Updating and upgrading

After a lengthy and enjoyable Memorial Day weekend I returned to my legal literature studies. The onset of Rare Book School grows ever closer, now merely a few days away rather than my previous timekeeping of a few weeks.

On a whim I returned to review the preliminary reading list last week. It as a good thing too, as the reading list had been completely updated and renovated. Gone were the works previously residing on the list that had seemed old and outdated, like Gordon's survey article reviewed here last week. In their place was a revitalized list with highly accessible and contemporary readings and websites.

I have taken time to examine quite a number of the websites and enjoyed quite a few of them too. Of particular note is Dying Speeches & Bloody Murders: Crime Broadsides Collected by the Harvard Law School Library. Perusing this site proved to be both entertaining and gruesome. A heinous collection of "bloody murders" and the admonishments of the "last words" of those who had lately been brought to justice can be found and examined with a great degree of accuracy, thanks to the enlarging options that allow the viewer to really delve into the text at hand. An intriguing feature of these "last words," filled with regrets and cautionary reminders for the living, are often set in verse. I dare say that these are the product of the broadside's author rather than the condemned, but I could be wrong. We'd have to ask one of the 100,000 people who attended the hanging of Henry Fauntleroy to verify.

From examining this site I learned that I own a couple of 19th century crime pamphlets. I will look at them again with renewed interest. I've gone through much of our readings with one had wielding a fine tooth comb and the other on the keyboard searching for titles listed in footnotes and bibliographies in our readings. The Annuals of Murder: A Bibliography of Books and Pamphlets on American Murders from Colonial Times to 1900 now sits on my desk. After briefly paging through it this book looks to be a most interesting bibliography. I'll look forward to looking up my own pamphlets as well as any the WVU Law School might have in their collection.

As someone who has spent most her professional and scholarly career examining publishers' bookbindings, I was delighted to look at Boston College's site, Exhibit Highlights from the Daniel R. Coquilette Rare Book Room, of an exhibit on Books and Their Covers: Decorative Bindings, Beautiful Books. I have seen some beautifully decorated bindings for law books, but in my experience they are far and few between so I was delighted to visit this exhibition from last spring. The application of gold, vellun, marbled papers, or the acids used to create the attractive patterning known as tree calf, for the tree like structure formed on the leather by the acid wash, can make any book truly beautiful.

The Flowering of Civil Law: Early Italian City Statues in the Yale Law Library is a blog I had already bookmarked as a destination. There are two out of four volumes of Justinian's Codex here at WVU. The Codex and the Novellis are both missing their title pages. I am having a great deal of difficulty deciphering any printing history for these volumes and I had discovered this site when searching the Codex on the web. It seems I will need to photograph some pages and post them to Flickr in order to invite others, such as the good folks on the rare book listserv ExLibris, to weigh in.

A substantial site, Freedom of the Seas, 1609: Grotius and the Emergence of International Law, provides a comprehensive view of the development of International Law. The site is peppered with a fine array of images. I particularly enjoyed looking at a copy of the first edition of John Selden's Mare Clausum and the map of the "British sea."

These sites provide interesting glimpses into many individual and fascinating aspects of law. I'll look forward to delving into other websites on the list as time permits.

A Different World

The weekend is over and Monday is behind us as well. Most of yesterday was spent very pleasantly in the law school's rare book room. The archival boxes arrived last week and I spent the day placing a recent donation, the papers of an eminent legal scholar, in the new blue/gray boxes with their shiny metal edges.

While I worked, surrounded by the environment of the rare book room, my thoughts turned to the Gordon study, "A Portrait of Research in Legal History," one of the titles on our reading list. I must admit, given the amount of time that has passed and the rapid development of the internet and its impact on our daily lives, I struggle with the releveancy of a study that took place in 1985 with a 1994 publication date. When you consider the change the internet has brought to scholarship and research methods since that time, the Gordon article looks antiquated, a historical piece on research trends in the nascent period of the internet.

Maybe it's not fair to look critically at this study given the changes in the academic environment since 1985, but, like it or not, times have changed dramatically and research methods are no loonger the same as they were then. So, I will play devil's advocate and discuss some of the problems I see with this article.

Gordon's article looks at responses from historians who participated in the Historical Documents Study in 1985. The HDS, noting increased usage of respositories, institutions and museums, designed this study to examine the researcher and their research methods in order to gain a better understanding of who the researchers were and the methods used to perform research.

Gordon makes several interesting comments that I would like to explore further. For example, " . . . among members of the Organization of American Historians, nearly three-quarters of whom teach at academic institutions, only half recognized their primary library as a major research institution." While there are some statistical tables in the article there is nothing to support these comments. Given that the academic community, then as now, is composed of a vast array of community colleges, public and private colleges and universities with differing levels of academic standing I feel that it is quite impressive that 50 percent of those polled consider their libray to be a major research library. If we had statistics to examine, we might be able to point to a high rate of survey respondents from land grant universities or Carnegie One institutions. We might be able to see that those institutions make up a larger portion of the study respondents. Or, we may be able to determine something completely different that led to this conclusion.

