North American Friends of the St Bride Printing Library (fwd)

From: James E. Agenbroad (jage@loc.gov)
Date: Wed Sep 30 1998 - 09:15:14 EDT


                                             Wednesday, September 30, 1998
Of possible interest. While Latin scripts predominate they do have
materials on printing of other scripts. I spent a useful afternoon there
in 1992.

     Regards,
          Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov )
     The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official
views of any government or any agency of any.
Phone: 202 707-9612; Fax: 202 707-0955; US mail: I.T.S. Dev.Gp.4, Library
of Congress, 101 Independence Ave. SE, Washington, D.C. 20540-9334 U.S.A.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 22:56:30 -0400
From: Terry Belanger <belanger@VIRGINIA.EDU>
Reply-To: "SHARP-L Society for the History of Authorship,
     Reading & Publishing" <SHARP-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU>
To: SHARP-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU
Subject: North American Friends of the St Bride Printing Library

                     AN INVITATION FROM

Greer ALLEN Anne ANNINGER William P BARLOW, Jr
Mark J BATTY John BERRY John BIDWELL
Robert BRINGHURST Matthew CARTER John Y COLE
Robert DARNTON Paul Hayden DUENSING Ellen S DUNLAP
Robert FLECK Paul F GEHL Jonathan HOEFLER
Jerome T McGANN Philip MEGGS Paul NEEDHAM
Stan NELSON David PANKOW Mike PARKER
Frank J ROMANO Jane Rodgers SIEGEL Roderick STINEHOUR
G Thomas TANSELLE Michael TREADWELL Robert & Lynne VEATCH
Michael WINSHIP David S. ZEIDBERG and Terry BELANGER

to join the North American Friends of the St Bride Printing Library.

Personal computers now arrive with dozens of typefaces. The literature of
typography is burgeoning, teaching us how to publish via print or the
Internet. We are all expected to communicate through handsome,
effectively-designed documents.

The St BRIDE PRINTING LIBRARY in London is the definitive source for
typographic information. The Printing Library presents all aspects of the
printing arts and trades through five centuries of growth. Established more
than a hundred years ago, the Printing Library originally served Fleet
Street printers and apprentices. A succession of distinguished directors
has spread the constituency worldwide. Its present Librarian, James Mosley,
is well-known in the United States and Canada through his publications,
through his many North American lecture tours, and through his courses at
Rare Book School.

The Printing Library has been governed by various bodies, not all of them
fully hospitable to its mission. Since 1966, it has been administered by
the Corporation of London. The Corporation's Library Committee has recently
undertaken a review of the Printing Library's status. The acquisitions
budget has been slashed, and proposals have been made to move the Printing
Library from Fleet Street to warehouse facilities in the north of London
and to abolish the position of St Bride Librarian. If these proposals are
adopted, the Printing Library's growth will cease, and its vital objectives
will be compromised or destroyed.

A new organization, the European Friends of the St Bride Printing Library,
has prompted the formation of a parallel support group on this side of the
Atlantic: the North American Friends of the St Bride Printing Library
(NAFStB). The united purpose of the Friends is

. to support and safeguard the Printing Library;

. to represent the interests of library users to the Corporation of London;

. to urge the continued existence of the Printing Library as a separate,
adequately-staffed unit within the Corporation's library network;

. to raise awareness of the Library's importance through publications,
exhibitions, and other events; and

. to assist in the acquisition of books and other materials with gifts of
money and kind, augmenting the Library's own resources.

The Friends' first publication, _Founder's London A-Z_, is a 32-page
gazetteer of the City, with an introduction by the Rt Rev and Rt Hon
Richard Chartres, Bishop of London.

The Friends are sponsoring "Primitive Types: the Sans Serif Alphabet from
John Soane to Eric Gill," with James Mosley as the exhibition's curator, to
be held at the Sir John Soane's Museum, Lincoln's Inn Fields, from 29
January to 24 April 1999. The exhibition will be accompanied by the
publication of _The Nymph & the Grot_, an expanded version of Mosley's 1965
essay on Soane's lettering, and _Letters from London_, a guided tour of the
best architectural sans serifs to be seen within a short walking distance
of Sir John Soane's Museum. Mosley's essay and Soane's letterforms shaped
the attitudes of a generation of graphic designers at a time when sans
serif types were being widely adopted in graphic art, advertising, and
public signage.

