Write, Reuse, Recycle: The Lives of Early Books

AS360.157.13

Intersession 2018

Instructor: Dr. Neil Weijer / Tu/Th 11:30-1:30
/ BLC 2043:Macksey Seminar Room
Office: BLC Special Collections, by Appointment

Course Overview

What happened to premodern books after they were created, and how do those re-uses, abuses, accidents, and recyclings affect the way we see books today? Today, medieval manuscripts and early printed books are among a library’s most precious and closely-protected treasures. Yet while these books have always been valuable objects, for most of their existence that value was inextricably tied to their use – both as text and as material. This course follows some of the uses and re-uses of medieval manuscripts and early printed books using materials in our special collections. While the materials we will work with date, for the most part, from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the focus will be on understanding what features and innovations defined these books first in their own time, and then in the centuries that followed.

The aims of the course are twofold. First, students will follow these books through their life cycles, working collaboratively to trace their travels across time and space, and studying them as objects that were made to be used, rather than kept locked away. In the process, we will identify and discuss the main types of evidence preserved in books along with their texts: annotations, censorship, and ownership chief among them.

The second aim is to tie the history ofbook use (and abuse) to the changing role of books in society. Books could be preserved as symbols of cutting-edge technology, containers of venerable knowledge, or even as objects of heritage and nostalgia. The evidence preserved in medieval books can tell us a good deal about how societies treated the past and what they valued in it at different periods of history.

Course Goals: During this three week course, students will

  • Learn to distinguish, describe, and compare the unique features of manuscripts and early printed books from the Middle Ages and Early Modern Europe
  • Investigate the numerous communities that were involved in the making and reading of medieval and early modern books, and survey the different ways modern scholars use books as historical evidence.
  • Examine the role that technological developments played in changing the ways books were read and used up to our own day, by conducting original research using digital tools, and presenting it in an online format.

Course Format

Class sessions will generally be divided into two fifty minute periods with a break in between, although some session will be more hands-on than others. Discussion sessions will focus on the assigned readings for each class, while the workshop periods will be devoted to the direct application of those topics or skills to books in the library’s special collections.

Unless otherwise noted, all sessions will take place in the Macksey Seminar Room (BLC 2043). Bags, food/drink, and pens are not permitted in the room while rare books are being worked on, but can be left in the lockers by the special collections reading room or near the B-Level stairwell.

The course will use Reveal to allow for collaboration, as well as the preservation of student research done on the books in our collections. Over the three week course, student exercises and workshop material will be posted on the site, so that the information gathered about the books we work on can be seen by the entire class, and which ties student observations to images of the books. More information about the platform can be found at

Assignments and Grading

Participation and Attendance (45%): Engagement with the material and collaboration with your classmates are critical for successful completion of the class – each session builds upon the one that has come before it. Students who miss more than one session will not receive credit for the course.

Reflection Assignments (40%): Materials for these assignments will be gathered in the workshop sessions, short (<500 word) write-ups to be posted to the class site by the start of the following session.

Final Discussion and Post(15%): Choose one book from the site and describe its life cycle. What do we know about it? How do different technical and technological approaches allow us to see it in different ways? What should we look for in books?

Academic Integrity

I expect and trust that the students in this class will submit thoughtful and original work, and will provide due credit to their classmates and resources for their contributions. Above and beyond the protocols and punishments for plagiarism are detailed by Johns Hopkins, ( cheating of any kind is a breach of this trust and will be punished severely.
Schedule and Readings

  • Discussion:How do we describe medieval books?
  • Workshop: Let’s get started– Using the topics from discussion, describe one part of one of our working books in detail.

Thursday, 1/11: Bits of Books II: Printers and “Print Culture”

Readings: JohannTrithemius, In Praise of Scribes; LotteHellinga: William Caxton and Early Printing in England;Joseph Dane, “The Myth of Print Culture.”

  • Discussion: To Print or Not to Print?
  • Workshop: Deep dive – What challenges needed to be addressed by the makers of this book? If we think of it as being produced in layers, what do those layers reveal about the choices that printers, artists, and buyers made.

Week II: Reuse

Tuesday, 1/16: Reading, Re-reading, Un-reading

Readings: William Sherman, Used Books, 1-24; Ann Blair, “Reading Strategies for Coping with Information Overload, ca. 1550-1700.”

  • Discussion: The Archaeology of Reading
  • Workshop: Solve a puzzle – Decode or explain one or two aspects of the annotations in the book you are working with. What has the annotator used the book for? How many different people do you think have written in it? Make sure to include the resources you used to track down your leads in your post.

Thursday 1/18: Save the Books! Book Hunters and Private Collectors

Readings: CharlesNodier, The Bibliomaniac (1831); Walter Benjamin, “Unpacking my Library”

  • Discussion: How did we get our books?
  • Workshop: Early books in Baltimore – trace the ownership history of incunabula in the George Peabody Library.

Week III: Recycle

Tuesday 1/23:Save the Pieces! Recycling, Compiling, Conserving

  • Visit to Conservation Lab (C-Level): Discussion of modern preservation techniques
  • Workshop: Piecing Together – analyze a fragment found in one of our books: what does it tell you about how the book would have looked or could have been used? Where could you go to find other examples?

Thursday 1/25: Rare Book Revival: Private Presses, Digital Libraries

Reading: “The Arts and Crafts Movement and its Heritage” inMeggs’ History of Graphic Design(2012);William Morris, Note on his aims for the Kelmscott press(1893)

  • Workshop: Compare the features of nineteenth-century books with those of the incunabula.
  • Discussion: Where do we go from here? What can the long history of books tell us about their usefulness? What role has technology played in bringing those histories to light?

Final reflection posts due at the start of the session

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