UCD LIBRARY CULTURAL HERITAGE COLLECTIONS
Welcome to the UCD Library Cultural Heritage Collections blog. Discover and explore the historical treasures housed within our Archives, Special Collections, National Folklore Collection and Digital Library
You never really know what you’re going to find on a shelf in the Special Collections store room. Most shelves are laden with antiquated books in shades of autumn: rich brown leather, letters picked out in gold, threads of red and gold, all square edged and standing to attention like soldiers in formation. But there …
Continue reading "Bound Without Restraint: Artists’ Books in UCD Special Collections"
Most books contain clues relating to the many hands that made them. A rise in the appreciation for the art of the book — that is as an object — has generated a desire both to admire and to study books for their individuality and charming features, such as printers’ devices, marbled endpapers, painted fore-edges, …
Continue reading "Tiny Tickets: the mark of past booksellers & bookbinders"
Researching medieval manuscript fragments is like trying to put together a jigsaw whose pieces are largely lost. It can be difficult to know how or whether the few parts that remain fit together. The fact that fragments are scattered across different libraries and are often uncatalogued compounds this problem, so reconstructing the original manuscript relies …
Continue reading "Something old in something new – hunting for fragments in the library"
If you have spent time in our Special Collections reading room with some of our 17-20th century books, you may have marveled at some of the patterns that form the endpapers of your chosen material. While probably not the reason you have requested the book, those papers have a unique history all of their own, …
Continue reading "Marbled Papers: A Brief History of an Endangered Bookcraft"