From Catalogue to Glossary, A Case of Arabic Printing

By Scott Ellwood, Bruce & Mary Crawford Curator At the Grolier Club Library, catalogues form the core of our research collections. While the majority of these are catalogues of antiquarian books (including private libraries, bibliographies, or lists of books to be sold) we also collect type specimens and catalogues of printing equipment. One particular catalogue …

Children’s Bookplates in the Grolier Club Bookplate Collection

by Kevin McKinney, Library Assistant Bookplate of Tyndall Savage, designed by Pauline Stone While working on an inventory of the Grolier Club bookplate collection, I became attached to a file folder filled with children’s bookplates dating from the late 19th century to the middle of the 20th century. The bookplate above, designed by Pauline Stone …

A Tribute to Eric Holzenberg: The Librarian, Scholar & Collector, Clubhouse Curator, and Grolierite

The following post comes from the Grolier Club Library's current exhibit, “A Tribute to Eric Holzenberg,” which opened on January 24, 2024, curated by Library staff in honor of his retirement after 30 years at the Grolier Club. Eric Holzenberg, Rare Book Cataloger, Loyola University of Chicago, Cudahy Library, 1992 IN HONOR of Eric Holzenberg’s …

Reconstructing the Life and Work of Antoinette Louise Hayes, book cover designer

By Jamie Cumby, Librarian This summer, Grolier member Caroline Schimmel made a generous and fascinating gift to the Library: a portfolio of commercial book cover designs by an almost completely unknown woman artist named Antoinette Louise Hayes.1  Hayes was an art school graduate who lived independently as a working artist in Boston from 1898 to …

Enemies of Books

By Kevin McKinney, Library Assistant and Kate Rowland, Exhibitions Assistant The Grolier Club Library has rotating exhibits of books from our collections in four small cases in the reading room. The following text and examples come from the current exhibit, “Enemies of Books” installed on September 28, 2023. The Library is always open to Grolier …

20 Years of the Helfand Fellowship

By Jamie Cumby, Librarian The Grolier Club first began offering annual Library fellowships, now called the Helfand Fellowship, in 2004, to support scholars traveling to conduct research on the art and history of the book in the Club’s own collections.  Next year, the Club will re-launch its fellowship program, following a three-year hiatus during the …

Doodles and Devil Heads

Annotations in the margins and flyleaves of a book are a valuable source of information for scholars and book collectors, shedding light on ownership, reading habits, and social customs. In some cases, the traces left in books can have a massive impact, like the cryptic note that Pierre de Fermat left in the margin of …

Paper-Making as Art, Totem, and Technology

The Grolier Club Library has rotating exhibits of books from our collections in a Breakfront on the 5th floor as well as four small cases in the reading room. The following text and examples come from the current Breakfront exhibit, “Paper-Making as Art, Totem, and Technology,” installed on March 8, 2023. The Library is always …

Illustrating Bibliography

By Scott Ellwood, Bruce and Mary Crawford Assistant Librarian The Grolier Club Library has rotating exhibits of books from our collections in four small cases in the reading room. The following text and examples come from the current exhibit, “Illustrating Bibliography,” installed on April 24, 2023. The Library is always open to Grolier Club members …

The Codex Sassoon’s Provenance through Catalogues at the Grolier Club

Last Wednesday, on May 17th, one of the three oldest, largely complete copies of the Hebrew Bible, dubbed the Codex Sassoon, was consigned to auction at Sotheby’s in New York by the Swiss financier and collector Jacqui Safra. It sold for $38.1 million (including fees) to the Friends of the ANU (Museum of the Jewish …