Studiolo 2.0

Shortly after the reopening of the Girolamini Library in Naples in April of 2012 the Director, Marino Massimo de Caro, announced that 1500 books were missing (April 17). On April 20 the Library was closed by the Naples Public Prosecutor. Marino Massimo de Caro has been suspended and was investigated for embezzlement. On May 18, 1000 books, 240 of which have ownership stamps from the Girolamini Library were found in storage in Massimo Marino de Caro’s home city of Verona, and on May 24 Mr. de Caro was arrested on the charge of embezzlement along with four others; a search warrant is out for a fifth. In the meantime Massimo Marino de Caro has confessed to the theft of thousands of books from the library and is cooperating with police in tracing them.
A number of stolen items from the library have been confiscated by the authorities in Munich (16 items), London (28 items), New York and Tokyo(uncertain numbers). According to what is currently known and what Massimo Marino de Caro has confessed so far, it is very likely that the number of stolen books from the Girolamini Library is higher than 1500 but no definitive list of missing items has been published by Italian authorities so far. It appears also to be clear that the stolen books were spread out via the trade in several countries, in both Europe and elsewhere.

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—	The Girolamini Library Thefts: a message from ILAB President Arnoud Gerits: Category-Specific Boards: eBay Discussion Boards (via archivalia)

Dr Janina Ramirez unlocks the secrets of illuminated manuscripts that were custom-made for kings, and explores the medieval world they reveal. In this episode, the story of the British Library’s Royal Manuscripts collection reaches its end with the last great flowering of illumination, in the magnificent courts of the Tudors. She investigates astrological texts created for Henry VII, and unwraps his will - still in its original, extravagantly-decorated velvet and gold cover. She hears music written for Henry VIII, which went unperformed for centuries; and reads love notes between the king and Anne Boleyn, written in the margins of a prayer book. Nina also visits Bruges, the source of many of the greatest manuscripts, where this medieval art form collided with the artistic innovations of the Renaissance.

BBC Four, 2011/2012

The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu 1 of 5 - BBC Travel Documentary, recorded 17.04.2010

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Photo: The Timbuktu Manuscripts showing both mathematics and astronomy.

Inspired by Archivalia.

Bibliothèque humaniste à Sélestat (= Bibliothèque de l’Ecole Latine de Sélestat et Bibliothèque de l’ humaniste Beatus Rhenanus), fondée en 1452.

For the friends of humanist libraries…!

1) Ten gifts. All accounted for. And that, it seems, is the end of our story. Somebody who chose and whose neighbors chose to never identify spent the spring, summer and fall expressing her thanks for the continuing existence of libraries, museums and books in Scotland, ‘a tiny gesture,’ she called it. - Tiny, yes, but also, in its way, very grand.

2) The local newspaper recently speculated that a city art student was the sculptor. But for me, finding out would spoil the fun. In a strange way the anonymity feels like a collective voice speaking up for all who share a fondness for libraries, at a time when many need support.

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—	1) Robert Krulwitch: The Library Phantom Returns (Blog). 2) Michael McLeod: Edinburgh book sculptures turn the page, in: Books Blog, guardian.co.uk, 2011-12-01

Occupy Boston is not the only protest site with its own library. In New York, Occupy Wall Street has one, as do encampments in Los Angeles, Portland, Ore., and elsewhere. The library at Occupy Wall Street is more vulnerable to the elements because protesters there are not allowed to have tents.

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—	Jess Bidgood: Occupying Boston and Beyond, With Tent Libraries for All, in: nytimes.com, 2011-10-21.

Kederminster Library Restoration

Kederminster Library is a collection of 300 theological works that came to Buckinghamshire County Council in 1945, as part of a purchase of ‘Green Belt’ land at Langley, in South Buckinghamshire. The Library is still housed in the highly-ornate room at St Mary’s Church, Langley Marish, provided by Sir John Kederminster in 1623 and is now being restored. This video shows the progress that has been made in the restoration work so far.

Part Two

Part Three

WHAT ABOUT E-READERS? You’re talking to a curator of printed books. I have nothing against readers. I like to read the printed book.

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—	John Bidwell, quoted in: Sam Roberts: Experience Necessary. A Life in Libraries, Thanks to Gutenberg, in: nytimes.com, 2011-06-22.

‘I am a poet who wrote himself out when young and then went mad,’ Gascoyne said in later life. But he never lost his appetite for squibs and pamphlets. His library illustrates a life devoted to offbeat publications and unlikely enthusiasms.

There are names here that were once braided into contemporary literary consciousness, but now fallen into neglect: Kathleen Raine, Jeremy Reed and Pierre Jean Jouve. Every Printed Page is a snapshot of a lost world: numerous volumes of Penguin Poets, editions of now-forgotten little magazines. In the age of the app and the ebook, it’s hard to imagine such a world of print surviving another century.

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Robert McCrum: A fitting eulogy for the lost surrealist. The library catalogue of the experimental poet David Gascoyne opens up an extraordinary vanished world, [Review of “Every Printed Page is a Swinging Door”, a privately printed catalogue of the experimental poet David Gascoyne’s library, compiled by the eminent bibliophile and rare-book dealer James Fergusson], in: The Observer, 2011-07-03.

Bild: Patrick Swift: David Gascoyne (1916-2001), 1958 [s. l.]