On Friday, May 3rd, 2019, there will be an Open House in the Barchas Room of Green Library featuring recent acquisitions in medieval and early modern manuscripts, printed books, and other new materials. One of the new items on display will be a collection of rare handwritten documents from fifteenth-century Bologna, a main center of Inquisition activity in Italy, related to trials and investigations involving Jews--which is unusual since the Inquisition in Italy focused more on combating Christian heresy.
John Mustain is retiring as the Rare Books Curator for the Stanford Libraries at the end of April, 2019. John has been with the Stanford Libraries for 35+ years both as a Rare Books Cataloger and subsequently as the Rare Books Curator. John is a bit of a legend within the Libraries and amongst the Stanford faculty and graduate students … and deservedly so.
Stanford Libraries has a sizable collection of facsimiles of rare manuscripts that are used in research and teaching. Just to name a few, we have facsimiles of unique manuscripts such as the Book of Kells, the Codex Manesse, Boccaccio's Decameron, and many more.
February will be a busy month for booklovers and the book community in the Bay Area and beyond, with a delightful buffet of events and opportunities to enjoy:
A new online exhibit, Beautiful Books: A collection of some of Stanford's rare and antiquarian books, highlights Special Collections' efforts to digitize books with unique or noteworthy features. It includes fine examples of engraved and woodcut illustrations, astronomical diagrams, typographical innovation, fine bindings, and more. The books are artifacts of multiple points throughout history, from the earliest printing in the late 1400's to the 20th century.
We are pleased to announce that Brian Bethel has joined our Redwood City team as our Rare Books Copy Cataloger! Please join us in welcoming him to the department.
Brian will be familiar to some as he has been working as a Processing Assistant in Special Collections for about a year. He has been focusing on collections associated with Silicon Valley, and has written several blog articles about his work. He will continue that processing work, and on Nov. 19 he will add rare books cataloging to his repertoire.
The Archives is pleased to announce that the original copy of the Founding Grant is now available online: https://purl.stanford.edu/rb803rc6397. Although previously available in other formats, this is the first time that this one of a kind treasure, now preserved in the Archives, is available in all of its glory.
The Stanford Libraries have recently acquired a copy of Thomas Laird's Murals of Tibet, published by TASCHEN Books. This rare 498- paged item, measuring 19.7 x 27.6 inches and featuring a number of life-size reproductions of Tibetan Buddhist murals, is one of only a thousand copies produced.
![Sophoclis trageodiae septem... [Haguenau, France: Ex officina Seceriana, 1534] (Stanford Libraries Department of Special Collections PA4413 .A2 1534). Photo by Elizabeth Ryan.](https://library.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/styles/150xh/public/blog/image/sophocles_a.jpg?itok=JxC2FxAy)
