We've been fortuate all week to have someone from the Law Book Exchange enrolled in the course. John is the IT person for the LBE. He takes the photos for the website and catalogs, and he makes certain each book is shown to its best advantage. He's taken the time to explain his photographic technique and we've had an opportunity to examine some of his exceptional photographs. He's also very knowledgable about the books he photographs. It's been a pleasure talking with him and learning about his work.
As an added bonus today, Michael von der Linn, the rare book buyer from the Law Book Exchange, was in class today. Michael came down from New Jersey to make himself available for a question and answer exchange. He really allowed us to ask any questions and there were some deep ones asked. He graciously answered them all. It was interesting to learn how he purchases books and the decisions that go into marketing them.
I had an opportunity to tell Michael that we at WVU had just purchased a fascinating scrapbook, dating from 1896, by a WVU law school graduate who became prominent in the state. We were all very pleased with this unique item which documents his legal career. He told me West Virginia items were hard to find and he'd had that book on hand for a couple of years before we purchased it. I assured him that we were happy to find it and add it to our collection.
A lecture tonight in the Rotunda was by a lawyer who collects serial publications, like Dickens books, which were all issued as serials. Very interesting. WVU's downtown rare book room has several Dickens books in serials. It is interesting to see them in this format and know that people had to wait until he wrote the next installment to know what was going to happen next in the story. Would Little Nell live or die? You just had to wait to find out! He shared images of his collection and gave us copies to take home.
Next was a shopping trip to one of the many local bookstores where I couldn't resist purchasing a few items to take home. Then dinner with classmates and back to the library to finish our assignment, describing a book from the Yale collections as if we were planning to list it in a dealer's catalog. This is a good exercise as we begin to see all the work that goes into an accurate description and pricing of items. Tomorrow we'll present our descirptions to the class and then it's onto the next assignment!
Until tomorrow!
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Day Two: Field Trip
I've just gotten back from a nice dinner in downtown C'ville with a few fellow students. We walked into town since it's only a mile from campus, and enjoyed a lovely evening on the pedestrian mall in the historic downtown. It was great to stretch our legs and enjoy the outdoors. The weather has been remarkable. Last week here it was 102! Today the temperature was 78. Delightful!
Our class went on a field trip this afternoon. We got on a bus and headed over to the new special collections facility at the Morris Law Library. Boy, is it beautiful! So spacious. It's a terrific law library.
The collections we were going to see were upstairs on a table waiting for us. While we didn't get to handle the books we got to see some real gems. The oldest book in the collection was a manuscript from 1481. It was quite beautiful. Treatises, form books, justice of the peace manuals and maritime law were just a few of the books we saw this afternoon. There was a wide variety of binding styles and it was very interesting to examine title pages and frontis piece illustrations. One copy of Coke on Littleton had the fold out plate, which was traditionally placed after the title page, had instead been placed between the frontis and title page. It's placement really stood out to me as I've seen a number of these volumes in the downtown rare book room at WVU. I wasn't the only one who noticed. Others in the class noted the error too.
We have two assignments to do next. One we started on today involved examining a book and describing it as if it were to be added to a dealer's catalog. We'll have to do all the bibliographic research for the book and price it too. I'm looking forward to this exercise. We started describing the book this afternoon. Tomorrow we'll have an opportunity to work with the bibliographies and a librarian will introduce us to many online resources. That will be a great bonus for me as I'll be able to gather a number of resources that I'll use when I return to WVU.
There's another lecture tomorrow night on legal serials. I'm not quite sure what that is, but I'll find out tomorrow!
It's been a long but good day, with so much more to come!
Our class went on a field trip this afternoon. We got on a bus and headed over to the new special collections facility at the Morris Law Library. Boy, is it beautiful! So spacious. It's a terrific law library.
The collections we were going to see were upstairs on a table waiting for us. While we didn't get to handle the books we got to see some real gems. The oldest book in the collection was a manuscript from 1481. It was quite beautiful. Treatises, form books, justice of the peace manuals and maritime law were just a few of the books we saw this afternoon. There was a wide variety of binding styles and it was very interesting to examine title pages and frontis piece illustrations. One copy of Coke on Littleton had the fold out plate, which was traditionally placed after the title page, had instead been placed between the frontis and title page. It's placement really stood out to me as I've seen a number of these volumes in the downtown rare book room at WVU. I wasn't the only one who noticed. Others in the class noted the error too.
We have two assignments to do next. One we started on today involved examining a book and describing it as if it were to be added to a dealer's catalog. We'll have to do all the bibliographic research for the book and price it too. I'm looking forward to this exercise. We started describing the book this afternoon. Tomorrow we'll have an opportunity to work with the bibliographies and a librarian will introduce us to many online resources. That will be a great bonus for me as I'll be able to gather a number of resources that I'll use when I return to WVU.
There's another lecture tomorrow night on legal serials. I'm not quite sure what that is, but I'll find out tomorrow!
It's been a long but good day, with so much more to come!
