year by Golden Legend, Inc., is described by Hollis as a second festschrift in honor of Ward, a full 25 years after a first festschrift and his retirement…
New on OASIS in October
Finding aids for 12 newly cataloged collections have been added to the OASIS database this month, including illustrations for T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom, watercolor images of 19th-century Boston theaters, and interviews with psychoanalyst Erik Erikson….
A Sign of Things to Come
One of the newly announced 2010 MacArthur Fellows, Nicholas Benson, has a special connection to Houghton Library: he created the beautiful slate sign that hangs over the entrance to the Edison and Newman Room, for its dedication in 2005. Benson is a third-generation stone carver, and his father carved the sign marking Blodgett Court, just…
Can We Risk the Abyss?
On October 12th, noted biographer Lyndall Gordon will speak at Houghton Library. Her talk, “‘Abyss has no biographer’: Can we risk the Abyss?” will focus on her recently published biography of Emily Dickinson, Lives like loaded guns: Emily Dickinson and her family’s feuds (2010). The book has stirred some controversy by proposing that the poet…
Look! Up in the Sky!
A new acquisition beautifully documents a landmark in the study of meteors. Shortly after 9:00 PM on the evening of August 18th, 1783, a fireball streaked across the night sky, and thanks to the warm and muggy weather, was widely observed. Perhaps the best constituted party of observers was gathered on the terrace at Windsor…
Life Among the Tuscarora
An HCL News article highlights a recent gift to Houghton–some two dozen letters written by Hannah Whitcomb, who, in in the mid-19th century lived for more than 25 years as a missionary with the Tuscarora tribe of Native Americans near Niagara Falls….
New Special Collections Request Accounts
Today, Houghton Library introduces a new special collections request system that allows patrons to register and place requests for materials online. This system replaces paper registration and paper forms to request materials to use in the library, and because it will eventually be HCL-wide, will eliminate the need for patrons to register separately at each…