The Collation
Research and Exploration at the Folger
The Collation is a gathering of useful information and observations from Folger staff and researchers. Read more about this blog
Q & A: Julie Ainsworth, Head of Photography and Digital Imaging
Julie Ainsworth, Head of Photography and Digital Imaging Although many readers at and visitors to the Folger Shakespeare Library might not know her name, most know her work. Julie Ainsworth, Head of Photography and Digital Imaging, is responsible for the…
Battling over 18th-century rights to Shakespeare
In working on the Shakespeare Collection NEH grant-funded project for the past year, I have learned more than I ever imagined possible regarding the history of eighteenth-century publishing, particularly the “Shakespeare copyrights” and ownership disputes between booksellers. The feud between…
The KJV, Ben Franklin, and Noah Webster
As part of the library’s celebration of the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible, the Folger Institute hosted a conference bringing together scholars from across the United States and the United Kingdom to discuss the effect…
Copperplate illustrations and the question of quality
While looking at early modern book illustration in the undergraduate seminar on Friday, we got to talking about the false assumption that copperplate illustrations always indicate better-quality publications, while woodcuts are inherently lowly. True, the raw material is more expensive:…
Folger Tooltips: Cover-to-Cover
Greetings, dear Readers This episode of Folger Tooltips covers a variety of methods for accessing cover-to-cover page images of early printed books and bound manuscripts from the Folger collection. At the moment there are three basic ways in: via Insight’s…
Cataloging and preserving the Shakespeare collection
Cataloging and Preserving the Shakespeare Collection is a three-year project at the Folger Shakespeare Library funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Catalogers are working to create and upgrade definitive records for the Folger’s more…
Guyot's speciman sheet
If you’re a type designer (or a type caster, to be more appropriate to the early modern period), how do you show people examples of your wares? You use a specimen sheet: On this sheet, we see a matched set…
Exhibition transformations
It’s that time of year again: for two weeks every four months or so, the Folger’s Great Hall locks its doors and transforms from one exhibition into the next. Or, perhaps that’s how it seems to Folger visitors and readers…
From printing house to coffee house
Last Friday a much-anticipated package arrived at the Folger, containing a series of fifteen deeds describing the successive ownership of two adjacent properties on Fleet Street (“The King’s Highway”) in London from 1543 to 1735. Deeds can be tedious to…
Q & A with New Director Michael Witmore
Michael Witmore, Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, inaugurates a Q & A series with Folger staff, beginning with one of our newest staff members.
Undergrads in the Library
Forty-five years ago, Folger Director Louis Wright used his annual report to describe the Library as a haven for student-weary faculty: The time has come when someone should give a word of commendation to long-suffering faculties, and provide them with…
Folger Tooltips: Introduction
Greetings Dear Readers! Welcome to the first in a series of “tooltips” about how to access and best utilize online resources for conducting research at (or away from) the Folger Shakespeare Library. New bibliographic records and finding aids, and new…