Monday, June 13, 2011
Rare Book School Day One
There's just nothing like being at Rare Book School! I wish everyone could have the opportunity to experience it at some time in their lives. I am very fortunate to be here for the fourth time. Each time I have taken a course here I have met instructors who are the tops in their field, and students who are talented and eager to learn. Many who have remained friends and colleagues, always eager to lend a hand, always eager to hear how things are going. This time is proving to be no exception.
I'm here to take the Law History course taught by Michael Widener, Rare Book Librarian in the Law Library at Yale. I was not surprised, but still impressed, with the depth of his knowledge today. His experience runs deep and I have already learned so much in the first day.
I'll mention just a couple of take away points that I'll apply when I get back to WVU's Law Library. First off, I'll be taking a second look at our Dublin imprints. While cataloging some of our rare book texts I had noticed there were a few Dublin imprints, most from the publishing house of James Moore. I've learned today that most Dublin imprints are pirated editions. Shortly after the books were published in Britain they were spirited away and printed with copies appearing under a Dublin imprint within the first year of British publication. I now have a list of bibliographies that will help me to determine if our Dublin imprints are pirated or actual editions. Very exciting!
There was some talk today about Charles Viner. Viner's Abridgments, some 24 volumes of them, are a classic and standard work. There is a set in the RBR. I learned today that Viner grew so irritated with London publishers that he self published his work. Then the King tried to ban it but the work prevailed. The work was so successful that Viner was able to establish the Vinerian chair at Oxford, held by none other than Blackstone, of Blackstone's Commentaries. It's a small legal world!
We also talked about the very large volumes that comprise the Statues of the Realm today. We have a full set of these volumes in the circulating stacks in the Law Library. I learned today that they should be moved to the RBR. I'd like to check usage statistics for these volumes, as they are in excellent condition, before I move them. And I'll need to take space into consideration too, but they're definitely tops on my list of books to consider for transfer to the RBR.
To top things off, tonight's lecture was by John Robinson Block on his collection of law books. He's been in our class all day, adding comments about his collection and sharing his vast knowledge of law books. His lecture tonight was delightful but the best part was that he brought part of his collection for the entire school to see. To my surrpise he brought four volumes of early West Virginia books dealing with the succession of the state, a broadside by Waitman T. Willey and a wonderful manuscript bound in homemade woven cloth. That was truly a delight to see.
I have pages and pages of notes, starred, underlined and highlighted! There's going to be so many things to do, so many books to explore, and bibliographies to collect when I get home - and it's only Day One!
I'm here to take the Law History course taught by Michael Widener, Rare Book Librarian in the Law Library at Yale. I was not surprised, but still impressed, with the depth of his knowledge today. His experience runs deep and I have already learned so much in the first day.
I'll mention just a couple of take away points that I'll apply when I get back to WVU's Law Library. First off, I'll be taking a second look at our Dublin imprints. While cataloging some of our rare book texts I had noticed there were a few Dublin imprints, most from the publishing house of James Moore. I've learned today that most Dublin imprints are pirated editions. Shortly after the books were published in Britain they were spirited away and printed with copies appearing under a Dublin imprint within the first year of British publication. I now have a list of bibliographies that will help me to determine if our Dublin imprints are pirated or actual editions. Very exciting!
There was some talk today about Charles Viner. Viner's Abridgments, some 24 volumes of them, are a classic and standard work. There is a set in the RBR. I learned today that Viner grew so irritated with London publishers that he self published his work. Then the King tried to ban it but the work prevailed. The work was so successful that Viner was able to establish the Vinerian chair at Oxford, held by none other than Blackstone, of Blackstone's Commentaries. It's a small legal world!
We also talked about the very large volumes that comprise the Statues of the Realm today. We have a full set of these volumes in the circulating stacks in the Law Library. I learned today that they should be moved to the RBR. I'd like to check usage statistics for these volumes, as they are in excellent condition, before I move them. And I'll need to take space into consideration too, but they're definitely tops on my list of books to consider for transfer to the RBR.
To top things off, tonight's lecture was by John Robinson Block on his collection of law books. He's been in our class all day, adding comments about his collection and sharing his vast knowledge of law books. His lecture tonight was delightful but the best part was that he brought part of his collection for the entire school to see. To my surrpise he brought four volumes of early West Virginia books dealing with the succession of the state, a broadside by Waitman T. Willey and a wonderful manuscript bound in homemade woven cloth. That was truly a delight to see.
I have pages and pages of notes, starred, underlined and highlighted! There's going to be so many things to do, so many books to explore, and bibliographies to collect when I get home - and it's only Day One!
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
The thread that runs through it
Peter Stein's article, "Justinian's Compilation: Classical Legacy and Legal Source, was a very enjoyable and engaging read. Informationally rich and well written, I found myself eagerly reading about the texts that comprise Justinian's master compilation.
