Mapping the networks of ownership and distribution of rare books in Special Collections at the University of Auckland General Library

<p>The extent and research potential of provenance evidence in rare books in Special Collections at the University of Auckland General Library is largely uncharted territory. This project helps fill that gap by examining the provenance evidence, such as inscriptions, bookplates and stamps, in some of those rare books to identify any networks or patterns in their ownership history and distribution. A purposive sample of 291 pre-1851 volumes on New Zealand and Pacific-related travel and exploration was examined for provenance evidence within a qualitative framework and an historical case study design. Taking a subset of those books, which were bequeathed to the Library by Alfred Kidd (1851-1917), the project then examined other works from his bequest to further explore the scope of provenance evidence. The project demonstrated the value of treating books as artefacts, exposing a wealth of provenance evidence and providing snapshots of the ownership and distribution histories of some volumes. Overall, 71 percent of the sample contained evidence for identifiable agents: 88 former owners, 14 booksellers, one auction house and nine book binders. The project also discussed lesser-known New Zealand book collectors who merit further study, including Alfred Kidd, Sir George Fowlds, Arthur Chappell and Allan North. Further provenance research into this collection and the provenance-related cataloguing practices in New Zealand libraries would generate additional useful insights.</p>

Mapping the networks of ownership and distribution of rare books in Special Collections at the University of Auckland General Library

<p>The extent and research potential of provenance evidence in rare books in Special Collections at the University of Auckland General Library is largely uncharted territory. This project helps fill that gap by examining the provenance evidence, such as inscriptions, bookplates and stamps, in some of those rare books to identify any networks or patterns in their ownership history and distribution. A purposive sample of 291 pre-1851 volumes on New Zealand and Pacific-related travel and exploration was examined for provenance evidence within a qualitative framework and an historical case study design. Taking a subset of those books, which were bequeathed to the Library by Alfred Kidd (1851-1917), the project then examined other works from his bequest to further explore the scope of provenance evidence. The project demonstrated the value of treating books as artefacts, exposing a wealth of provenance evidence and providing snapshots of the ownership and distribution histories of some volumes. Overall, 71 percent of the sample contained evidence for identifiable agents: 88 former owners, 14 booksellers, one auction house and nine book binders. The project also discussed lesser-known New Zealand book collectors who merit further study, including Alfred Kidd, Sir George Fowlds, Arthur Chappell and Allan North. Further provenance research into this collection and the provenance-related cataloguing practices in New Zealand libraries would generate additional useful insights.</p>

Books as social currency: Robert Coupland Harding and the field of book collecting in New Zealand 1880-1920

<p>“Here, indeed, lies the whole miracle of collecting,” Jean Baudrillard asserted, “it is invariably oneself that one collects” (“Systems of Collecting” 12). If Baudrillard's premise that a collection is itself a representation of the collector, then how can we read a person through his/her private library? There have been several large and important studies produced on the three preeminent figures in New Zealand book collecting: Sir George Grey, Dr Thomas Hocken and Alexander Turnbull. However, to understand book collecting as a whole during the highly active period at the turn of the twentieth century, it is vital that we investigate 'minor' book collectors alongside our esteemed 'major three'. This thesis explores the private library of Robert Coupland Harding (1849-1916), an internationally recognised expert on printing and typography, whose trade journal Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review (1887-1897) was celebrated as a remarkable achievement. Very little documentation of Harding's life exists. However, one tantalising artefact discovered in a Wellington antiquarian bookshop is the basis for this research: the auction catalogue of Harding's extensive private library. Focusing on the New Zealand-related section of the catalogue, this thesis examines the book collecting field in New Zealand 1880-1920. Applying Bourdieu's theories of capital, habitus and the field of cultural production, the thesis examines the social practice of book collecting during this period. Three case studies from Harding's library illustrate some key trends in the book collecting market, and help to build a picture of Harding's social networks and the influence this had on his collecting habits. The thesis also describes the collecting identity of Robert Coupland Harding, placing him in his circle of fellow book collectors. Describing a model of book collecting practise and presenting a method for categorising book collectors, this thesis argues for the recognition of lesser known book collectors and the contribution that they made to the field of New Zealand book collecting.</p>

Books as social currency: Robert Coupland Harding and the field of book collecting in New Zealand 1880-1920

<p>“Here, indeed, lies the whole miracle of collecting,” Jean Baudrillard asserted, “it is invariably oneself that one collects” (“Systems of Collecting” 12). If Baudrillard's premise that a collection is itself a representation of the collector, then how can we read a person through his/her private library? There have been several large and important studies produced on the three preeminent figures in New Zealand book collecting: Sir George Grey, Dr Thomas Hocken and Alexander Turnbull. However, to understand book collecting as a whole during the highly active period at the turn of the twentieth century, it is vital that we investigate 'minor' book collectors alongside our esteemed 'major three'. This thesis explores the private library of Robert Coupland Harding (1849-1916), an internationally recognised expert on printing and typography, whose trade journal Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review (1887-1897) was celebrated as a remarkable achievement. Very little documentation of Harding's life exists. However, one tantalising artefact discovered in a Wellington antiquarian bookshop is the basis for this research: the auction catalogue of Harding's extensive private library. Focusing on the New Zealand-related section of the catalogue, this thesis examines the book collecting field in New Zealand 1880-1920. Applying Bourdieu's theories of capital, habitus and the field of cultural production, the thesis examines the social practice of book collecting during this period. Three case studies from Harding's library illustrate some key trends in the book collecting market, and help to build a picture of Harding's social networks and the influence this had on his collecting habits. The thesis also describes the collecting identity of Robert Coupland Harding, placing him in his circle of fellow book collectors. Describing a model of book collecting practise and presenting a method for categorising book collectors, this thesis argues for the recognition of lesser known book collectors and the contribution that they made to the field of New Zealand book collecting.</p>

