Dear Lacemakers and Lace Scholars, The first lace book in my library entered it 60 years ago! Since then, every old and new book I could find has been added, so that my library would represent generations of lacemakers and embroiderers. It even includes books I would never recommend - in which I have written corrections - because they do sometimes represent the decade in which they were published. Also, bibliographies are not very discriminating and I wanted future scholars who use this library to not believe everything in every book was accurate. After retirement, I stepped up collecting books. This actually meant I had to build a home with floors that would hold the weight of many quality art books. Having heard the horror stories of my friend from Budapest who lost everything twice (to German and Russian armies), and who tells of how the Hungarian women have spread across their country to interview every very old lacemaker still alive so they can recreate their lace heritage, I determined that there needs to be comprehensive lace and embroidery libraries in different places -- not all concentrated in the world's large cities that can become targets of evil. My library now has gobbled up huge sums of money - all spent in good faith that the books would retain value that would be appreciated by a museum or lace or embroidery organization when the time came to donate it. But, does this assumption still apply? In view of the letter below from Louise, what thoughts do you all have about trying to "hold on" to a specialized library? The Chinese action of copying every book ever published made me aware that maybe I should not buy any more. So, for the last few years I have kept lists of books to acquire, but have not done much buying. I lent all my old out-of-copyright books for the University of Arizona scanning project. Now comes more information about copying books in the U.K. (I actually have one of the old Gaugain books, listed by Louise.) You will see that I have greatly trimmed the attached letter from Louise. There is just enough to trigger your memories. Jeri Ames in Maine USA Lace and Embroidery Resource Center
In a message dated 9/24/2010 4:03:58 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: Dear Arachnes, I thought these might be of interest: The digitisation unit at Southampton University has quietly started digitising some 19 th C knitting and netting books. They are popping up in the listing of new online books that U Penn produces but are near impossible to find by browsing from the Soton library; they have some sort of flash browser which is very sluggish and doesnt load properly even on my work computer. Here is the link to the relevant part of the catalogue at U Penn, in case the direct links are added to, http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/browse?type=lcsubc&key=Fanc y %20work and here are links to the PDF files * [[Info]] <http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupid?key=olbp51337> The Lady's Assistant for Executing Useful and Fancy Designs in Knitting, Netting, and Crochet Work (fifth edition; Edinburgh: I. J. Gaugain; London: Ackermann and Co., 1842)<http://pdf.library.soton.ac.uk/WSA_open_access/00228493.pdf>, by Mrs. Gaugain (PDF in the UK Regards Louise [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type image/gif which had a name of image001.gif] - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected] - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]