In the next paragraph Gordon states that "only five percent of them (respondents) indicated use of presidential libraries." Isn't this simply a relation to locale? Presidential libraries do not dominate the academic landscape and a figure such as this doesn't take into consideration a scholar's research interests. Excluding airline travel, I would venture to guess that most scholars do not live within traveling distance of a presidential library. I would also guess that in the broad spectrum of academic research, may topics do not require the use of presidential ibray holdings.

Perhaps the biggest issue I have with this study stems from this paragraph: There are historians active today whose formal education predates the start of national guides to unpublished sources forty years ago, for example. The explosion of related finding aids and computerized newtworks for sources since that time has challenged successive waves of historians to augment their skills after leaving school. Changing interests also push individuals beyond limits taken for granted when they first studied their craft."

Indeed they do. While many of the respondents will have retired now, there remain many who are still researching and teaching. Though their careers were grounded in an earlier time, these respondents learned new skills and became adept in a changing academic enviroment. We all love a tool that will provide the desired information faster than before. As I've learned from other of our readings, the glosses on Justinian's Codex, the dictionary, the index, the table of contents, print versions of national guides, and all those finding aids and computerized networks do just that. Help us get our hands on the data we need and want faster.

My own undergraduate degree, a double major in history and religion, was earned in an age when papers were typed on a typewriter and there was one phone per hall in the dorm. Twenty-five years later I went on to earn my masters' degree in library science online through the distance program at a major research institution recognized as one of the top twenty schools for library science in the nation. I was never able to go the library physically, but thanks to the online library service I never had to leave the confines of my home, let alone get up from my desk, to have all my research needs met. This old dog was able to learn a few new tricks over time and succeed. What may have appeared frightening or challenging to Gordon or the respondents then, can be seen now as what it was, a learning curve for a period in transition.

Ideally, it would be of great benefit to see an updated version of this study. I'm sure there is something out on the World Wide Web that takes into consideration researchers and their methods in this internet driven age. Today, nearly every library supports blogs, podcasts, twitter feeds, and facebook pages. Examining deep web usage, subscription databases, library resources, and free tools like Google Scholar, Google Books, and the Internet Archive can yield statistics for instruments that readily place many scholarly avenues at a researcher's fingertips without having to travel beyond their armchair to locate resources that were once limnited. It's a different world. Let's examine it.

Books of the Common Law

Today I spent the morning in the reference section of WVU's downtown library reading J.H. Barker's article, "The Books of the Common Law," in the Cambridge History of the Book, vol. III. This was a very well written and enjoyable article. Barker adeptly described the English approach to law and legal studies and the significant difference from the emphasis on roman law that predominated the rest of Europe in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries.

Having read several articles on the reading list, and approaching this course without a background in law, I was appreciative of the fact that Barker took time to explain terms that other authors assumed their readers would know. As a case in point, Barker's description of the Inns of Court was very helpful to me and made the article that much more enjoyable through a greater understanding of topical terminology.

The history of legal language, the use of law French, Latin and finally English for documents that would circulate among common readers was of great interest. Each language served a particular community of scholars who was versed in the intricacies and meaning of terms, implying a close knit community working within a set structure of language and law.

Even without a law background, I am quite familiar with Littleton. I have examined several copies and editions of Littleton, and Coke, and I can firmly picture the frontispiece portrait of Littleton in my mind, having seen it several times. A year or so ago I spent some time on EEBO examining differences in editions to determine which fit the imperfect copy in the rare book room missing it's title page. It was an interesting excursion to view the variety of editions and the differences in the printings. From that examination alone it was quite to clear to me that Littleton and Coke were standard texts.

I found the exploration of the development of the use of citations in English law of great interest. Barker notes an absence of citations as a peculiarity of English law before the middle of the sixteenth century. He also noted the lack of law books kept in court or referred to in court. Without a library or reference to books there would be no need for the practice of citations that developed after printing became a viable enterprise.

Indeed, the emphasis was on learned countenance, on the community of scholars who understood the law from lectures, not on books. As Barker says "There was a professional tradition that the law should be stated in a way which appealed to the right reasoning of a legally trained audience or readership; a proposition was therefore backed up not by strings of citations but by examples which showed its correctness."

I found Barker's discussion on the slow development of law libraries to the Inns of Court fascinating. There is something so compellingly romantic about books, reading about them chained like medieval maidens to their stocks, or like the dragons that preyed on them, lost to time. As early as 1475, Barker says that one of the Inns, Lincoln's, established a library. Throughout the 16th century these Inns were given books to bolster their holdings. The libraries of the four Inns of Court, beneficiary of prominent donors though they may have been, suffered losses incrementally over time, and none can now be accounted for. Every last book has vanished like the Lost Colony, either into private collections, or one suspects a more likely scenario, stolen by students.

