taking gloves off
Excepting photographic materials, gloves are
not to be used in handling traditional library materials. It also turns out that “real sushi cannot be prepared using gloves”. An
item in today’s New York Times reports the complications with use of latext gloving in food preparation. Another encouragement for
haptic responsibility as advocated
here (and elsewhere) at FotB.
“Interestingly, the capabilities of the haptic sense, and of somatic sense in general have been traditionally underrated. How would it feel like losing your sense of touch? Rather surprisingly, this is a catastrophic deficit. It makes it almost impossible to walk or perform other skilled actions such as holding objects or using tools. This highlights the critical and subtle capabilities of touch and somatic senses in general.”
bound and determined
FotB was honored to to speak at the
Society of Printers at the
Club of Odd Volumes in Boston. It was an enchanted evening in a 19th c. dining hall filled with bibliophiles. After dinner we took our chairs into the Library where Scott-Martin Kosofsky intoduced me as the “anthropologist of the book”.
Then I took the train to Bryn Mawr College for a repeat of the 1972 Philadelphia
conference on the history of book binding in the United States. As in 1972 Willman Spawn presided with grace, wit, and endless scholarly command. Included in the events was the spectacular Canaday Library exhibit of American Ticketed Bookbindings.
The FotB contribution to the bookbinding history conference
Advent of Case Construction in U.S. including Power Point. Also watch the Library Company Conservation department for
study aids on cloth binding history.
see what you mean
The weird thing about the
TeleRead blog is that the discussion is going on between YOUNG people. There is actual positioning here relative to print and screen formats.
polarity every which way
George Lakoff in Thinking Points contends that there are few authentic moderates in political issues and no authentic moderate positions. In stead we are each a composite, frequently contradictory, of conservative and liberal positions.
So here at FotB the next question is how such a reality plays out in any print vs. screen reading positions. More likely that individuals are not polarized either in their reading behaviors or in any average distribution of their reading formats. And what about a polarity between progressive and reactionary reading preference? Again, each person is likely to be “biconceptual” in the Lakoff terms. Perhaps the only single alignment to be espoused is pro-literacy and advocacy for a multiplexity of reading skills