past and future

“How can the past and future be,
when the past no longer is,
and the future is not yet?
As for the present, if it were always present
and never moved on to become the past,
it would not be time, but eternity.”

~ Saint Augustine, Confessions, Book 11

The unrelenting marathon of professional life finds some redemption in the complexities of service and curatorial projects. Indeed, preferring productive and supportive work, I’m not in this for the palace intrigues or the ladder rungs. The prize at the unknown opening of the maze must lead to something much better. And the route has to tunnel beneath the careful consistency of relational and physical accomplishments. Holding firmly to my ethic of “bloom where you’re planted,” in addition to managing and facilitating a full-service department single-handedly, there is no shortage of projects. Just as well, the satisfaction in producing successions of positive results serves as both motivator and sanity factor. Josemaría Escrivá famously said that vocation is the greatest gift of grace, and a vocation surely has many related facets. I still strongly believe in the work I’m doing, bringing out unique archival materials that inform many- including me. In order to generate effective and accurate metadata, varying degrees of thoughtful analysis are needed- from basic verification, to skimming, to comparative reading. All the while, there’s always an eye on time-efficiency.

A project I pulled to the fore, amidst my complete overhaul of the archives I’ve most recently created (having set up archives throughout the State, over the years) is a large array of rare, local serial collections. As much as researchers love them, the service end of things is replete with indifference about newspapers and periodicals. I happen to really enjoy the writing styles and advertising graphics of eras past. To me, the materials are captivating- essentially history in real time. For each time I bring out digitized ephemera, I hear from grateful audiences who devour the contents. And with the researchers, I’m fascinated to see what was, leafing up to later dates, then back to earlier years and decades. Through all my inventorying and indexing, I’m better able to connect people with information. And it happens. About two months ago, I sought out and processed a unique run of a cultural periodical, printed on newsprint, from the 1970s. It had been locally warehoused. Shortly afterwards, a visiting researcher asked whether I knew of that exact title, as she and her mother had both published in it. Bringing out the alkaline boxes of flattened papers, my guest was elated. This sort of serendipity is not uncommon. I can merely glance heavenwards, wink, and keep up the good work (and the good instincts).

While in the throes of sifting and sorting piles of antique newspapers which had been migrated from one library building’s attic to another’s basement, I found several items that I knew would fit perfectly in another city’s archives. It so happens I had created their archives more than twenty years ago, and remember their contents very well. Eager to deliver the gems, I carefully reinforced the 19th century broadsheets in a portfolio, and made a daytrip of my errand. En route, it occurred to me that while I had maintained some contact with that particular library, I hadn’t been inside the place in a long time. A life of continuous, hard work leaves very thin margins for respite. Trying to offset exhaustion with journaling and unstructured Sundays have provided ways to continue puddle-jumping, refraining from looking too far. Indeed, I brought the historic items to grateful recipients I’d never met before, in a building I hadn’t visited in twenty-three years. The place still looked the same, and it was heartening to see the calligraphed sign still displayed which I had made for them back in 2000. The last time I’d been in the place, I had completed major projects; it was shortly after my completion of graduate school. This time, I crossed their threshold after having achieved and endured numerous professional scenarios and challenges. My impression of this brief visit wasn’t an experience I expected- at the same time both strange and familiar. After quietly leaving the building, I walked to a nearby church to reflect, knowing the doors were open.

Again, I thought of Escrivá’s words- whose books I’ve known only in recent years- and how he told his readers to ask themselves who they sought when they approached the Sacrament. He said, “Are you seeking yourself, or are you seeking God?” That hour of contemplative intention, immediately following my strange visit with a past place of employment, was just the right instinctual balance. As much as archival work serves here-and-now access, and conservation for future use, the interpreting of raw material magnetizes our compasses toward the past. This week’s projects send me back to earlier projects in earlier places quite easily. All the jobs we’ve had, with our schools, communities, our various adventures dotting our timelines- good and bad- illustrate each of our personal histories. These stages along our pilgrimages form our perspectives. An individual is essentially a living time-capsule, replete with ethereal archives. Life and art mirroring each other amidst my wakeful hours, I wonder at the human version of deaccession and preservation. Tireless work makes for tireless thinking about work, especially all the pending projects. Insomnia tangles with my strategizing of the department I manage, and that slides into when I report to work, so that I can implement the ideas. And with my cultivated and critical senses and skills, the work always gets done.

