Dominicans Saving Libraries in Iraq

From NPR:

"There have been Dominican monks in the city of Mosul since about 1750. They amassed a library of thousands of ancient manuscripts and say they brought the printing press to Iraq in the early 1800s...As an Islamist insurgency roiled Mosul in 2008, monks smuggled their library out, bit by bit...'The father or mother try to save the first thing--the children,' [Fr. Michaeel] says. 'So these books [are] my children."

Read the whole story here.

Pray for all Christians in the Middle East.

Monuments Men: Fact and Fiction

When I first heard that Robert Edsel's Monuments Men was being made into a feature film, I was excited. The stories he captured about Allied efforts to save art, historic buildings, libraries, and archives in the wake of WWII are harrowing, remarkable, and inspiring, and make for perfect movie fodder. Plus, who doesn't like a feel-good museum story? The A-list casting made me skeptical (and George Clooney directing? Really?), but an extended preview featuring interviews with the cast about their passion for sharing the stories of the American Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) division and art preservation had me reassured (I'm also generally a sucker for Matt Damon films). But ultimately, the film disappointed me.

It fell short in so many of the ways films fail when they dramatize historical vignettes. With the exception of Jean Dujardin and Cate Blanchett, no members of the main cast were believable as art experts. The way in which the film played-up the team as 'mistfit soldiers' didn't allow the characters' individual stories as artists to breathe. I did enjoy Dmitri Leonidas' portrayal of Sam Epstein (Harry Ettlinger in real life), who had a soft, but striking personal narrative as a Jewish-American immigrant. But mostly, it felt as if I was seeing a caricature of the MFAA, rather than earnest stories. 

I was especially disappointed and irritated by the film's portrayal of Rose Valland (Claire Simon in the film-more French-sounding for American audiences, I guess?), who was arguably the most important figure in the preservation and recovery of French art during the war. This unassuming but sharp museum overseer remains one of the most decorated women in French history for her work in the Jeu de Paume during the war. First, the film deprives her of her credit by renaming her character (many of the men in the film kept their real names), and then creates a completely fictional, awkward, and gratuitous sexual tension between her and James Granger (played by Matt Damon). Instead of the intelligent, meticulous, and driven museum patriot she was, these moments in the film make her seem much more like a pathetic old maid who is desperate for male attention. A real missed opportunity to highlight a true heroine of WWII. You can read more about Rose Valland and other women of the Monuments Men here.

Roosevelt Island: Confrontational Reading

I rarely ever carry my camera with me, especially on long runs and hikes (too much looking through the lens instead of at what's in front of it), but I wish I had brought it along on my run this morning. On my trek over the river, I spent some time at the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial on the island. Flanking the central statue of Roosevelt himself are four giant stone panels with some of his most memorable words. A nice little hidden inspirational place. Below is an image of one of the panels. I have reproduced the text of the others below. I was so struck by the timeliness of Teddy's proverbs. Hardly anyone seems to favor 'righteousness over peace' anymore. Conservation, both in respect to natural resources and intellectual and cultural heritage, continues to have a reputation as a static, rather than dynamic activity. And the world, in various regions, seems unduly obsessed with 'order without liberty' and promoting 'liberty without order.' I just love how the bold and chiseled words confront and challenge the viewer so directly (each panel is probably taller than 20'). I think public sculpture plays a surprisingly important role in nurturing contemplation, especially when books are increasingly being sold and consumed as entertainment.

MANHOOD

A man's usefulness

depends upon his living up to

HIS IDEALS

in so far as he can

Making Christmas Books

During my time in college and grad school, I had the great pleasure of working in book preservation, which was both fun and relaxing. After hours of class and studying, there was nothing like sewing pamphlets and re-casing books to make me feel both productive and rejuvenated. A special pleasure comes from constructing books by hand, seemingly creating something out of nothing.

This year, as in the past, I embarked on some Christmas book-making. I decided to make a sketchbook for one of my relatives.

Getting started with book-binding can require a substantial initial investment in tools and supplies (there is always the pipe dream of having my own iron book press...). I splurged this year and acquired some colorful linen thread, and also made my own book cloth using material from this fabulous fabric boutique in Chicago (they have the rare distinction of making me excited about fabric shopping-and they have an online store!). 

