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SHARP Web


"The goal in the next decade or so should be to prepare students to be discerning users of, and contributors to, all media. An excellent starting point on the Web is the site of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing." (Edward Tenner, Chronicle of Higher Education, March 9, 2007)

About SHARP: The Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing

Join SHARP online! Becoming a member has never been easier, or brought so many benefits. Already a member? Manage your membership online.

Call for nominations for leadership positions in SHARP.

Start planning now to join us in 2009, when SHARP comes to the University of Toronto, June 23 - 27, for "Tradition & InnovatioN: The State of Book History."

Print out a SHARP flyer  (in English or in French) for your library or department bulletin board

The SHARP Book Prize: a prestigious annual award for best work in book history. Congratulations to this year's winner! Here's how to apply.

SHARP Award for Distinguished Achievement: nominations now being accepted for 2008

SHARP-L: The Electronic Conference of Book Historians, with searchable archives

Book History: SHARP's award-winning journal

SHARP News: SHARP's lively quarterly newsletter
Publishers' Records || Research Resources || Projects and Societies || Exhibits || Teaching || Programs || Announcements || Series|| Journals

Publishers' Records: Finding Lists and Special Collections

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British Book Trade Archives (1830-1939)
Publishers' Archives: Albinski List (19th & 20th c., US)
Canadian Publishers' Records Database
Accessions to UK Repositories: 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002. 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007
Reading University Library collections (19th & 20th c., UK)
Scottish Book Trade Archive Inventory
The John Murray Archive, National Library of Scotland
Princeton University Library
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (Am. & Brit.)
Lilly Library, Indiana University
Guide to Sale Catalogues in the British Library
The Weedon Guide to Research in Victorian Publishing Records

Research Resources Online

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Book History Online: An International Bibliography (Koninklijke Bibliotheek)
ABC for Book Collectors (classic glossary, 8th ed., ILAB)
The Duke Papyrus Archive
Bibliopolis: History of the Printed Book in the Netherlands [New]
British Book Trade Index (BBTI)
National Archives (UK) Research Guide to Stationers' Hall Copyright Records
National Archives (UK) Research Guide to Newspapers and the Press
NYPL Research Guide to the History of Books and Printing (bibliography)

Reading Experience Database, 1450-1945 [New]
Bibliography for Western Book History (Richard Clement, University of Kansas)
"Histories of  U.S. Publishers" and "Index of Modern Paperback Publishers" (Russell Barnes, Hyde Park Books, Idaho)
Macmillan News Archive, 1962-91

Private Libraries in Renaissance England[New]
HENRIK: Books and their Owners in Finland to 1809 (Finnish Lit. Soc. & Project Hendrik)[New]
Hibolire: The Nordic-Baltic-Russian Network on the History of Books, Libraries and Reading
Dutch Museum of the Book (Museum Meermanno) catalogue [New]

Library History Database: British Isles to 1850 (Robin Alston)
Database of American Libraries before 1876 (Davies Project, Princeton)
Scottish Book Trade Index, National Library of Scotland
American Library Association archives (University of Illinois)

The Atlas of Early Printing (U. of Iowa Libraries) [New]
Publishers' Bindings Online, 1815-1930 (University of Alabama)
Database of Bookbindings (British Library)

Waddleton Chronology of Colour Printed Illustrations (Norman Waddleton)
Database of Mid-Victorian Wood-Engraved Illustration (Cardiff University)
Historybooks: British Historians & the Book 1850-1950 (Leslie Howsam) [New]
At the Circulating Library: A Database of Three-Volume Victorian Fiction (Troy Bassett) [New]
British Fiction, 1800-29: A Database of Production, Circulation & Reception (Cardiff University)

19th-c. American Children's Book Trade Directory (American Antiquarian Society) 
19th-c. Books on Publishing and the Book Trade (searchable catalogue)
Bibliography of British Books for Children & Adolescents 1470-1770 (Ruth Bottigheimer, SUNY) [New]
The Dicey and Marshall Catalogue (London, 1764) (R. C. Simmons)

Recent Studies of 18th-c. Book Culture (1989-2003) (James E. May)
Women Printers and Booksellers: A Checklist of Sources (Laura Sue Fuderer)
The Quarterly Review Archive (Jonathan Cutmore) 
 
Obscure Contributors to 19th-century Periodicals
The Curran Index to Wellesley Revisions (Victorian periodicals)
Index to reviews and reviewers in the Athenaeum: 1830-70 and 1872-86 [New]
Internet Library of Early Journals
The Spectator Project: A Hypermedia Research Archive of 18th-c. Periodicals

"The Image of France,", 1795-1880 (database of prints)
The Edmonton Collection of Street Literature (Gary Kelly, Alberta)
The Broadsides Collection (John Hay Library, Brown)
Medieval Illustrated Manuscripts (KB and Museum Meermano)
The Chapbook Collection (Lilly Library, Indiana)
The Digital Scriptorium, database (UC Berkeley)
Biblia Sacra bibliography of bibles printed in the Netherlands and Belgium [New]

Book History Projects and Scholarly Societies

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Center for the Book, Library of Congress
Research Society for Victorian Periodicals
British Periodicals at Minnesota: The Early 19th Century
Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (NCSE) [New]
Research Society for American Periodicals

American Journalism Historians Association
J-HISTORY, journalism history discussion
The American Newspaper Repository (Nicholson Baker; in 2004 the repository moved to Duke University Library.)
Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850 - 1920 (Duke University)

International Association of Paper Historians
American Museum of Papermaking
British Association of Paper Historians [New]

American Printing History Association
Linotype & Linotipisti (Giorgio Coraglia)

Typefoundry: Documents for the History of Types and Letterforms (James Mosley) 
Early Book Society [New]
"Book History and Literacies at Minnesota" (Michael Hancher)

