Booksellers do more than sell books—they preserve history, connect readers with rare finds, and keep the literary marketplace alive. "The Peddler" from Das Ständebuch (Book of Trades) By Jost Amman & Hans Sachs New York: Dover Publications, 1973 PT1762 E8 1973 Join us on Friday, November 21 from 6:00-8:00 pm in...
The Rare Books Department invites you to view its most recent virtual lecture: Books to Die for. This October has been a frighteningly busy month for the University of Utah’s Rare Books Department as we prepared for our spookiest event of the year, “BOO!ks to Die For,”...
Every page begins as a piece of paper, but not all paper is as plain as it seems. When you lift a sheet toward the light, you might notice a shadowed emblem: a fleur-de-lys, a jester, or a delicate line of text woven into the fibers....
"I think about food the way I think about art and literature. I think of them all as these really simple, effective links. They all kind of create their own systems of communication." - Sandra Trujillo Wednesday, October 15, marked the final day of Hispanic Heritage Month. The...
Some books have secrets… Have you ever noticed the decorated edges of your old books? Sometimes gilded, marbled, or speckled in red, these embellishments give the book a more precious appearance, but also add an additional protective layer for the text block. If you look more...
This October, in collaboration with Bookish SLC, the Rare Books Department invites you to step beyond the library’s familiar daylight glow and into the dark and twisted corners of book history. The veil between this world and the next will lift at precisely 6:00 p.m. on...
Books have long been more than vessels of knowledge; they are objects of commerce shaped by the interplay of market forces, entrepreneurial ambition, and shifting patterns of consumer demand. At the core of this history is the book as both artifact and investment. The qualities...
"On leaf of pam, on sedge-wrought roll, On plastic clay and leathern scroll, Man wrote his thoughts; the ages passed, And to! the Press was found at last!" - John Greenleaf Whitter, The Library What are Palm Leaf Manuscripts? Before the introduction of paper, palm leaf manuscripts were the most popular writing...
Happy Birthday D.H. Lawrence! “For him the novel was not the exposition of a thesis about people, but an adventure of the soul.” – Richard Aldington on D.H. Lawrence [caption id="attachment_34600" align="aligncenter" width="450"] D.H. Lawrence: a complete list of his works...
“Because one who does not know how to write thinks it no labour, I will describe it for you, if you want to know how great is the burden of writing: it mists the eyes, it curves the back, it breaks the belly and the...