Book Traces

Book Traces Assignment

~ fiegeb1

In looking for Book Traces of previous readers of 19th century books in the library, I came up empty handed. Although I was unsuccessful, I did learn a lot through this assignment and have some guesses as to why I didn’t find any Book Traces in the library.

At first, I had high hopes for this assignment. I was really looking forward to finding old traces of writing in 1800’s books, it didn’t occur to me that people marked up their textbooks years ago too! Initially, I thought finding Book Traces would be an easy task, but as it turned out, it was far from it. One thing I did learn was that our own library was home to over 500,000 books! I imagined I would have no problem finding what I needed, until I learned that only 2,000 of these books were from the 19th century.

There were several reasons why I believe I didn’t find any Book Traces in our library. One of the biggest being the supply- with less than 1% of the books in the Sojourner Truth Library being from the 19th century, it seemed like finding a needle in a haystack. It was also discerning to find out that the library largely eliminates any book donations they get with writing in them. For the sake of Book Traces, I think it would be nice if in the future, our Library preserved and maintained Book Traces (so long as they didn’t infringe on the actual text of the book) and made an effort to have more 19th century books with Book Traces.

Another issue I had was finding appropriate 19th century books that would have writing in them. I searched through dozens of books, and I kept running into old Encyclopedia/ Textbooks, instead of any with literature or stories in them. Some titles included “Religious Science”, “Complete Works of Shakespeare” and so forth. To my surprise, not many old textbooks were marked in nearly as much as newer editions are today. My theory is that these old books were kept as sets, and remained untouched on shelves for much of their lives. I did try searching for keywords such as “journal” and “diary” to find some better material with a higher probability for booknotes, but still did not have any luck.

Although I was not successful this time around, I hope to have future encounters with Book Traces, and look forward to when I can find some Book Traces of my own!

Assignment #3: Book Traces

~ arangoj1

I want to start off by saying that Sojourner truth library is extremely intimidating. This was my first time searching for books at a college library. It was very tedious searching for a 19th century book that also had 19th century marginalia. After over an hour of picking the books that looked most worn out (this was my strategy) I finally hit the jackpot when I picked up “Phillip Massinger” edited with an introduction and notes by Arthur Symons. The title alone was very confusing because Phillip Massinger is the main author and it contains “the best plays of the old dramatists.”

http://www.booktraces.org/book-submission-philip-massinger

However, after reading through the book it was made clear that Phillip Massinger was the author of numerous plays that constituted the book and Arthur Symons provided readers with a bibliography of Phillip Massinger and spoke about his plays.

Picture of Phillip Massinger
Picture of Phillip Massinger

 

“Phillip Massinger” was published in London in 1887 and its publisher is London Vizetelly.

As soon as you open the book,on the inner hardcover there is a name that reads: Hailey S. Carles Jr. and is barely visible but after 5 minutes of analyzing each letter with a flashlight I was able to make out the name.

IMG_3718

After searching all over the internet I was not able to trace this name to any person. This was probably because it was just an average person in London, who owned this book and wrote their name to show possession.

The book itself is very old and smells like it as soon as you open it. By this I mean it literally smells “dusty” and made me sneeze as I flipped through the pages.

The other marginalia that I found (on the first 2 pages after opening the book) was for the most part illegible and I was unable to understand its purpose.

FullSizeRender-6 FullSizeRender-7

There is however, the number 600 clearly written which could indicate what is equivalent to 900 dollars ( a lot of money back then).

What I found most interesting were the way some pages were set up (shut together) making the pages in the middle of that binding hard to read.

 

FullSizeRender-8

 

From pages 9 to 96 there are 11 “sections” where the binding is like this, making it hard to read what is in between them.

This seems to have been done purposefully but I am not sure for what reason or if this is a characteristic of 19th century books but it was very interesting and different.

Overall I enjoyed learning about marginalia and having the chance to actually find a 19th century book with personal hand writing from the 19th century. Book traces and preserving this marginalia is important to understanding how people used books in the 19th century.

Travels to Great Britain

~ derziezo1 ~ 1 Comment

 

To find reader traces in a university library book seems impossible, even the old books from the 1800 are in such good and clean condition. Still, after leafing through some 20 and more books in the travel section (DA), I picked a small hand book for travelers, and in it there was a hand written note. The book is Baedeker’s Great Britain Handbook for Travellers , published in Leipzic (original spelling), Germany and in London, Great Britain in 1897. It’s a small red book written in almost microscopic letters and it contains colored maps, plans and panoramic illustrations of different places in Great Britain. It provides a great deal of information about the country using this tiny little font type.

writing on the book

The hand written note is placed around the book title, written in ink in an old fashion style. I couldn’t decipher the writing so Prof. Swafford was called for help and her reading was: “Paddington St, Leave for Wells at 1.20 (Bristol) 3.88. Leave Bristol for Yeaton + Wales 5.25          6.47″. It seems the note was maybe a preparation for a trip in England. To add to this assumption I also found a folded big colored map of (just) England that was placed in a special pocket in the Inside cover of the book.

a map of Great Britain

The map is a little fragile so very gently I managed to open it without tearing and to my surprise an itinerary was marked on the map in dark ink .

open map fo Great Britain

The book was, after all, used as a travelers handbook despite its very clean state. Maybe the text wasn’t that useful, but the map definitely was.

Submitted to Book Traces : http://www.booktraces.org/book-submission-baedekers-great-brittain/

Book Traces

~ Danielle Koppie ~ 1 Comment

When I entered the library to search for marginalia, I honestly thought it would be a quick process. I could get there after my last class, look through a few old books, find one with some really interesting writing in it, and arrive home long before dinner. Well, that’s not exactly how it played out. I got to the library and decided to just look through some random old books and sheet music. I found nothing. After about an hour, I decided to direct my focus toward the education section, because of my abnormal obsession with education systems. I looked at all of the call numbers I could find, then refined my search, then tried again.

After approximately two hours and sixteen minutes total, I found History of Education by Thomas Davidson. The book was published in 1900 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Upon opening the book, I discovered that one of the pages before the book starts was filled halfway with handwritten notes. These notes are quotations that a girl named Louise Patricia O’Malley wrote down when she was attending Simmons College in 1917. There is one quote by Socrates, and two quotes by a “Sir Moore.” I did some research, and it seems that both quotes by “Sir Moore” are variations on quotes also by Socrates, which makes me wonder how she found them. They are all about education, which makes sense because of the book. I found the book for free on Google Books, and searched it to find these quotes, but they were not in the text. This means that either Louise had heard the quotes, liked them, and wrote them down, or perhaps she was instructed to do so. I also looked up the name Louise Patricia O’Malley, and found the Simmons College Bulletin that contains the Annual Catalogue, with Louise’s name in it. She is listed under “Degrees Conferred in 1917,” so I assume that was her year of graduation.

When I found the book, I was just relieved that I could finally go home and eat something. Now as I’m writing this, I’m actually incredibly fascinated by these traces. It’s pretty amazing how I could find out so much information from a few quotes someone wrote in her textbook 98 years ago.

You can see my Book Traces submission, here!

Writing

Book Traces

~ dastona1

When I first entered the library, I had certain kinds of books in mind when I entered the library that I wanted to begin my search in. As soon as we got into the library I decided to enter the first stack I saw just to get a feel for what kind of books I would have the best luck with. I opened book after book that appeared to be rebound. I figured the ones with the most use were the ones that were rebound and therefore I would have luck finding marginalia. I got lost in the books, I lost track of time. I was thinking about how so many other people have touched these books for so many different reasons. I felt like I was entering another world. I must have opened over 50 books, even after I found a promising lead with marginalia that appeared to be from the 19th century. There was so much writing in this book, I could tell the person reading it had poured through the pages, looking for meaning in each word. The book I found contained plays from the 19th Century, all written in German. The author was Thomas Moody Campbell. According to the Chicago Tribune, he taught at a Florida State University for 30 years. He passed away of a heart attack at the age of 57. The book was dedicated to his Wife, Annie Pauline Von Klemmen. All of the marginalia I found is written in German, so there isn’t much I can say about the words themselves. I found marginalia on many of the pages, but the ones with the most writing were on pages in the 70’s. The marginalia is found on so many of the pages and even if there are no words on some pages, the owner often underlined and circled things.