As I read, it seemed I kept following a thread running through the paragraphs. A thread of separation, yet also one of unification. I picked up this thread on page 7. After the glossators of the twelfth century there came the commentators of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Chief among the commentators, who set their task as one of extracting law from the morass the glossators sought to illuminate, was Bartolus. Just as Bartolus is boiling down Justinian's concepts and generalizing the texts to make them easier to comprehend I pick up the first skein of my thread.
Stein brings this to my attention with an illustration on the conflict of law. As Stein says,"Bartolus generalizes from these texts and infers from them that the duties imposed by a contract are determined by the law of the place (italics, mine) where the contract was made, but failure to comply with the terms of a contract is to be judged by the law of the place where it should have been performed. So, we have a larger concept of law as standardized for all peoples with the empire, but that law is subject to the law of the place where the contract was made, the activity to be performed, and the conflict occurred.
After the commentators, the humanists arrived on the scene. Here too, a group of scholars part the curtain that veils the text of the law and then bring it into the open for all to see. Stein quotes Zasii Epistolae,II as describing the humanists as tearing away the commentary "like a giant creeper," and I envision Kudzu here, in order to make clear the path to the text itself. As a result, by examining the texts and discovering inaccuracies that perpetuated over time, the humanists showed that reading legal texts was akin to extracting the rule that made sense, rather than accepting the text as gospel.
As this thread weaves through the text of Stein's article it brings us further along the development of humanistic thought and into their attempt to balance the world of Justinian with that of the France of their day. In their scholarly struggles the humanists found that this was a concept they could not reconcile. In finding that the law of Justinian's day was not applicable to that of their own time, the humanists found their conflict of place. The local, if you will, once again supersedes the law of empire.
Finally we come to the end of our thread with Donellus's commentaries on the Civil Law. Taking threads from both the commentators and the humanists, Donellus's tack was to break down the larger whole into the parts, moving from a macro to a micro approach. In this too, we seem to follow the thread of moving from Roman to local, or from large and all encompassing to small and specific.
When viewing the article from this perspective it appears that each group, the glossators, the commentators, the humanists, each took an approach to a major document and brought insight that could be shared and passed to the next generation of scholars. It's a fascinating look at a text from the ancient world as it travels through the centuries. As Stein concludes, in order for Roman Law to survive as a field of study in law schools today it must not be presented in a vacuum but integrated into the society of its day. We are in the process of doing just that at WVU. We're bringing in histories of West Virginia, a state with a tumultuous past, in order to set the context for the study of state law. It's a good idea.
As I read, it seemed I kept following a thread running through the paragraphs. A thread of separation, yet also one of unification. I picked up this thread on page 7. After the glossators of the twelfth century there came the commentators of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Chief among the commentators, who set their task as one of extracting law from the morass the glossators sought to illuminate, was Bartolus. Just as Bartolus is boiling down Justinian's concepts and generalizing the texts to make them easier to comprehend I pick up the first skein of my thread.
Stein brings this to my attention with an illustration on the conflict of law. As Stein says,"Bartolus generalizes from these texts and infers from them that the duties imposed by a contract are determined by the law of the place (italics, mine) where the contract was made, but failure to comply with the terms of a contract is to be judged by the law of the place where it should have been performed. So, we have a larger concept of law as standardized for all peoples with the empire, but that law is subject to the law of the place where the contract was made, the activity to be performed, and the conflict occurred.
After the commentators, the humanists arrived on the scene. Here too, a group of scholars part the curtain that veils the text of the law and then bring it into the open for all to see. Stein quotes Zasii Epistolae,II as describing the humanists as tearing away the commentary "like a giant creeper," and I envision Kudzu here, in order to make clear the path to the text itself. As a result, by examining the texts and discovering inaccuracies that perpetuated over time, the humanists showed that reading legal texts was akin to extracting the rule that made sense, rather than accepting the text as gospel.
As this thread weaves through the text of Stein's article it brings us further along the development of humanistic thought and into their attempt to balance the world of Justinian with that of the France of their day. In their scholarly struggles the humanists found that this was a concept they could not reconcile. In finding that the law of Justinian's day was not applicable to that of their own time, the humanists found their conflict of place. The local, if you will, once again supersedes the law of empire.
Finally we come to the end of our thread with Donellus's commentaries on the Civil Law. Taking threads from both the commentators and the humanists, Donellus's tack was to break down the larger whole into the parts, moving from a macro to a micro approach. In this too, we seem to follow the thread of moving from Roman to local, or from large and all encompassing to small and specific.
When viewing the article from this perspective it appears that each group, the glossators, the commentators, the humanists, each took an approach to a major document and brought insight that could be shared and passed to the next generation of scholars. It's a fascinating look at a text from the ancient world as it travels through the centuries. As Stein concludes, in order for Roman Law to survive as a field of study in law schools today it must not be presented in a vacuum but integrated into the society of its day. We are in the process of doing just that at WVU. We're bringing in histories of West Virginia, a state with a tumultuous past, in order to set the context for the study of state law. It's a good idea.
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