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 44, number 4

The Belfast Library and Society for Promoting Knowledge

Bookplate courtesy of Linen Hall Library, Belfast

The "worthy plebeians" of the Belfast Reading Society established a subscription library in the economically and intellectually ambitious town of Belfast, Ireland, in May 1788 in the Enlightenment spirit of self-improvement through education. The Linen Hall Library remains the oldest library in Belfast and the last subscription library in Ireland. At its founding, despite the radical political views of several of its members, the society chose to remain officially apolitical and nonsectarian, a position it would retain throughout its existence.

The documentation and preservation of Irish history and culture have always been a special mission of the library. It attempted to revive the art of the Irish harp with a four-day festival in 1792 and sponsored the publication of traditional Irish airs collected in Edward Bunting's thrice-revised Ancient Irish Music (1796). Although the Linen Hall Library did not share the assertive nationalism of the numerous partisan reading rooms in nineteenth-century Ireland, the Celtic cultural revival still affected the outlook of the Linen Hall Library, as reflected in the design of its bookplate.

John Vinycomb, the designer of the bookplate, leaned heavily on heraldic design but escaped the formalism and rigidity common to the genre with a brilliantly heightened level of detail, depth, and shadow. He also produced bookplates with less pretentious outdoor, scholarly, and antiquarian images reflective of his clients' unique personalities, interests, and avocations.

Read the full article to learn about the motifs in Vinycomb's bookplate and to see the library's redesigned bookplate that reflected their new "open door" policy adopted in the 1990s.

Hans C. Rasmussen, Louisiana State University

 

Cultural Record Keepers, Volume 44, number 3

 

Bookplate of the English Book Donation,

Chicago Public Library

 

Bookplate courtesy of Chicago Public Library Archives

 

The Chicago Public Library officially opened to the public on New Year’s Day of 1873. Key to the formation of the Library was a notable gift from the British people that began an ongoing relationship between Chicago and the United Kingdom, a relationship that continues to the present day.

This story begins on the evening of October 8, 1871, when the Great Chicago Fire began to ravage the city. The destruction was almost complete, including the loss of all 30,000 volumes of the Chicago Library Association, the city’s largest subscription library.  

Very soon after the disaster, the world responded by sending generous donations of money, blankets, and clothing to the stricken city.  But the most lasting gift came to be known, ultimately, as the “English Book Donation.” Eventually nearly 8,000 volumes arrived in Chicago; a special bookplate, printed in black with a red border, designated each book as “a mark of English sympathy” and included the name of the donor. Read on to learn how the book donation would lead to Chicago's free public library.

Constance Gordon, Chicago Public Library Archives

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.