Book Traces: Nineteenth-Century Readers and the Future of the Library (Material Texts)

"In most college and university libraries, materials published before 1800 have been moved into special collections, while the post-1923 books remain in general circulation. But books published between these dates are vulnerable to deaccessioning, as libraries increasingly reconfigure access to public-domain texts via digital repositories such as Google Books. Even libraries with strong commitments to their print collections are clearing out the duplicates, assuming that circulating copies of any given nineteenth-century edition are essentially identical to one another. When you look closely, however, you see that they are not. Many nineteenth-century books were donated by alumni or their families decades ago, and many of them bear traces left behind by the people who first owned and used them. In Book Traces, Andrew M. Stauffer adopts what he calls "guided serendipity" as a tactic in pursuit of two goals: first, to read nineteenth-century poetry through the clues and objects earlier readers left in their books and, second, to defend the value of keeping the physical volumes on the shelves. Finding in such books of poetry the inscriptions, annotations, and insertions made by their original owners, and using them as exemplary case studies, Stauffer shows how the physical, historical book enables a modern reader to encounter poetry through the eyes of someone for whom it was personal."-- Dust jacket

In most college and university libraries, materials published before 1800 have been moved into special collections, while the post-1923 books remain in general circulation. But books published between these dates are vulnerable to deaccessioning, as libraries increasingly reconfigure access to public-domain texts via digital repositories such as Google Books. Even libraries with strong commitments to their print collections are clearing out the duplicates, assuming that circulating copies of any given nineteenth-century edition are essentially identical to one another. When you look closely, however, you see that they are not.

Many nineteenth-century books were donated by alumni or their families decades ago, and many of them bear traces left behind by the people who first owned and used them. In Book Traces, Andrew M. Stauffer adopts what he calls "guided serendipity" as a tactic in pursuit of two goals: first, to read nineteenth-century poetry through the clues and objects earlier readers left in their books and, second, to defend the value of keeping the physical volumes on the shelves. Finding in such books of poetry the inscriptions, annotations, and insertions made by their original owners, and using them as exemplary case studies, Stauffer shows how the physical, historical book enables a modern reader to encounter poetry through the eyes of someone for whom it was personal.

In most college and university libraries, materials publishedbefore 1800 have been moved into special collections, while thepost-1923 books remain in general circulation. But books publishedbetween these dates are vulnerable to deaccessioning, as librariesincreasingly reconfigure access to public-domain texts via digitalrepositories such as Google Books. Even libraries with strongcommitments to their print collections are clearing out theduplicates, assuming that circulating copies of any givennineteenth-century edition are essentially identical to oneanother. When you look closely, however, you see that they arenot.

Many nineteenth-century books were donated by alumni or theirfamilies decades ago, and many of them bear traces left behind bythe people who first owned and used them. In Book Traces,Andrew M. Stauffer adopts what he calls "guided serendipity" as atactic in pursuit of two goals: first, to read nineteenth-centurypoetry through the clues and objects earlier readers left in theirbooks and, second, to defend the value of keeping the physicalvolumes on the shelves. Finding in such books of poetry theinscriptions, annotations, and insertions made by their originalowners, and using them as exemplary case studies, Stauffer showshow the physical, historical book enables a modern reader toencounter poetry through the eyes of someone for whom it waspersonal.

Cover......Page 1 Book Traces......Page 2 Title......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Dedication......Page 6 Contents......Page 10 Introduction......Page 14 Chapter 1. Images in Lava: Felicia Hemans, Sentiment, and Annotation......Page 36 Chapter 2. Gardens of Verse: Botanical Souvenirs and Lyric Reading......Page 60 Chapter 3. Time Machines: Poetry, Memory, and the Date-Marked Book......Page 93 Chapter 4. Velveteen Rabbits: Sentiment and the Transfiguration of Books......Page 125 Chapter 5. Postcard from the Volcano: On the Future of Library Print Collections......Page 159 Envoi......Page 177 Notes......Page 178 Bibliography......Page 202 Index......Page 218 Acknowledgments......Page 224 Plates......Page 146 In Book Traces, Andrew M. Stauffer reads nineteenth-century poetry through the clues and objects earlier readers left behind in their books and defends the value of the physical, circulating collections of nineteenth-century volumes in academic libraries