Integral to the processing of historic serials is their preparation for longterm storage, retrieval, and future digitization. I’ve been doing all of these things, including a lot of the scanning, after flattening and even very gently repairing torn newsprint. No matter how disciplined my adherence to tasks-at-hand, it’s impossible to avoid reading from my discoveries. Indeed, the more informed I am of the content, the better my analyses for researchers’ queries. And, admittedly, the narratives and illustrations of bygone eras- be it the 1990s or the 1790s- are compelling in their vocabularies. Newspapers, in particular, are frozen moments with commentary. The paper strata themselves have distinctive stories, in their very ingredients and manufacturing. Handling and reading really go together.

There are embossed textures in pre-1840 cotton rag content paper, retaining an impressive amount of strength. Latter 19th and early 20th century newspapers were largely very cheaply made, using bleached wood pulp, resulting in thin and highly acidic surfaces. Depending upon how the paper has been stored, I’ve seen darkening that has the appearance of having been burnt. Scanning this type of material saves the content. Rewrapping the deteriorated pages, with enormous care, the telltale rattling sound attests to the papers’ embrittlement. The other day, while checking my work, it occurred to me how a computer screen can give digitized, antiquated text a similar look to present-day electronic text. Past and present become easily juxtaposed this way, but the genuine article has the intrinsic aspects of authenticity. Artifacts carry memorable content, but also the physical objects also have memory. Among my regular patrons is a researcher who writes about religious communities and biographies. Having just flattened, repaired, boxed, and inventoried a run of regional newspapers beginning in 1822, I brought him several early issues as a sampling for perusal. He was clearly impressed and inspired, spontaneously reading various paragraphs to me, from the cotton-based 200 year-old newspaper, in surprisingly good condition. We took turns reading to each other, talking about what we read as archaisms. A moment worth remembering in the life of doing this work. This fellow was astonished at how close these unique papers were to being discarded. Past is pulled to present, and projected ahead to future endeavors, in the search for knowledge and context.

preservation and imprint

“Those who have greatly cared for any book whatever
may possibly come to care, some day, for good books.
The organs of appreciation exist in them.”

~ C. S. Lewis, The World's Last Night.

Beginning to look back at my studies at Oxford, and how they continue on, my sense of direction is reinforced. While thoughts linger and digest the rich experiences of the late-summer and early autumn past, I proceed to absorb new learning with renewed perspective. Though I’ve been backlogged in my writing projects, I’ve continued my usual reading and note-taking. It seems natural to nurture a thirsting spirit with persevering studies into inspiring literature. It is also evidently unavoidable. Just the other day, at the Boston Athenaeum, the slant of late-day light streaming in through west-facing windows lit the small ancient book in my hands. The side-lighting cast shadows from paper fibers and into typographic embossed crevasses. Such tomes that reflect the light of this very day attest to worlds and times beyond the generations of our ancestors.

As with the memories and lyrics we carry with us, so our received words of inspiration help to carry us along this earthly sojourn. That which I have beheld and handled, and have even listened to, in the tones of written words, occurs to me now as having been made available to me. Whether across millennia, centuries, or modern decades, enduring words are gratefully received as they are handed down and across to my fledgling hands. At the Bodleian Library, the books and documents of my studies came from many different places- and I myself had done so, too. Words and images have reached me, as I have reached for them, and their origins share a collective mystery with their conveyance to this present era.


books

At Oxford, I was elated to find the Bodleian preserves and maintains a manuscript of Johannes Scottus Eriugena (9th c.), who has been dear to me for many years. Supporting research into the works of his thought, the library also includes a collection of printed offerings about Eriugena and early Medieval philosophy. I even found a contemporary publication about Eriugena, at the Oxford University Press bookstore, and added it to my own collection. The constraints of long-distance travel limited how many books I could fly back with (and how many I could mail), due to their weight.

Another volume well worth procuring was a book I learned about as my steps traversed paths left by Tyndale (16th c.), and that is Sir Thomas Wilson’s Arte of Rhetorique, originally published in 1553. The edition I purchased is an imprint published at the University’s Clarendon Press in 1909. It had been artfully made to replicate the quality of a 16th century book, using thick paper stock, replicating the original typography, marginalia, and frontispiece illustration.

