<i>In The News:</i> A Strange Problem at a Library, Upcoming Events.
- by Michael Stillman
New York (then New Amsterdam) when it was just a small, rural settlement.
By Michael Stillman
There is a strange case from the Denver Library, and some interesting exhibitions In The News this month. It's been a tough time for the Denver Public Library lately. The city's 2010 proposed budget calls for the closing of one branch and reduced hours at the others. However, nothing quite prepared the librarians for this unexpected situation, a case where a patron's good deeds turned bad. A 69-year-old gentleman had been borrowing books from the library as part of Project Gutenberg. This is a scanning project where texts of old books are scanned and digitized, and thereby preserved for eternity. He was not a scanner, but a proofer. He would borrow antiquarian books from the library and compare them with previously scanned texts, to make sure others' scans were complete.
When his job was done, the gentleman would, naturally, return the books to the Denver library. That's where the problem arose. Seems his apartment is infested with bedbugs, which would hitch a ride on the books. There is probably nothing easier to pick up and harder to get rid of (save for STDs) than bedbugs. Sections of the main library became infested. Three times parts of the library were fumigated, and 31 old books, some rare and valuable, had to be destroyed. The library asked the man not to return any more books through the drop slot, but through a special outside location. Apparently, he did not cooperate, so he has now been banned from the library. Meanwhile, the library officials continue to spray for these pests that are exceedingly hard to eradicate, and can live for over a year between feedings.
A spectacular exhibition of America's Dutch heritage is being held at New York's South Street Seaport Museum. From the late 1600s until the mid-1800s, when the continent was finally freed from all foreign dominion, the contesting European powers were England, France and Spain. However, up until 1667, the Netherlands was also heavily involved, most notably in New York (or New Amsterdam as it was called in those days). It is that heritage which is celebrated in New Amsterdam: The Island at the Center of the World.
Curator Martine Gosselink from the National Archives of the Netherlands has brought an amazing collection of items to New York. Most notable is the Schaghen Letter, or "birth certificate of New York," the only documentation of the purchase of Manhattan from the Indians. Other items include the Castello Plan, the only surviving contemporary detailed layout of the colony; Adriaen Block's hand-drawn map of the larger area (including Block Island, named for him); papers from 1609 documenting Henry Hudson's contract to find a new route to Asia; the charter of the Dutch West India Company; Peter Stuyvesant's commission to become director of the colony; and the Treaty of Breda, that ceded the colony to England in 1667. The exhibition will be continuing at the South Street Seaport Museum until January 3, 2010. Here is a Link.
Koller, Mar. 26: Wit, Frederick de. Atlas. Amsterdam, de Wit, [1680]. CHF 20,000 to 30,000
Koller, Mar. 26: Merian, Maria Sibylla. Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandelung, und sonderbare Blumennahrung. Nürnberg, 1679; Frankfurt a. M. und Leipzig, 1683. CHF 20,000 to 30,000
Koller, Mar. 26: GOETHE, JOHANN WOLFGANG VON. Faust. Ein Fragment. Von Goethe. Ächte Ausgabe. Leipzig, G. J. Göschen, 1790. CHF 7,000 to 10,000
Koller, Mar. 26: Hieronymus. [Das hochwirdig leben der außerwoelten freünde gotes der heiligen altuaeter]. Augsburg, Johann Schönsperger d. Ä., 9. Juni 1497. CHF 40,000 to 60,000.
Koller, Mar. 26: BIBLIA GERMANICA - Neunte deutsche Bibel. Nürnberg, A. Koberger, 17. Feb. 1483. CHF 40,000 to 60,000
Koller, Mar. 26: HORAE B.M.V. - Stundenbuch. Lateinische Handschrift auf Pergament, Kalendarium französisch. Nordfrankreich (Rouen?). CHF 25,000 to 40,000
Sotheby's Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
Sotheby's Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR
Swann Printed & Manuscript African Americana March 20, 2025
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 7: Thomas Fisher, The Negro's Memorial or Abolitionist's Catechism, London, 1825. $6,000 to $9,000.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 78: Victor H. Green, The Negro Travelers' Green Book, New York, 1958. $20,000 to $30,000.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 99: Rosa Parks, Hand-written recollection of her first meeting with Martin Luther King Jr., autograph manuscript, Detroit, c. 1990s. $30,000 to $40,000.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 154: Frederick Douglass, Autograph statement on voting rights, signed manuscript, 1866. $20,000 to $30,000.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 164: W.E.B. Du Bois, What the Negro Has Done for the United States and Texas, Washington, circa 1936. $3,000 to $4,000.
Swann Printed & Manuscript African Americana March 20, 2025
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 263: Susan Paul, Memoir of James Jackson, Boston, 1835. $6,000 to $9,000.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 267: Langston Hughes, Gypsy Ballads, signed translation of García Lorca's poetry, Madrid, 1937. $1,500 to $2,500.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 274: Malcolm X, Collection from Alex Haley's estate, 38 items, 1963-1971. $4,000 to $6,000.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 367: Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave, Auburn, NY, 1853. $2,500 to $3,500.
Swann, Mar. 20: Lot 402: Anna Julia Cooper, A Voice from the South, Xenia, OH, 1892. $2,000 to $3,000.