Supplies, ready to go.

Books have two major parts-the text block and the case or boards. I first made my book cloth using the fabric, iron-on adhesive, and tissue paper, and adhered that and the endpapers to the boards. Next, I assembled the text block by cutting down letter-size paper and folding the sheets into individual signatures, or gatherings of 10 pages each. I then marked and punctured holes in the signatures and boards for sewing.

Signatures and boards, ready to be sewn.

Since a sketchbook was the desired result, I opted to bind my book by sewing the boards and signatures together with a Coptic stitch, which is both easier than making a full case (no glue required) and provides a functional and attractive result. Coptic binding allows for the book to lay open flat on its own-perfect for a sketchbook.

The finished product.

Sometime in the near future I'll be working on a regular full case, and will post pictures then. If you'd like to see some beautiful examples of bookbinding from more seasoned and gifted artists, search for journals or hand-made books on Etsy or through a Google image search.

Merry Christmas!

Book Apocalypse-Not Now

Almost as soon as e-books came on the scene, there have been talks of the demise of the book as we have long known it. These doomsday predictions are far from being true. While rapid technological reform (a more accurate term than 'progress' I think) has become the norm in today's world, it is far too soon to make such a forecast about books. E-books have been on the market in a significant way since just the mid-2000s; the codex has existed in virtually unchanged form for more than 1,500 years. In just that short time, we have already discovered that the amazing convenience and storage capacity of e-readers come with a price, with draconian (i.e. anti-sharing and ownership) DRM policies and rapid generational updates ensuring that e-readers function without some of the most useful features of the traditional codex.

          

While I am quick to refute those who claim the traditional book has run its course, I am often disappointed by the overly-sentimental apologias that are usually put forward by defenders of the traditional codex. The chorus of sappy humanists defending books on the basis of emotional significance and sensory experience (see here and here) does contain a few grains of truth, but books don't need such a subjective appeal in their defense. It makes for nice drama and all, but the traditional codex will not continue to endure because of its emotional power (or use as an ironic prop), but rather due to their remarkable technological persistence. The practical value of books lies in their function and design-not aesthetics.

Quo Vadis: What is the Future of Catholic Libraries?

Whenever I encourage people to make more use out of their local library, there are several commons complaints that I receive. Checking out books from the library takes too much time or energy, the hours aren't ideal, the book I want is always checked out, they never have what I want to read, etc., etc. Quite often the last complaint is the one I hear most often from those who are making valiant efforts to regularly fit some good spiritual reading into their schedule. It is true-you are unlikely to find titles like Boylan's Difficulties in Mental Prayer in your local public library. I was amazed that there were the likes of some classic Chesterton, Fulton Sheen, and St. Josemaria (albeit very old and worn out copies) in the massive stacks of my very secular graduate school library. Despite the size and relative breadth of the collection (over 7 million volumes), I was often disappointed that what I most longed to read could not be found. As Coleridge would say, water water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.

Catholics and other individuals who want to read good Catholic books faced with this situation today have a few options:

• Request the desired titles at the local public library. Wait an eternity for them to be ordered and processed if the library does not own the item(s) already and actually decides to purchase them.
• Exercise their resourcefulness by scouring all the local parish and university/seminary libraries. Even if the desired title is found, access to it is usually restricted by parish membership or university affiliation (which in some cases can be purchased for a fee of $50/semester).
• Just buy the darned thing, ensuring relatively quick and on-going access for reading and reference.

All three courses of action can, I think, positively contribute to the preservation of Catholic book collections, but I think that the last will be particularly crucial to this task.

Preservation Week: April 22-28, 2012

It is quite busy as this last semester comes to a close, but this week is also Preservation Week! As I currently work in preservation, and since conservation served as my first window into the world of librarianship, I have a soft spot for preservation in my heart.

Everyone who uses libraries plays a role in the preservation process. Just by keeping food & liquids away from books, refraining from marking in library materials, and carefully handling them, you are helping library items last longer. But when books fall victim to aging, wear and tear, and natural disasters, conservators come to save the day.

In a sense, library preservation owes a great deal to mother nature. The 1966 floor of the Arno river in Florence, Italy was the mother of all modern library disasters. Alli Burness has a great post about the event here: