Podcast 3: Murder! Politics! Books!
LibraryThing Podcast 3, which follows on the heels of the wildly successful*—if somewhat incoherent—LibraryThing Podcast 2, is an interview with Jeremy Dibbell, who runs the Legacy Library/I see Dead People's Books project.
The (somewhat meandering) conversation explores the Legacy Library project, 18th century book tastes, the top-shared Legacy Library book (Jeremy guessed wrong a few times), what your books are saying about you, and related topics.
Here's the direct link to the MP3: http://www.librarything.com/podcast/003.mp3
The Murder Part. Jeremy came to Portland to present at the New England Historical Association. His topic was the rediscovery/reconstruction of an important 18th-century library. The library belonged to George Wythe (LibraryThing Library, Wikipedia), a prominent Virginia politician/jurist and signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Wythe, a slaveholder who ended his life an abolitionist, was poisoned by his grandnephew for the inheritance (the grandnephew had a serious gambling problem). The murderer got away because the testimony of free blacks was ruled inadmissible, but Wythe lived long enough to disinherit him.
Signing the Declaration of Independence, Wythe to the leftIn his will, Wythe gave his extensive book collection to Thomas Jefferson (LibraryThing library), a longtime friend and former student. Jefferson received some 338 titles, of which he gave away 183 to relatives and acquaintances, and kept 155. Only a few dozen of these were known until now.
Jefferson's inventory of Wythe's library was recently identified by Jeremy and Endrina Tay, Associate Foundation Librarian for Technical Services at Monticello. See Jeremy's post for more on Wythe's library. Wythe's LibraryThing catalog, based on Jeremy and Endrina's work, is the first reconstruction of Wythe's full library.
Using LibraryThing's new comparison feature, you can compare Wythe's library against other Legacy Libraries, other Signers of the Declaration of the Independence, or T. E. Lawrence.
*Actually, I have no idea how many people listened.
The (somewhat meandering) conversation explores the Legacy Library project, 18th century book tastes, the top-shared Legacy Library book (Jeremy guessed wrong a few times), what your books are saying about you, and related topics.
Here's the direct link to the MP3: http://www.librarything.com/podcast/003.mp3
The Murder Part. Jeremy came to Portland to present at the New England Historical Association. His topic was the rediscovery/reconstruction of an important 18th-century library. The library belonged to George Wythe (LibraryThing Library, Wikipedia), a prominent Virginia politician/jurist and signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Wythe, a slaveholder who ended his life an abolitionist, was poisoned by his grandnephew for the inheritance (the grandnephew had a serious gambling problem). The murderer got away because the testimony of free blacks was ruled inadmissible, but Wythe lived long enough to disinherit him.
Signing the Declaration of Independence, Wythe to the leftJefferson's inventory of Wythe's library was recently identified by Jeremy and Endrina Tay, Associate Foundation Librarian for Technical Services at Monticello. See Jeremy's post for more on Wythe's library. Wythe's LibraryThing catalog, based on Jeremy and Endrina's work, is the first reconstruction of Wythe's full library.
Using LibraryThing's new comparison feature, you can compare Wythe's library against other Legacy Libraries, other Signers of the Declaration of the Independence, or T. E. Lawrence.
*Actually, I have no idea how many people listened.
Labels: legacy libraries, podcasts
posted by Tim at 7:41 PM
13 Comments:
Someone has written a book about the whole Wythe murder thing. I saw it within the last month or so on CSPAN Book-TV (weekends & Holidays).
I found it on Amazon: I am Murdered by Bruce Chadwick, Jan 2009.
http://www.amazon.com/Am-Murdered-Jefferson-Killing-Shocked/dp/0470185511/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240972092&sr=1-1
It's true. Not a bad book, but I was mildly disappointed with it.
I've listened and I really enjoyed. Keep it up!
One question. Cutting books in the 18th century was new to me. Can anyone explain what exactly that is?
Re: "cutting pages" (more properly "opening pages", although I tend to use the two interchangeably)- the way books were printed in the hand-press period, large sheets were folded down to make pages, so depending on the format of the book, the front edge might be closed at the fold and have to be "opened" with a knife (often this was done during the binding process, but sometimes the reader would have to do it). That's a very simplified explanation, of course.
I wrote up a little piece on a "famous" instance of opening pages (Coleridge and Wordsworth), here.
Jeremy, thanks for the explanation. I find very simplified to be just about right for me most of the time. :)
Back in the seventies when I worked on the desk of my college library, we sometimes had to cut pages if there was nothing else to do. Very boring, and you have to be careful. It is very easy to cut into the page instead of just opening the folded edges.
Can you submit this podcast feed to iTunes? It'd be great to be able to keep track of the Librarything podcast via iTunes instead of hoping that we notice a new episode on the website. Thanks.
Let me second Jeff's request for an iTunes feed.
Was there ever a podcast 1? I can't find it on Odeo.
Can't find podcast one....
Please submit this to itunes to make it easier to follow. You can't build a listenership unless you make it as easy as possible on their end. It is WAY too much work for me to manually download these mp3s. If it doesn't become automatic soon, I will just have to stop listening.
Recommending you place your podcasts on Itunes. I'm a huge podcast listener and would love to add you to my list! Too difficult to manually download.
I see there are a couple of comments about adding your podcasts to iTunes. Though I'm not too worried about that, I am in the process of building an online aggregator service for podcasts and sites like mine will only find the MP3 files if they're placed within an "enclosure" tag.
Regarding cutting pages - making use of a paper knife also known as a tagliacarte. I knew the term tagliacarte but wondered what else I could find about its use/definition. I didn't really find what I was looking for but did enjoy reading a related comment from Dirda on Books (the columnist in DC), in reply to someone asking about the rough edges of pages in a book:
"...has that rough-edge is that the publisher for esthetic reasons decides not to have the slicing blade shear off the edge, as they do with the top and bottom of the page. The effect somewhat replicates the look of books that have been opened--ie cut--with a paper knife. French books used to come with the signature unopened all the time, and one of the pleasures of reading was the preliminary cutting of the pages. You would then end up with this rough edged, scalloppy look."
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