Reading.com

Registration Closes June 30th:

Location: 12345 El Monte Rd., Los Altos Hills CA.

Course description.

210 BCE
The Chinese Emperor, Quin Shi Huang, burned most of the extant books of the time and executed many of the leading scholars in his kingdom.

1483
Printing was forbidden to the Turkish population by command of the Sultan Bajazet II and again, in 1515 by Selim I.

1562
Friar Diego de Landa conducted an auto-da-fe in Mani, when he burned 27 books in Maya writing, leaving only 4 Mayan books for scholars to puzzle over.

1933
20,000 books are burned by the Nazis in a Berlin public square. Books that Goebbels referred to as holding “….the unclean spirit of the past.”

1981
Sri Lankan policemen and other government sponsored enforcers set fire to the Jaffina Public Library destroying 97,000 volumes, including many culturally important and irreplaceable manuscripts.

1992
During the Bosnian War, the Oriental Institute was attacked and 5263 bound manuscripts were destroyed along with hundreds of thousands of Ottoman documents.

On March 5th 2007, a car bomb was exploded on Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. Mutanabbi Street is in a mixed Shia-Sunni area. More than 30 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded. This locale is the historic center of Baghdad bookselling, a winding street filled with bookstores and outdoor book stalls. Named after the famed 10th century classical Arab poet, al-Mutanabbi, this is an old and established street for bookselling and has been for hundreds of years. Mutanabbi Street also holds cafes, stationery shops, and even tea and tobacco shops. It has been the heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community.

Any group that wants to control a people also wants to control the content of every printed page, and they inevitably come to regard any other unsanctioned page as a possible threat. Those that targeted Mutanabbi Street were— are, as much affronted by any novelist or poet as they are by any political or religious tract. They want ultimate control, and they will kill as many as they need to, until no other voice but their own leaves the printed page. Oppression extracts not just a terrible human toll, but it also subtracts the words and images of the writers/artists who hold and express the cultural memory of any people.

This is our starting point: where language, thought, and reality reside; where memory, ideas, and even dreams wait patiently in their black ink. We are extending our call to letterpress printers to contribute a personal response to the bombing on Mutanabbi Street. To date, we have received 42 broadsides which may be viewed at the Florida Atlantic University/Jaffe Center for Book Arts site.

We would like to add to our existing archive, to bring the total to 130 broadsides, which is the approximate number of people killed and wounded on Mutanabbi Street that day.

Western NY Book Arts Collaborative is pleased to announce that we have acquired a building that will house presses, equipment, workshop & gallery space. Additional tenants with like minded goals will also complement the space. A full outline of this dynamic project will be unveiled in Summer 2008 during TypeCon which is being hosted in Buffalo, July 15-20

Also today is the last day for EARLY registration for Typecon.

If you are a member of WNYBAC or SOTA, you get the Early member discount rate.

Introduction to Digital Letterpress Printing
With Stacey Stern of Steracle Press

10 Weeks from July 22nd – September 16th
Tuesdays 7 – 10 p.m.

$360 ($25 for materials)

In this ten-week class for beginners, you will learn how to make your
very own polymer plates, and print your designs from them.  Stacey
will take you from your computer image, to film, to plates, to the
press.  You will learn how to operate the equipment, mix inks,
register plates, and print.  In the early sessions, Stacey will
discuss the traditions of printing, and guide you to the modern
adaptations that are possible with photopolymer plates.  There will be
time to work on either your own or a collaborative group project.
Basic computer skills are required - Adobe Illustrator a plus.

Class size is limited to 6 participants.

Letterpress WOW!
With April Sheridan

Saturday & Sunday
July 26 – 27th 10:00 – 4:00

$180 ($10 for materials)

Come for a quick and creative introduction to the world of traditional
letterpress printing from wood type. Play with furniture, type sticks,
reglet and lock-up bars.  Learn new meanings for deadlines and
registration.  April has lots of fun facts  about the history of wood
type, and can help you explore how letterforms can be used as images.
The class will collaborate to make a unique group project.  Each
participant will have a copy to take away at the end of the day on
Sunday.

Class size is limited to 6 participants.

Workshops are held at:

The Evanston Print & Paper Shop

1125 Florence

Evanston, Illinois

To register contact Eileen or Vanessa at:

847.475.7674

or

eileen@evanstonprintandpaper.com

vanessa@evanstonprintandpaper.com

June 16 to August 28, 2008
Dorothy W. & F. Otto Haas Gallery
The Athenæum of Philadelphia, East Washington Square
Monday-Friday, 9:00am-5:00pm; Admission is free

The Athenæum of Philadelphia, in collaboration with the Philadelphia Center for the Book, invites you to an exhibition of book arts combining book illustration and designed covers from the Athenæum’s Rare Book collections with the work of five contemporary artists. Supported by a grant from the Samuel S. Fels Fund, this exhibition looks back to the Arts and Crafts movement while also featuring contemporary approaches to book arts. Acknowledging the influential work of designers and illustrators such as William Morris, Edmund Dulac, and Edward Burne-Jones, the Athenæum chiefly relies in this exhibition on works by Margaret Armstrong, the Decorative Designers, Elbert Hubbard of the Roycrofters, and Will Bradley, among others. These traditional designs, some drawn from the legacy of the Athenæum lending collection and others recently added through the gift of Evan Hopkins Turner, display next to books by Cynthia Back, John Fatula, Maria G. Pisano, Maddy Rosenberg, and Elysa Voshell.

A COLLABORATION WITH THE PHILADELPHIA CENTER FOR THE BOOK

FUNDED BY A GRANT FROM THE SAMUEL S. FELS FUND

Group tours may be arranged by calling Eileen Magee at 215-925-2688.

The new issue of the Caxtonian is out with a lead article on bookmaking in Vancouver.

The new update of their 1977 Reader’s Digest’s New Fix-It-Yourself Manual dropped the section on book repair to make room for Teddy Bear repair. Sigh!