Cultural Record Keepers
In each issue (other than special themed issues), Libraries & the Cultural Record presents artwork related to libraries, archives, museums, and other keepers of the cultural record. For 29 years this publication, under the titles Libraries & Culture and the Journal of Library History featured a bookplate on the cover and accompanying articles. (See the Bookplate Archive). L&CR continues and expands upon this tradition with "Cultural Record Keepers."
Learn how you can submit to Cultural Record Keepers
See our Cultural Record Keepers archive.
Cultural Record Keepers, Volume 46, number 1
Legacy of a One-Man Book Maker
Dard Hunter's Old Papermaking
Photograph by Cathleen A. Baker
Late in 1983, Gregory Thompson, newly appointed head of Special Collections at the University of Utah’s Marriott Library, received a call from a local gentleman interested in selling some books. After wandering into a back room and searching through the books, Margaret Landesman, head of collection development, came out holding three fine press books by Dard Hunter, causing quite a stir among the browsers. Thompson had not yet encountered Hunter’s work, but it was plain from the quality of the handmade materials that these were works of distinction.
Thompson asked for the Friends of the Library’s support to acquire what turned out to be a total of four volumes for a price that seemed like a substantial sum but in retrospect represented one of the bargains of the decade. As fate would have it, at this same time the library was engaged with Bay Area fine press printers Dorothy and Lewis Allen, who were contemplating retirement and looking for a home for the equipment and accompanying ephemera that represented their life’s work—the Allen Press.
The 1922 Bull’s Head and Branch wire watermark for Old Papermaking
Photograph by Cathleen A. Baker
Acquisition of the Allen Press’s type and working 1846 Columbian hand press complemented Special Collections’ growing aggregation of fine press books and the founding of its own Red Butte Press in 1984. Hunter’s influence on the library through those four original volumes clearly has brought new breadth to the manifestation of the special collection in Utah. Read the full article to learn more about Dard Hunter’s work as a paper historian and practicing papermaker and hand printer.
Randy Silverman and Cathleen A. Baker
Cultural Record Keepers, Volume 45, number 4
The Library of the Supreme Court of the Colony of Victoria, Australia
The original “Nolumus mutari” seal
Courtesy of the Library of the Supreme Court of Victoria
In November 1851 the Port Phillip District of the Australian Colony of New South Wales became the independent Colony of Victoria, and Anglo-Irish lawyer Redmond Barry was poised to become one of its most powerful and influential settlers. Barry was determined to replicate in Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, the institutions he considered necessary for civilized society as he had known it in Europe, and these included a university, a philharmonic orchestra, a horticultural society, a public library, and a law library. Barry became almost entirely responsible for decisions regarding the formation of these organizations ranging from a university to a horticultural society, and in particular the Supreme Court and its library. Read the full article to learn about the evolution of the library's seal and the difference a letter made in its motto.
Sue Reynolds, RMIT University (formerly Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) Melbourne, Australia
Submissions
We invite submission of images of bookplates, posters, and other visuals that represent a collection, public or private, or an institution charged with preserving and providing for the cultural record. An article of approximately 1,000 words should recount a brief history of the collection or institution and the historical background of the image itself. Submissions are subject to review by the editor.