The notation of signatures in books, then as now, and certainly a common feature of books of the nineteenth century where one can often see the linage of a boy's serial passed from generation to generation, were not unique to law books. Thus too, were the books in law libraries of the sixteenth century when changes of ownership were "carefully recorded on flyleaves."

There's so much to talk about in this article, but I fear this post is becoming quite lengthy so I'll jump to the impact of the press on the legal profession in England and call it a day. Step by step, Barker takes us through the origins of the books of common law, from the books of justices and statutes, with their coats of arms of prominent lawyers colorfully painted on the page denoting ownership and status, then to the law book trade, the press, printers and the legal profession, as well as the effect of the printing press to the profession.

All of a sudden, it must have seemed, printed texts were available and they were available in English, the common language. Therefore they could be read by a larger group of people than those schooled in the traditions of law French and Latin. The press brought an end to the production of manuscripts and with that end brought the demise of certain texts and the standardization of others, along with the rise of the use of citations based on these standard texts. Choice too, played a role in the impact of the press. As Barker says, "texts which had originally been rare or unique passed out of use and indiscriminate compilations of work by different hands that disregarded historical accuracy or textual purity, now makes it impossible to separate text as the original manuscripts have been lost." It is now that we see the rise of case law and printed case law.

Wise as to their situation, printers kept in close contact with the profession and located their shops near the Inns of Court, placing their goods within handy reach of their customer base. A ready supply and close proximity do much to counteract the the laborious copying of manuscripts. For good or ill, and mostly a little of both, the printing press and the books it produced were here to stay.

Catching up

Dear readers,

While it's been some time since I last posted to this blog, I feel the need to strike the keys once again and continue traveling the long and winding road of my special collections journey.

When we last met, I had returned from a course at UVA's Rare Book School on Special Collections Librarianship, taught by Alice Schreyer. Each and every night I posted on the day's activities and now, some two years later, I can say that the class workbook is on my desk as I type. It is quite a handy and useful collection of items. I turn to it as a resource regularly.

To bring us both up to speed, I attended the Special Collections Librarianship course for two reasons. First, as a former bookseller and mid life career changer, my goal to become a special collections librarian would benefit from this course. Second, thanks to the great folks at the University of South Carolina, especially my advisor, Dr. Samantha Hastings, I was able to include the RBS course as part of my plan of study. It was Dr. Hastings who suggested I maintain a blog for the course and I enjoyed the task immensely.

And I meant to keep it up afterwards, but final classes and nearing graduation took over and I abandoned my post, as it were, until now.

What brings me back, you might ask? The answer is simple: I'm returning to Rare Book School this summer. This time I'm attending Mike Widener's course, Law Books: History & Connoisseurship, in my new role as Visiting Staff Librarian at West Virginia University's College of Law. I am currently serving as the Archives and Rare Book Librarian and it is a job I truly love. I feel fortunate to have been given the opportunity to do what I love and the support to continue my special collections education and further develop skills that will enhance my work.

So, you might be asking yourself, how did I occupy myself between courses at RBS? How have I filled the intervening time? Quite busily I must say. After graduation from USC I worked diligently to keep up my skills while also applying for positions in a very difficult market and I would recommend the following activities to any job searchers: I joined groups that suited my skills and interests, such as the Appalachian Studies Association, the Rare Books and Manuscripts division of ALA, West Virginia Library Association, SHARP, the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, APHA, the American Printing History Association, among others. I attended conferences, I networked with colleagues, and most importantly, I presented original research at each conference I attended. In short, I got my name out, I met people, I worked diligently on a research project and published the results.

The publication, "Portraits of Appalachia: The Identification of Stereotype in Publishers' Book Bindings, 1850 - 1915," was published in the Journal of Appalachian Studies, vol 15, Nos. 1 and 2, Spring and Fall 2009, is part of a long term research project that examines nineteenth century cultural attitudes as displayed on the covers of publishers' bookbindings. This research is based on my work as rare book room staff at WVU's Rare Book Room in the Wise Library at the Downtown campus, an independent study at USC, and the education I received from an earlier Rare Book School course, Publishers' Bookbindings, 1830 - 1910, taught by Sue Allen. The research focuses on the identification of stereotype on the covers of nineteenth century books on Appalachians and the Appalachian region. Other papers are in preparation for submission to journals and I am currently working on a book proposal for this line of research.

But by far the high point after graduation was receiving the call to work for WVU's College of Law as archivist and rare book librarian. As I mentioned earlier, this is a job I love. I have the pleasure of putting my skills to use and developing new ones. My work entails the arranging and describing of the papers of an eminent legal scholar, development of policies and procedures for the rare book room, conservation and preservation activities, research and rare book cataloging. Life is rich.

The next post will take a look at the pre-class readings for the RBS course. I am well along the way in my readings and I've made notes as I've read. I'll share them with you and we can once again, travel this road together.