 

IMG_2092 IMG_2093 IMG_2094 IMG_2095

 

My Submission on Book Traces

 

Lauren Gao’s: 5 Qualities of a Good DH Project

~ Annie Swafford

Design

Time and time again, clean, organized, aesthetic design and visuals on turn up as key to  any Digital Humanities project we have done in class so far. For example, GIS mapping projects should not have all of its data sets appear simultaneously, and should give the viewer the option to toggle on/off individual data sets. In the case of Digital Archives, once again, choice of colors and images used on the home page can have a substantial impact on how the user may come to understand what the theme binds together the information in that particular archive.

Scholarly

This quality is what separates reliable DH projects and questionable ones. All the information used in any particular project should be traceable to their original source, whether it be primary or secondary, especially if the information used did not belong to the makers of the DH Project. On a Digital Archive, this would appear perhaps at the end of each object page or whenever a reference to information that was obtained outside the DH project itself.

User Friendly

Considering that every individual who makes or uses a DH project are not from computer science disciplines themselves, navigating these projects should feel “organic” or fairly easy to learn. Book Traces is one example of such, where the form to fill out the book submission is extremely easy to understand, and even provides an example on the side.

Screenshot (70)

Interactive

On of the advantages of a DH project over physical paper representations of it, is that the user is able to interact with the project by manipulating when certain bits of data or information are shown at a time. The overlay feature of GIS mapping projects is one example of this, or clicking on a pin to reveal more information about that location is another. A not so good example of this would be the maps shown on the “Art in the Blood” fan project.

Collaborative

Last, but not least, DH projects allow for extensive amounts of collaboration with individuals who need not presently be there to do so. So as long as he or she may have access to the tools online needed to make the project, any person can continue on another’s work so as long the project is open to the public. Again, Book Traces is an elegant example of this as contributing to the project’s storehouse of 19th century Marginalia is quick, but thorough.

Book Traces in 18th Century British Plays

~ Annie Swafford

After failing to find any marginalia in the first few books I looked through, which were based upon my original database query, I happened upon The Plays of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The book was written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who was a playwright and politician, among other things. He wrote them in the late 18th century, so I hoped for some insight from those students who had come before me, likely while studying English literature.

The book itself seems to have been repaired, and the title and authors’ name on the spine of the book was handwritten. Inside, It was heavily marked, albeit in pencil, which unfortunately indicated that the traces cannot be accurately dated. If the traces had been added with pen, it would be possible to ascertain more information about who had written them. There were many passages simply underlined, while there were also several pages where the traces consisted of comments about the text.

CIMG1919The student who provided the marginalia on this page sought to understand the vocabulary that Sheridan used. Enough was written after the line, “Crave what you will–there’s quantum sufficit”. “Sal volatile” was underlined and smelling salts was written by the student, while “hydra” led to snake, and positive was jotted in the margin after a line containing “poz”.

CIMG1920

When viewing another page, the same theme is found, with slight variations. The student used the margins to define words in the text, and also bracketed certain paragraphs as well, always in pencil. “Insipid” led to weak, and “raillery” was defined as gay ridicule. Of course, the connotation of the word gay was quite different when the student had written these notes. Raillery is defined today as good-humored teasing, so I’m not sure the students’ inclusion of ridicule fits best.

CIMG1921

Finally, I discovered that pencil was not the only marking implement found inside this book. Whether it was coffee, wine, blood, or something else entirely, there are about eight to ten pages that have some unfortunate staining. Just as I’m writing this today with the aid of a cup of coffee (at a safe distance from the book itself), a student from the past had done something similar, without as much luck.

Book traces

Lauren Gao’s Marginalia Findings:The Philosophy of Carlyle

~ Annie Swafford

It is not often that a class entails students to perform detective work in the library. However, after the four years I have spent in undergraduate college, I am beginning to realize that much of undergrad level research, is actually disguised detective work. This time, our class had many of treasure trove-ing in the Sojourner Truth Library at New Paltz in 19th and early 20th century literature to capture and document the unique marginalia found in the supposedly “self-destructive” physical texts of this time period. My expedition in the deep level of the library brought be to this old but plain and unassuming book titled, The Philosophy of Carlyle, written by Edwin D. Mead and published in Boston by Houghton, Mifflin and Company of The Riverside Press, Cambridge, in 1881.

IMG_1643IMG_1645

 

Now, before we delve into the fascinating bits of things that were handwritten by people a century ago, you might be asking the same question I did while I was gingerly inching this old and worm book out of the shelves, who is Carlyle?

