librarycompany:

Some kitty sketches for #caturday by the talented Peter Moran (1841-1914).

LCP has three of Mr. Moran’s [Sketchbooks during New England summer excursion, July-August 1882]. In them he draws many scenes of farm animals, among them, this adorable cat. You can check out more of his drawings in our image catalog linked in the picture.

#FBF to Peter Moran’s sketches of kittens from the early days of Library Company social media (2015).  

librarycompany:

Meet Phoebe Anne Ridgway Rush, our resident ghost. Phoebe first haunted the stacks of our Ridgway building - named for her family, and built with her fortune, which was bequeathed by her husband, James Rush, after her death. Both James and Phoebe’s remains rested in the foundation of the Ridgway Building, and when the LCP moved to its current home, their remains moved with us. Some say Phoebe rests peacefully now, but if the stacks are rearranged with no explanation, we know who is responsible. #librariesarethespiceoflifeordeath #LCPinsider

A throwback to an early Library Company social media hunt of our haunted halls (October 2015).

uwmspeccoll:

typeworship:

The Height of Chromatic Type

These images are from a rare type specimen housed in Columbia University’s Butler Library.

Printed in 1874 by William H. Page & Co. The Specimens of Chromatic Wood Type, Borders, Etc. contains over 100 pages of the most colourful, eye-popping type. These excellent photos are by Becca Hirsbrunner.

“Chromatic” typefaces are designed so that each character has separate layers that are intended to be typeset in alignment and printed in different colours. Many of the designs above overlap each other creating a third colour.

This specimen book was used to sell the woodtype to printers. The type is said to have cost around 25 cents per letter, per colour layer, certainly not cheap back then.

From the introduction to Specimens of Chromatic Wood Type, 1874:

To Color Printers
We have the pleasure of laying before you a Specimen Book of Chromatic Wood Type, and would say it is now eighteen years since we began Type making. Progress in the Art can be seen by comparing the present volume, with Specimens of that date. There were at that time five or six other manufacturers in the country. Now we manufacture seven-eights of all the Wood Type made, and are now able to show by itself a Book of Chromatic Type and Borders that is not excelled in the world. It has taken years of time to prepare and perfect it. The designs with two or three exceptions are entirely original with us. The demand for Chromatic Type is quite limited, therefore we cannot apply this book free, only to our Agents. 
Most Respectfully Yours, 
Wm. H. Page & Co. 

There are many modern versions of chromatic type, including Terrance Weinzierl’s award winning Pizza Press face.

More information on this specimen at The Public Domain Review and BibliOdyssey.

Typography Tuesday

We were just stunned by the beauty of this chromatic wood type posted by @typeworship on New Year’s Day, and the links provided offer page after page of eye-popping chromatic type. As a type nerd, it was a wonderful way to spend an hour on the first day of 2017.

William H. Page & Co. of Norwich, Connecticut, was founded by Page in 1859 (which was preceded three years earlier by his type manufacturing company Page & Bassett), and dominated wood type production in the U. S. until the 1880s, when it was seriously challenged by our own Hamilton Manufacturing Company in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. When Page retired in 1891, he sold his stock and equipment to Hamilton, eventually leading Hamilton by 1910 to become the largest manufacturer of wood type in the country. The Hamilton Company finally ceased production of wood type in the 1980s, but today the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum in Two Rivers preserves the heritage of wood type manufacturing in the U. S. and continues to develop new fonts of type.

View our own posts on Hamilton Wood Type.

View our other Typography Tuesday posts.

Some absolutely beautiful chromatic wood type posted by @typeworship​ with some wonderfully added context by @uwmspeccoll​. Thanks for sharing!

(Source: Flickr / beccarae, via uispeccoll)

humansofnewyork:

“I’m a rare book librarian. I get to touch books every single day. My colleague and I have a joke that we are Defenders of Wonder. A physical book assigns a sense of reverence to the content inside. It’s the same feeling you get when you look at a painting or hear a piece of music. And I think that’s something worth defending. And just like a book gives reverence to it’s content, I think the library gives reverence to books. The building itself is a masterpiece. So many famous thinkers have come here to study and write. Just being here connects you to that lineage.”

NYPL’s Kyle Triplett reminds us just how ‘wonder’ful books are. Defenders of Wonder unite! #wecanbeheroes #librariesarethespiceoflife

(via humansofnewyork)