Pictures from Overseas

As promised, Bob has been taking pictures of his trip as he can. And here they are!

At Claude Cox Books…

…with Tony Cox

On board the ferry to Amsterdam

The cabin

A nice view…

…and a nicer view!

In Amsterdam

At Ton Kok’s shop

How to Photograph Rare Books

This week Rob wrote a blog post about Oak Knoll’s new method of photography and our efforts to preserve and capture each book’s condition as best as possible. Check out another similar article on Yale University’s Bibliofile site that provides a training manual on how to handle rare books and other works on paper when photographing them. The article explains how to meet libraries’ preservation aims, while still meeting the needs of researchers. It is illustrated with many great photographs from Yale’s Medical Historical and Law Libraries.

Click here to read the full article.

A review and a catalogue mention in Fine Books Notes

The August issue of Fine Books Notes has an excellent review of David Pearson’s revised edition of Books as History: The Importance of Books Beyond Their Texts.

What do books offer us, beyond words, and how do their physical formats and design characteristics contribute to their overall impact? Where do we draw the line between the book as a text and the book as an object, something which cannot be entirely replicated by transferring the content to another medium?”

David Pearson, Director of Libraries, Archives, and Guildhall Art Gallery at the City of London, presents this set of questions and then explores the various ways that physical books speak to those who will listen—through the way they are printed, illustrated, bound, annotated, altered, or defaced. It is a topic of obvious importance to historians, curators, librarians, and book collectors, but also one that is becoming ever more crucial to a wider audience of people concerned with the idea of ‘libraries without books,’ and physical books versus e-books. Pearson persuades us that it is time to separate books from texts, and let them go their merry ways.

Click here to read more.

In addition, the newsletter also mentions our Catalogue 297 in the catalogues received section. Catalogue 297 is another that contains our new method of photography, displaying beautiful black-and-white images.

Click here to check out the new issue of Fine Books Notes.

“It’s important to show the books in as much detail as possible.”

Recently, Oak Knoll has been going through some changes, some of them more noticeable than others. One of these changes is in the way we take our images. Just under a year ago, I purchased a used Nikon D40 with an 18-55mm kit lens at a great price, which I intended to use for personal photography. I thought that it would be a neat item to take on trips, book fairs, holidays, you name it. After becoming somewhat familiar with it, I decided to try it out on a few books here at the shop. To my surprise, they came out much better than any of our previous images did before.

So about two months ago, after showing these images to people around the office, I finally offered the camera to Oak Knoll to use for taking our everyday pictures, as well as fine photography for catalogues. Based on customer feedback about our most recent catalogue, it’s been one of the most noticeable changes to happen to Oak Knoll in a long time. Click here to view a PDF our most recent catalogue.

As most antiquarian booksellers will tell you, when condition means everything, it’s important to show the books in as much detail as possible. It turns out this new camera is exactly what we needed.

-Rob

Click here to view Special Catalogue 17 and click here to view Catalogue 297. Both include our new photography.

“You’re going WHERE?!”

“You’re going WHERE?!” was the reaction of Bob Fleck when I told him I was moving to Arizona.  In August. The desert in August: my Oak Knoll family thought I’d fallen off the deep end.  I am 23 years old, and in two weeks I am packing my life into my little car and driving across the country to serve a year as an Americorps VISTA member.  Two hours south of the Grand Canyon, two hours north east of Phoenix, four hours from Las Vegas, and a stone’s throw away from nowhere, I can be found in the small town of Rimrock, Arizona, smack-dab in the middle of the state.  And I couldn’t be more excited!

As a town with an unincorporated status and only one school (grades Kindergarten through eighth), Rimrock doesn’t sound like it has much to offer to a girl who’s been traveling the world since she was six weeks old.  Really, though, it’s got everything to offer. My job for the next twelve months is as follows:

Beaver Creek School and The Beaver Creek Regional Council Youth and Families Committee are searching for funding streams that will help sustain and build capacity of the current affordable afterschool program, including more activities for students in grades 6-8. Also involved in the project will be developing a leadership cohort for students that leave Beaver Creek School in eighth grade and attend area highs schools. This goal of sustainability would be enhanced by a Youth Activities Coordinator for the approximately 650 students who live in the Beaver Creek Communities. This area currently has no organized youth activities due to its unincorporated status, void of dedicated subsidies for parks and recreation.

OK, so it’s not quite the same as taking pictures of books for websites and catalogues, like I’ve been doing with Oak Knoll since August 2009.  But to have a chance to help the future of our country realize their full potential through some of the programming that I have the opportunity to create… what a kick! Maybe I’ll even find some future book collectors or binders in that mix of kids!

I will greatly miss the group of people I’ve come to call my Oak Knoll family. I will miss our awesome lunches together (how will I live without Chinese food every Thursday?), the tidbits of conversation over the office walls (eavesdropping on Laura and Danielle’s conversations about the Biblio-Trivia answers is always fun!), and I will miss being surrounded by my friends that line the walls of this old building—the keystone of Oak Knoll—the books.

I cherish the time I had as a part of the Oak Knoll family, and look forward to visits home to Delaware and coming into Historic New Castle to say Hi to everyone.  Words cannot express how thankful I am for the support that everyone at Oak Knoll has given me as I prepare to embark on this incredible adventure.  Wish me luck, blog-followers! I’m off to save the world!

– Margo Price, Part-time Photographer