Posts for the Topic books

The Return of Euclid

For the past year, our 1570 first English translation of Euclid’s Elements of Geometry (call number D0127) has been getting some much-needed TLC from Jennifer Robertson at Book and Paper Conservation Services.  One of the highlights of our collection, this edition is an important work in both the transmission of Euclidean geometry and the history of print.

An Arab past

Everyone is interested in reading about their country’s past or coming across some old photographs of how their city looked like back in the day. For me, anything I find that relates to my country (I’m Lebanese) or to any country in the Arab region makes me feel proud of my cultural background. When I started working in the Special Collections & Archives department, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity for me to search for any material on Arab history. And luckily, I did.

Ends and New Beginnings

Hello everybody,

Its Graham here, come to say thank you and goodbye with my last blog post as my co-op term at the University of Waterloo Library Special Collections & Archives comes to end. These past 8 months have been an amazing time; I have learned so much, had a fabulous amount of experience, and met some great people along the way. I wanted to publish my last blog post with a short description of the experiences I have had along the way.

Lunch and learn

Hello Readers,

Graham here again, to let you know that today’s blog post may make you squirm but it's bound to provide a little food for thought!

Book traces

Hi, I'm Jessica, the Librarian here in Special Collections & Archives. As you may have guessed from my job title I Love (with a capital L) books. It isn't just the content of the books that I am interested in, but the physical books themselves and what they can tell us about the time during which they were created, who they were owned or read by, and how the written word was transmitted.

Outlines of the theory and practice of midwifery, 1796

Alexander Hamilton (1739–1802) was a professor of midwifery at Edinburgh University. He was a successful practitioner and writer on midwifery, and contributed to the establishment of the Lying-in Hospital (later the Edinburgh Royal Maternity Hospital) in 1791. Today we look at his Outlines of the theory and practice of midwifery, from 1796.

Playboy Ultra, 1975

This week, while processing a new collection, we came across this lovely collection of new typefaces from 1975, From Letragraphica Some New Faces. Each typeface is shown, with an accompanying photograph on the facing page of a person presumably embodying its style.

History 250 class visit to Special Collections & Archives

Special Collections & Archives is committed to student success and we support faculties and departments in class or in library instruction using our collections.  One example of this recently took place when we welcomed Professor Ian Milligan’s class (HIST 250) from the department of history to Special Collections & Archives.  The class was divided into 2 groups; one group visited us while the second attended a session led by the library’s history librarian Jane Forgay, about research strategies, tools, and library services.

Fore-edge paintings

A fore-edge painting is one done on the edges of a book's pages, so that the painting is only visible when the pages of the book are fanned.

Red Riding Hood

I hope everyone had lovely holidays! Down in Special Collections & Archives, we are all rested up, and are welcoming in 2016 by featuring a lovely shape book of stories and nursery rhymes, published by Ernest Nister in the 1890s.

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