The news and events round up for the month of May centres around talks and events organised as part of the 2017 May Festival.
A bookbinding session was held on the morning of 27th May hosted by Brannah MacKenzie, Book Conservator, and Jane Pirie, Rare Books Cataloguer. Visitors were able to make their own marbled mini-notebook inspired by the endpapers in the Cover Stories exhibition before being shown different types of bindings and exquisite endpapers from a selection of books held in Special Collections.
In the afternoon, an open event attended by 57 people was held entitled Collections Close-Up – Curators’ Favourites. Jane Pirie, Jan Smith and Michelle Gait from Special Collections were on hand to show visitors one of their favourite books from the collections and talk about what they find interesting and special about them. They included William Hamilton’s Campi Phlegraei; observations on the volcanos of the Two Sicilies (1776) with its impressive hand-coloured plates depicting the eruptions from Mount Vesuvius in 1764-67 by the artist Peter Fabri. More information about the books on display can be found here: Collections Close-Up May 2017
Finally, Keith O’Sullivan, Senior Rare Books Librarian, delivered a fascinating talk on Gothic literature entitled Dark Ingredients to around 35 attendees, about which more can be read here.
UoA Collections 