Other activities of the Friends are in active planning stages: for a
preview, visit the Friends' new Web site:

                <http://www.stbride.org>

Charter membership in the North American Friends of the St Bride Printing
Library is available free of charge to anyone with an email address.
Charter Members will be kept up-to-date with a regular electronic
newsletter and will have full access to the Friends' Web site and other
online resources, including a free computer font digitized from historic
material in the Printing Library's collection.

Information about full membership in NAFStB will be sent to all Associate
Members. Full members will receive information about the Library's
activities. They will also receive a discount on Friends publications and
other benefits.

To become a Charter Member of the North American Friends of the St Bride
Printing, Library, send an email message to

                <biblio@virginia.edu>

indicating that you would like to join NAFStB, and including your name,
postal address, and the electronic address to which you would like to
receive information about the organization.

The organizing committee of the North American Friends of the St Bride
Printing Library includes:

GREER ALLEN
        School of Art, Yale University, New Haven, CT
ANNE ANNINGER
        Philip Hofer Curator of Graphic Arts, Houghton Library,
        Harvard University;
        President, American Printing History Association
WILLIAM P. BARLOW, Jr
        Barlow & Hughan, Oakland, CA
MARK J. BATTY
        President, International Typeface Corporation, New York City
JOHN BERRY
        Editor & Publisher, _U&lc_ and _U&lc Online_
JOHN BIDWELL
        Curator of Graphic Arts, Princeton University Library
ROBERT BRINGHURST
        Writer in Residence, University of Western Ontario
MATTHEW CARTER
        Principal, Carter & Cone Type, Inc., Cambridge, MA
JOHN Y. COLE
        Executive Director, Center for the Book, Library of Congress
ROBERT DARNTON
        Professor of History, Princeton University;
        President-Elect, American Historical Association
PAUL HAYDEN DUENSING
        Watkinsville, GA
ELLEN S. DUNLAP
        President, American Antiquarian Society
ROBERT FLECK
        President, Oak Knoll Books and Oak Knoll Press, New Castle, DE
PAUL F. GEHL
        Custodian, John M. Wing Foundation, Newberry Library
JONATHAN HOEFLER
        President, Hoefler Type Foundry, Inc., New York City
JEROME J. McGANN
        John Stewart Bryan University Professor,
        University of Virginia
PHILIP MEGGS
        Professor, Communication Arts & Design,
        Virginia Commonwealth University
PAUL NEEDHAM
        Scheide Librarian, Princeton University Library
STAN NELSON
        Specialist, Graphic Arts Collection,
        Division of Information Technology & Society,
        National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
DAVID PANKOW
        Curator, Cary Graphic Arts Collection,
        Rochester Institute of Technology
MIKE PARKER
        Typographic Architect, Design Intelligence, Seattle
FRANK J. ROMANO
        Melbert B. Cary, Jr., Professor of Graphic Arts,
        Rochester Institute of Technology
JANE RODGERS SIEGEL
        Curator of Graphic Arts, Columbia University Library
RODERICK STINEHOUR
        Stinehour Press, Lunenburg, VT
G. THOMAS TANSELLE
        Vice-President, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation;
        President, Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia
MICHAEL TREADWELL
        Professor, Dept of English Literature, Trent University
ROBERT AND LYNNE VEATCH
        The Veatchs Arts of the Book, Northampton, MA
MICHAEL WINSHIP
        Professor of English, University of Texas at Austin
DAVID S. ZEIDBERG
        Avery Director, the Huntington Library
TERRY BELANGER
        University Professor and Honorary Curator of
        Special Collections, University of Virginia;
        Director, Rare Book School

        Chair

The initial round of this message is being sent (with apologies to
overlapping subscribers) to the BibSoCan, Book_Arts-L, ExLibris, and SHARP
electronic bulletin boards. If you belong to another bulletin board whose
members might be interested in learning about the NAFStB, the Organizing
Committee would be grateful if you'd forward a copy of this message to them.

29 September 1998

Terry Belanger : University Professor : University of Virginia
Book Arts Press : 114 Alderman Library : Charlottesville, VA 22903
Tel: 804/924-8851 FAX: 804/924-8824 email: belanger@virginia.edu
            URL: http://poe.acc.virginia.edu/~oldbooks/



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