Jason W. Dean
@jasonwdean
FSA Associate Librarian, Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas Bibliographer & librarian on the edge of the western prairie. Website: Faculty Profile:
Ok, one more - Charlie made this image of St. Jerome (patron saint of librarians) that sits at my desk and watches over me while I work:
You all probably know I collect Santos - we have five by Charlie, and this one of Nuestra Señora del Carmen (by Nick Otero) is watching over my office and me as I type this. She's the patroness of souls in purgatory (which you can see under her), reminds me to pray for the people that I have lost.
Two notebooks filled with bibliographical descriptions. Clearly doing a lot more of these now!
A recent-ish acquisition here at Spencer from Bruce McKittrick in my cataloging cradle today: a 17thC Italian MS applying the rules of gematria to Italian, drawing upon the popular Renaissance conception of Kabbalah as “white magic”: 📜 #libsky #rarebooks #booksky
Stephanie (a PhD alum from KU) gave a very moving keynote about the importance and power of collecting, and was a super great guest judge for the Snyder contest.
Got the privilege to host my friend Stephanie Stillo (from LoC) here @kulibraries.bsky.social last week - she was the keynote speaker and guest judge of our Snyder Book Collecting Contest! I also facilitated a little informal Q and A with her for students and faculty...
I'm celebrating my birthday this week, and so I thought I'd share some of the things from the last year that I am especially proud of, or make me especially happy:
My Wikchina has a fun place to ride on my way to work (and his new home in my cube at work):
From the "hero image" for this show. So many problems with this - the AI dog whistle (but don't actually recognize AI!), conflation of technologies, and history as a reductive tag line/slogan.
New cube decoration, from our local (and kinda famous) local wood type/letterpress shop, ft one of my favorite modern groups:
One was a serial entrepreneur, one is a Baptist preacher, and one was a petroleum geologist, so not super rough and tumble but my entrepreneur grandpa lived live with three shirt buttons undone, so that counts as something?
I think we can all agree I know 1-2 things about books, including how to open them. I was, I confess, befuddled as to how to open it, a first for me… 📜 #bookhistory #booksky #libsky #rarebooks
I low-key fell for this really great engraved portrait of Whitman, as described in note 1 in Myerson, on thick paper and lacking frame. Elspeth and I see a faint plate mark visible to left of image of Whitman.
Ours is in the second state of the binding, without the gilt border, but in the green cloth:
Sharing the re-cat'd + previously unreported 1855 1st ed of Whitman's Leaves of Grass at Spencer @kulibraries.bsky.social ! We've had this copy for decades, but in the card cat - not in our online catalog: 📜 #bookhistory #booksky #libsky #rarebooks : kuprimo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/...
Cataloging the first edition (second issue) of this pretty darn important book…
As ever, Russell Maret’s New Years greeting is extremely relevant and welcome.
"Anno virginei partus millesimo quingentesimo decimoquinto die vo.xxvi. mensis Januarij"
How many tiaras? Three! It must be... POPE GREGORY IX and his decretals (Printed in Lyon, by Fradin in 1515) (new acquisition here at Spencer / @kulibraries.bsky.social from @quaritch1847.bsky.social) 📜 #bookhistory #booksky #libsky #rarebooks :