Marks of Ownership of Russian Far Eastern Book Collectors in the Late 19th — Early 20th Centuries

The Russian pre-revolutionary book features many various provenance marks including marks of ownership. Such marks indicate that a particular item belongs to a particular owner. They can have forms of supralibros (or super ex-libris), ex-libris (or bookplates), book stamps, signatures and inscriptions. There are also “non-specific” ownership stamps and labels, which do not have indications of their book nature (such as phrases “from the books/library of...”, “ex-libris…”) and can be used on any objects. Usually these are word rubber stamps (rarely — labels) with a text consisting of a book owner’s name and occasionally some additional information (such as an owner’s address, title, etc.). In Russia, bibliophiles and bibliologists have been studying bookplates for about two centuries. However, there are still many blank spots in the history of the Russian bookplate. Regional book ownership marks are mostly unexplored. This article presents an attempt to describe and analyse book ownership marks of the Russian Far Eastern book owners. Studying of library holdings of 13 regional institutions and conducting bibliographic research allowed revealing 58 local marks of ownership (excluding signatures and inscriptions) that belonged to 23 local book collectors of the pre-revolutionary period. The study showed that they used all types of marks from supralibros to inscriptions, but mostly preferred the “non-specific” book stamps and super ex-libris. There was also established that the bookplate labels were particularly rare — the author discovered the only specimen in the Far Eastern State Research Library. The predominance of book stamps as marks of ownership can be explained by their multipurposeness, cheapness and easiness of manufacturing. Far Eastern book owners frequently used two or three different types of marks together on one book, for example, book stamp and supralibros, inscription and book stamp or supralibros and inscription, etc. Often one collector used several different stamps or supralibros: almost 40% of book collectors had two or three marks of ownership. At the same time, 11 of 23 book owners additionally marked their books with the inscriptions.

Patterns of Source Survival

Chapter 3 describes how the extant Italo-Greek nomocanons survived from the medieval period to the modern day, noting two main vectors: the monastic Order of St Basil (concentrated in Sicily, Calabria, and Lucania), and the Renaissance book market in the Salento peninsula. It also considers the implications of these patterns of source survival for what kind of evidence has survived and what sort of conclusions we can draw from it. Beginning in the late Middle Ages, it explains how the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438–1445) inspired Pope Eugenius IV to create the monastic Order of St Basil to provide an institutional structure to Byzantine-rite monasticism in southern Italy; this would play a pivotal role in supporting the remaining Italo-Greek monasteries and preserving their manuscript collections into the early modern period. The chapter then turns to the Salento peninsula, observing that families of secular Greek clergy (rather than monasteries) played the most important role in copying and preserving manuscripts in the region. During the Renaissance, the Salento became a popular region for scholarly book collectors to purchase manuscripts, bringing them to great Renaissance libraries such as the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. The chapter also looks at other ways that manuscripts survived, such as through the efforts of the seventeenth-century Russian monk Arsenii Sukhanov. For the most part, manuscripts that were not stored in Basilian monasteries or purchased from the Renaissance Salento have not been preserved.

The Interior World of Books, Browsing, and Collecting Inside the City

A most desirable and collectable material object is the ubiquitous book. A bound composite of printed pages with words and images, it contains a microcosm of myriad narrative viewpoints, experiences, and imaginations. Metaphorically, a book compactly conceals a kind of interior space that protects the provocative lives of people, their character, ideas, and explorations, thus communicating different scales of interiority. Book collectors, called bibliophiles, revere and covet books as their object of desire. The bibliophile as seeker-collector-seller partakes of simple and complex transactions that essentially protect the lives of the books. This essay concentrates on two main book browsing locations within the urban context of Istanbul, Turkey, and the everyday interior spaces of the sahaf, the secondhand bookseller, who continues a tradition of selling new, pre-owned or secondhand ordinary or rare books. Its text moves between historic information and first-person narrative based on fieldwork to express and expand views of interiority theory, through reality and metaphor. The many scales of individual and collective impulses found inside the city streets and their inserted passage structures are exemplified by the significant simultaneity of the desire for the hand-held object and its hand-to-hand exchange.

Scriptoria and Libraries

This chapter explores the relationship between scriptoria and libraries during the Middle Ages, from the monastic houses of the early Middle Ages through the changes wrought by the universities and schools after the eleventh century. The author discusses the location of libraries and book collections within monasteries, private libraries and book collectors of the Carolingian period, the role of changing reading habits on the housing of books, the production of library booklists, the function of books withing the Mendicant orders.