Book Traces

The Book Traces event was very enlightening! At this event, I got to take away an idea about books that I had never thought about before. For me I love the ability to hold a physical book in my hands. Reading from a computer is fine in short spurts, but a novel deserves to be read from paper. While I am sure a lot of people do not feel the same way this event just renewed my faith in how important physical books are. Each book that we saw was like a time capsule holding flowers, hair, toys, or stories of people’s lives. These people did not have a claim to fame, but their stories are powerful and enlightening. I personally have a family bible that I put flowers in after each family member has passed. It’s a way to remember them even after they have gone. It never occurred to me that books can be stories and pieces of history in themselves. These books can hold a look into a person’s life that would have been lost if discarded. I hope this project is expanded so more books can be collected so not to lose a hidden part of history.  While I understand, the digital age is here and never going away my hope is that more people get to see this event.  People need to see that some books can hold more stories then just the printed one.

Book Traces

Book Traces was a very interesting course. I really like the way the professor, Andrew Stauffer, showed how annotations and note-taking were different the modern world than in the past. It was like looking at several ancient artifacts from the past. People seem to have felt different about books as tools. Though readers then and now have the same idea about reader response theory, their interpretations were different. I feel that the reason reader responses changed is because of the separate realities which we live in. In our own modern world, we have technology that remains central to our every day lives. People can exchange information not only to our friends, but with people from around the entire world. Individuals use television as their primary source of news. Whereas in the past, the only way to reach someone was through telegrams or telephones. The only source of news individuals had was whatever newspaper they could even get. It seems that books were, and still are, the most central form of communication. Even with the existence of the internet, people still take the time to write books, fiction or nonfiction, to communicate their thoughts and ideas. And people still read them. Even though technology is integral for most of our every day needs, we still turn to old fashion technologies to gain different insights on different subjects. I am glad to have attended Andrew Stauffer’s Book Traces, because now I have new insight on how people exchanged information with one another.

Book Traces

Book Traces was my favorite extra credit event for this course thus far. It was interesting to learn how books were used in such different ways; they were more than just reading tools. People bonded through books, they were gifts, and much more. I hope this movement gains even more success than it already has in such a short period of time. The more people who are aware of these hidden gems that libraries hold, the more books will be found and evaluated. It is so ironic, yet fascinating that there are real life stories embedded within the basic story (the existing book). The technology that exists today easily allows us to really find out the root of what was in the books. It’s exciting, and this could come in handy one day.

I really appreciate the fact that Stauffer took the time and visited Stevenson all the way from Virginia. I believe it would be a great idea for him to continue to travel to other universities, libraries, and etc. to educate people on this. It would be a shame for books to be overlooked and thrown away when there is so much to discover. The success he has thus far already had proves that he is onto something.

Book Traces with Dr. Andrew Stauffer

The Book Traces presentation in the library by Dr. Stauffer was pretty incredible. The amount of history that can be extracted from notes within the marginalia of Victorian-era books is very deep and thanks to modern technologies like google, able to be explored. He estimated that 12.5% of Victorian-era books contain significant historical marginalia. Dr. Stauffer’s process of looking up who people were and their relationships based on their marginalia so many years later almost seems like science-fiction.

The frequency of physical artifacts found within the books was also something really unusual that caught my attention. Sewing needles, locks of hair, and dolls as well as botanical insertions are all common within these older books. The botanical insertion portion was especially interesting as we were able to follow how a habit or action by people (inserting a flower into a book) became practice by publisher’s incorporating printed flowers and other botanical designs into the margins and illustrations where people normally would press one in. This practice evolved into layers of images being incorporated into the works of writer’s like Wordsworth. Images in works like that were connected to other images that sprawled over pages in a psychedelic style. I guess they could be considered meta-illustrations.

The social-historical aspect of the event was immense as well. The social function and form of annotation as a type of communication similar to a modern day email was very cool. Notes to lovers and friends were scrawled on pages or passages that reminded people of each other. Following the Victorian-era books also came pre-annotated in a sense as a result of the practice. Life stages (specifically those of women) were included in books with parts left blank for a mother to fill out for a daughter as she grew up.

The major role of books within peoples lives during the Victorian-era was put into perspective as a result of Stauffer’s work. Books were not just educational, religious or recreational, they were major social tools as well.  Book traces open-source accessibility is a wonderful layout for a really intriguing project.