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All 61 posts by

Sarah Werner

held a number of roles during her time at the Folger, including Editor of The Collation (2011–2015). She is the author of Studying Early Printed Books 1450-1800: A Practical Guide, co-editor of PBSA (The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America) and occasionally still writes a blog and newsletter, which can be found from her website.
Teaching and collaborating
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Teaching and collaborating

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Sarah Werner

Last weekend, the Folger Institute and the Folger Undergraduate Program held a 3-day workshop on Teaching Book History. 50 librarians and faculty gathered from a wide range of institutions—small liberal arts colleges to regional schools to highly selective research universities—bringing…

Volvelles
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Volvelles

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Sarah Werner

As three of you immediately identified in your comments, last week’s crocodile mystery was the fastening in the center of a volvelle, holding the various layers in place and allowing them to turn: volvelle from Cortes’s Breve compendio, leaf 37r…

embroidered bindings
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embroidered bindings

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Sarah Werner

So last week’s crocodile mystery was nailed by Aaron Pratt within a half-hour of my posting: what you see below is, as he notes, an embroidered binding depicting David and Goliath and covering a Book of Psalms, in this instance,…

Early modern book history: it's not just for English majors
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Early modern book history: it's not just for English majors

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Sarah Werner

Every seminar I teach on early modern book history, I like to start with a class asking what is book history? We read Robert Darnton’s essay, of course, along with pieces from D. F. McKenzie and Roger Chartier, along with…

Deciphering signature marks
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Deciphering signature marks

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Sarah Werner

So, as those of you who have spent any time working with early modern printed books probably recognized, this month’s crocodile mystery focuses on signature marks. Below is the photo I posted last week, now with the signature mark circled…

Learning from readers
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Learning from readers

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Sarah Werner

Sometimes the beauty of our blog is that we can share with you items in our collections: new acquisitions, recently restored works, or long-held pieces worth a closer look. Sometimes its beauty is that it makes it easy to share…

Armorial bindings
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Armorial bindings

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Sarah Werner

The reveal to this month’s crocodile mystery isn’t much of a reveal; both John Overholt and Philip Allfrey posted the answer in last week’s comments. It’s the stamp that George Granville Leveson-Gower, the 1st Duke of Sutherland (1758-1833) used in…

Binding clasps
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Binding clasps

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Sarah Werner

Some close observation and deductive reasoning led commenters in the right direction in solving the June crocodile mystery. Here’s image that I posted last week, with a bit more context: With that bit of the surrounding context, it’s much clearer…

John Bell, bibliographic nightmare
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John Bell, bibliographic nightmare

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Carrie Smith Sarah Werner

Some books are more challenging than others; some bibliographic questions are more complicated than others. This is the first of two posts that looks at a particularly challenging cataloging question. Today’s post will set up the challenge; the next one…

A book's fingerprints
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A book's fingerprints

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Sarah Werner

Last week’s crocodile mystery may have been a bit too mysterious, but I hope that today’s post will inspire you to look for similar mysteries on your own. Here’s a close-up detail of what I was asking about: As with…

What's that?!
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What's that?!

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Sarah Werner

A  lot of what we post at The Collation is weighty, chock full of information and detail and (I hope!) interesting facts about our collections, library work, and early modern studies. But sometimes all you want is to look at…

modern adventures in printing
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modern adventures in printing

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Sarah Werner

In keeping with the spirit of my last couple of posts, this one is also about printing, but this time as an activity that my students and I did in our Books and Early Modern Culture seminar. The Folger is…

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