Continue reading →

Book Traces Project: Marginalia in the Book, The Spoilers by Rex E. Beach

~ Annie Swafford

The Spoilers

While searching for a piece of literature at the Sojourner Truth Library that contained marginalia was quite difficult at first, I finally discovered a quite fascinating piece for my Book Traces project.  The book is titled The Spoilers and was written by a man named Rex E. Beach and illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood.  It was published by the Harper & Brothers Publishers in New York and London in the year 1905.  However, the copy that I had encountered was published in April, 1906.

WP_20150219_003[1]

The first marginalia that I discovered was on the very first page of the book, before the title page.  The marginalia consisted of a clipping from a newspaper or magazine that was pasted on the page.  The clipping contains an advertisement to see the book’s first production as a play on stage.  Unfortunately, the year is not provided, but it does state that it began on a Monday night on November 5th and that it was shown for only two weeks.  Even though the year is not given to us, it can be deduced that it became a play in the early 20th century.  On the program, there is a list of the cast; the characters were listed in the order in which they first appeared on the stage.  Toward the bottom of the marginalia, there is also a synopsis of all scenes that would happen during the play.  Another fascinating thing I found on the clipping was a picture of a man.  I researched what Rex E. Beach looked like on Google and it seems to me that the picture in the book matches the pictures of Rex E. Beach that I researched.

WP_20150219_005[1]The second piece of marginalia that I found was on the first page of the first chapter.  The marginalia consisted of a piece of paper that was cut and pasted to the page with the words, “Very truly yours,” which was done with a typewriter and then below that, there is a signature of the author Rex E. Beach.  I have deduced that perhaps the piece of paper was part of a letter that had been written to someone from Rex E. Beach himself.

 

beach__rex

Rex E. Beach was born in Michigan in the year 1877.  He was on his way to becoming a lawyer before the Alaska Gold Rush caught his attention and he headed there to make his fortune. Unfortunately, after a couple of years he was still looking for it and, realizing that he was not going to find it in gold prospecting, he turned to writing books.  The Spoilers was his second novel and was based on a true story of corrupt government officials stealing gold mines from prospectors, which he witnessed while he was prospecting in Nome, Alaska.  This novel became the best-selling novel of 1906 and later had a couple of movie adaptations.

Overall, I really enjoyed this project because there is so much history to be learned  and appreciated for many years to come.  (As long as we continue to pull out books from their shelves the right way!)

http://www.booktraces.org/book-submission-the-spoilers/

A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith: 19th Century Book Study

~ Annie Swafford

IMG_4295

While looking through the stacks of the Sojourner Truth Library, I found some marginalia traces as well as a few newspaper inserts in one of the first 5 books that I looked in (a very lucky find). The book is titled A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith. This book was written by Reverend Sydney Smith’s daughter, Lady Saba Holland, in 1855, 10 years after Sydney Smith’s death, and was published in London. Reverend Sydney Smith was a 19th century English clergyman and writer.

This book is the first of two volumes, with this volume having the title the Life & Letters of Sydney Smith.

IMG_4297IMG_4298

The marginalia trace that I found is right before the title page of the book, on the inside cover page. So when I first opened the book, I immediately hit jackpot. It’s written in fountain pen, which was the biggest indication that this is a trace from the 19th century. This is probably the signature of the original owner of this book. From inspection, it looks like it says the name “Olive B. Sarry”. It bummed me out because I spent some time trying to research the name, but I couldn’t find any clues to help me figure out who this person was.

IMG_4301IMG_4299IMG_4303IMG_4304

The other things that I found in this book were newspaper inserts that all pertained to Reverend Sydney Smith. They range from about 1945-1954. Though they’re not from the 19th century, I still thought that they were a really cool find. The first one that I found is pasted right on the title page. It’s an article called No Matter, talking about a man named Bishop Berkeley and his criticisms against Sydney Smith. I also found a couple newspaper inserts on page 448. One of them is from the Times Literary Supplement, a weekly literary review published in London.

Along with this, there were a few other little notes that I found written throughout the book. They seemed to be random numbers (or years?) written in pencil, so they might not be from the 19th century.

*Also, here’s my link to my submission to Book Traces!