Notices by John Overholt (overholt@glammr.us)

I love lamp. https://www.bonhams.com/auction/31425/lot/29/enea-ferrari-1908-1980-lampe-de-table-toucan/

This fall I hosted a class on shipwreck literature and happened to find two 18th century pamphlets telling radically opposing narratives about how a ship called the Nottingham came to wreck off the cost of Maine in 1710. https://qcurtius.com/2023/11/11/the-nightmare-wreck-of-the-nottingham-galley/

Today the professor sent me a link to a video the students made as a final project, giving dramatic readings from the two pamphlets. It made me so happy to see them so engaged with primary sources and bringing them to life!

Newly digitized: one of our two copies of Copernicus's De Revolutionibus (1543) and this simple but groundbreaking diagram of a solar system in which Earth orbits the Sun. https://nrs.lib.harvard.edu/urn-3:fhcl.hough:105279774

The American Antiquarian Society has made scans of 40,000 pieces of American ephemera, previously only available through a subscription database, accessible for free through its catalog. https://pastispresent.org/2025/good-sources/ephemera-explored-over-40000-new-images-give-glimpses-into-19th-century-american-life/

Arnold Schoenberg archives destroyed in Pacific Palisades fire. https://slippedisc.com/2025/01/disaster-arnold-schoenberg-archive-is-destroyed-in-la-fires/

Many libraries are reviewing their collections for telltale green bindings that could hold a dangerous surprise for today’s readers—arsenic. https://smallnotes.library.virginia.edu/2024/12/30/identifying-arsenical-books/

There are some clues that this is not really the handwritten logbook of Columbus’s second voyage to the Americas, chief among them that it’s written in English. https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2024/12/choose-wisely.html

I feel like people in other countries can’t really comprehend how much ice an American wants in a drink.

However much ice you’re currently imagining I promise you it’s not enough.

Astonishing pencil drawings (yes, you read that right) of metallic objects. https://www.spoon-tamago.com/kohei-ohmori-pencil-drawings/
Via @clive ‘s highly recommended Linkfest newsletter. Slogan: “The opposite of doomscrolling”

There’s something so compelling about color photography from the era that your instincts tell you the world should be depicted in black and white. https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/albert-kahns-archives-of-the-planet/

Applications are due January 17th for Houghton Library's next cycle of visiting fellowships, a $4500 stipend to support four weeks of research in our collections: https://library.harvard.edu/grants-fellowships/houghton-library-visiting-fellowships

An insider tip: take particular note if your work falls under one of the more narrowly targeted fellowships.

AI that sometimes generates true information when true information is needed, and sometimes generates indistinguishably false information, is not better than nothing. It is in fact considerably worse than nothing.

The Hippocratic Oath for librarianship needs to start with "First, tell no lies."

From a 1916 guide to writing in library hand, a must in the age of the handwritten catalog card. https://curiouscatalog.tumblr.com/post/769053727776702464/let-us-practice-the-ancient-skills-of-our

Charles Babbage *really* hated buskers.

I am not myself a fountain pen guy, but I know my following well enough to know there will be some interest in an auction of exceptionally expensive fountain pens. https://www.bonhams.com/auction/30890/the-art-of-writing-a-collectors-rarities/

I probably need a little more time to consider a decision like that.

Hooray, it’s a collection of 14,000 public domain woodcuts from the Plantin-Moretus Museum! https://collectie.antwerpen.be/impressedbyplantin/all-woodcuts via @metafilter

A 1648 bibliography of works on the Virgin Mary, with a delightful frontispiece depicting authors offering their works to her. (I’m thinking about a possible future exhibition on books depicted within books, and this would be perfect.) #newacquisition #newacq

An absolutely astonishing piece of historical detection that has rewritten our understanding an 18th century portrait of one of the most learned Black men of the period. Works best I think in this lecture video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZEAiXl6hNY Also available as an LRB article: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n22/fara-dabhoiwala/a-man-of-parts-and-learning via @metafilter

The Rosenbach is one of a number of libraries working on projects to revise their cataloging to give names to women formerly only identified as “Mrs. [Husband]” https://rosenbach.org/blog/the-portrait-of-a-lady-reparative-cataloging-at-the-rosenbach/