“But well or poorly designed and printed, in a collector’s album or on billions of Christmas greetings each year, each stamp has a message of its own, best expressed in the words of the original good tidings of great joy!” - Belmont Faries Dear Rare Reader, We hope...
“One of the supreme pleasures available to man is knowledge, discipline, intelligence guiding the hand to create beautiful and intellectually desirable objects.” - Lewis Allen Dear Rare Reader, This blog post is the second in a three-part series. To read the preceding post, click here. — As we learned last week,...
“For if the present generation find them merely “old-fashioned,” in a few decades, they would appear “quaint” and “curious,” and finally be considered very interesting ephemerae of a very interesting period in English art production.” - Gleeson White on the subject of holiday cards Dear Rare Reader, As always,...
November is National Veterans and Military Families Month—a time to recognize the courage, sacrifice, and service of those who have defended our nation. It’s also an opportunity to preserve their stories for future generations. The Saving the Legacy Oral Histories Collection (A0864) at the University...
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...