Written by the headmaster of Magdalen College, the work itself had been a textbook used at Oxford in Tyndale’s years, and had instructed and influenced countless scholars. Its themes treat the subjects of eloquence, oration, and the clear organization of knowledge. Often the text blends in the author’s reasons for clarity of thought, which are to reflect the sacred. Sir Thomas dares his readers to excavate the ways of holiness: “Who would digge and delve from Morne till Evening? Who would travaile and toyle with ye sweat of his browes?” The wise advice presented by the book is strongly reminiscent of Eriugena’s spirit of division and recollection (divisoria et resolutiva). Ancient guides continue to teach.


conservation

Being an archivist and conservator by trade and livelihood, I was graciously introduced by the Bodleian staff to the university’s conservation department, known as Collections Care. Responding to their generous invitation, I was privileged to spend a day at the bindery and laboratory. The department is located in Osney, along the River Thames, in a western district of the city. Reaching the “Osney One” complex from the university provided an opportunity to walk along a very narrow stretch of the river. Lined with canal boats and trees, the walk to Osney is a meditative diversion from the city center’s density and crowds.

Repositories of rare and archival research materials balance the tandem mission of preservation and access. We preserve in order to assure availability. There may seem an inherent conflict, as handling could be seen to be endangering preservation, and watchful conservation could be seen as an endangerment to potential handling. Inevitably, research libraries establish workable compromises that protect the integrity of original artifacts, while also extending opportunities to readers. Continuity in physical conservation parallels the continuum of scholarly access.

Conservation of a medieval book : rebinding the signatures
(gathers of pages).

The paper conservators at Osney demonstrated how they had been processing the personal papers of radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi, as the collection had been accessioned by Oxford. The documents were being mounted in fascicules, which are interleaved archival albums. The same treatments had been done with the C. S. Lewis papers, and subsequently as I proceeded with my studies in the research rooms, I remembered what I had seen at Osney. Careful inventorying, cataloguing, and physical treatments all happen before a manuscript or rare book reaches the library shelves and reading tables.

New binding, cords, and custom-fitted
wooden boards, to be covered with new leather.

Along with some great discussions about our respective projects, we examined the conservation phases of a medieval book of hours. The book had been purchased for the university, because in its contents there is mention of Oxford. Requiring a full-scale restoration, the book needed to be rebound and recased using the most authentic materials possible. A specific type of leather was chosen, to stretch over the new signature cords, and custom shaped wooden boards that had been purchased from a lumber company in Wales that supplies the Bodleian Library. There are numerous such tomes in the Library’s collections, each requiring their own treatments- whether extensive or simple maintenance. Archival material has its own axiology, and we speak of the value of the original artifact as being evidence of an action, or a person’s creative thought, or the documentation of decisions. The intrinsic value of a manuscript often refers to the integrity of an original artifact which cannot be replicated because it is the item that had been written upon, owned by a specific person, or had made a historic voyage.

oxford university press

Written words are preserved and rejuvenated by conservation. For centuries, the printed word has been produced with presses, bound, and further extended. (Electronic formats extend the contents of the printed word still more.) During my residency in Oxford, I had the pleasure of visiting the famous Oxford University Press, and meeting with their archives’ staff. The Press is a department of the University, and its printing operations began in 1478, shortly after Johannes Gutenberg’s innovations with moveable type and printing presses. Oxford University Press has been at its present location, on Walton Street, since 1830, having been previously based in the Sheldonian Theatre (in the 17th century), and in the Clarendon Building (in the 18th century). It came to mind how great many of my graduate school texts were produced by Oxford, which also includes their academic Clarendon Press. The large buildings at Walton Street include an informative gallery of artifacts displaying milestones in the continuing history of Oxford University Press. A visit is well worthwhile.

Printing press at Oxford University Press













Oxford English Dictionary display.
Documents below are Dictionary editorial notes made by
J.R.R. Tolkien, who contributed to production.

Returning to my work at the Bodleian Library, I unavoidably noticed spine labels bearing the Oxford Press imprint on countless books in the reading rooms and aisles of shelving. I subsequently noticed this, back in New England libraries, and amusingly back in my apartment. As with my research, the visits with Collections Care, as well as Oxford University Press, have added an enhanced sensitivity to the artistry related to the sustenance of written artifacts.


reading on

Bodleian Library

Travelling on, and reading on, written and printed words speak in bolder tones to my mind’s ear. Readings which inspire most embody a totality of sound, substance, and typographic aesthetic beauty. Illuminated thoughts reach me by reflectant pages. Words combine to transfer a message which is received and transposed by my reading. Or by your reading. Written words adorn the roads of our reading voyages, and I have seen my own path has definitively navigated ports and passages of places which inspire future articulation.