Center for the History of Print Culture in Modern America
Program in the History of the Book in American Culture, American Antiquarian Society
University of Iowa Center for the Book
American Museum of Papermaking
Washington Area Group for Print Culture Studies

Centre for the History of the Book, University of Edinburgh
Exeter Working Papers in British Book Trade History (Ian Maxted) [New]
Scottish Centre for the Book, Napier University
Scottish Archive of Print and Publishing History Records
Scottish Book Trade Index, National Library of Scotland
The National Print Museum of Ireland
Making Books, Shaping Readers, University College Cork
The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220 (Universities of Leeds and Leicester) [New]
Centre for Manuscript and Print Studies, Institute of English Studies, U of London

Print Culture in New Zealand: The Otago Project
History of the Book in Canada
History of the Book in Australia
Society for Book Research in Austria [New]
Institut d'histoire du livre, Lyons
Pecia: le manuscrit médiéval (Jean-Luc Deuffic) [New]

Leiden Centre for the Book
Il libro antico (Angela Nuovo, Aldo Coletto e Graziano Ruffini)
Bibliotheca Eruditionis , history of books and reading in Hungary

Bibliographical Society of America
Bibliographical Society (Great Britain)
Oxford Bibliographical Society
Bibliographical Society of Canada
Bibliographical Society, University of Virginia
Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand

Centre for Editorial and Intertextual Research (Cardiff University) [New]
The Grolier Club
Library History Group (Great Britain)
Historic Libraries Forum (UK) [New]
IFLA Library History Section
Archives of the American Library Association
Libraries Today (Canadian library history; Lorne Bruce)

St Bride Printing Library, London
Early Printed Books Project, University of Oxford
HoBo (formerly "History of the Book@Oxford"), book history events in the UK
Textual Studies, 1500-1800 (Kevin Curran) [New]
The Bookdealer Interviews (Sheila Markham)
Cambridge Project for the Book Trust
Stationers' Hall and Stationers' company, London

Printing Historical Society, London
The London Book Trades Project: Researching 18th-c. London Book Production
The King's Printer Project: Politics, Power and the Printed Word in the Reign of James I [New]

Printing Museum, Tokyo [New]
Rare Images Database, Diet National Library
Japanese and Chinese Classics Database [New]
Japan Society of Publishing Studies (Japanese language only) [New]

History of Literacy (History of Reading Special Interest Group)
Recent and Current ASECS/SHARP Projects in 18th-c. print culture (2002)
Urban Manuscripts Project (Ctr. for Medieval Studies, U. of York)
19th-Century Schoolbooks: A Demonstration Project (Digital Research Library)
American Historical Print Collectors Society
International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature and Media [New]

Association for the Recording and Reconstruction of Historical Bookbindings[New]
Directory of Cartoon Research Libraries (Randall Scott, MSU Libraries)
Melbourne Museum of Printing
William Morris Society
Museu Virtual da Imprensa (Porto, Portugal)

Briar Press: A Letterpress Community
"Biases of the Ear and Eye" Daniel Chandler
"The World of the Renaissance Print Shop," (Merry Wiesner-Hanks, U. Wisc.-Milwaukee)
"Manuscripts, Books, and Maps: The Printing Press in a Changing World," (Jones and Mukerji, UCSD)
Book History Timetable (Cremers/Knops)

Online Exhibits

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The Gutenberg Bible at the Ransom Center
Images of Orality and Literacy in Ancient Greece
Illuminated Manuscripts at the Bodleian
A Medieval Blockbook (Marianne Hansen)
Incunabula: The Dawn of Western Printing (National Diet Library, Japan)

The Infancy of Printing (Golda Meir Library)
The Legacy of Aldus Manutius and His Press
Graphic Design: Typography (Jeffrey Barr, University of South Florida Libraries)
BibliOdyssey [New]
Cultural Readings: Colonization & Print in the Americas (Penn)
"Nineteenth-Century American Children & What They Read" (Pat Pflieger)
"Nineteenth-Century Girls' Series" (Deidre Johnson)
Typographical Collections, University of Amsterdam Library[New]

Books Go to War: Armed Services Editions in WWII (Book Arts Press)
"The Word on the Street," broadsides in the collection of the National Library of Scotland [New]
Concise History of the British Newspaper since 1620
"Unseen Hands: Women Printers, Binders, & Book Designers" (Rebecca W. Davidson, Princeton University Library)
Color Printing in the 19th Century (U. of Delaware)

Finales de libro: Exposici? de colofones (University of Salamanca)
The Illustrated Book, 1780-1830 (Univ. of Pennsylvania)
The Keepsake for 1829 (Romantic Circles)
Forget Me Not: A Hypertextual Archive (Katherine Harris)
The Wonderful World of Pop-Up and Movable Books, 1811-1996 (U. of North Texas)
A History of Wood Engraving (University of North Texas Libraries) [New]
Women Printers in Great Britain, 1475-1700 (Lynne Fors, UIUC)

Victorian Periodicals and the Empire
"Plants in Print: The Age of Botanical Discovery," Chicago Botanic Garden
The Mosher Press (Millersville University)

The History of Chinese Bookbinding (Colin Chinnery, British Library)
Printing: Renaissance and Reformation (Thomas Cooper Library , Univ. of SC)
Cary Graphic Arts Collection, library of printing history, Rochester Institute of Technology
Is it a Book? (Karen Drayne, Barbara Davison, Emily-Jane Dawson, U. Maryland)
Bibliotheca Canadiana: A Historical Survey of Canadian Bibliography (McGill University Library)

Teaching Resources in the History of Print Culture

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"History of the Book" (Erik Delfino, Catholic University)
"History of Books and Printing, 1800-1950," undergraduate syllabus (Daniel Traister)
"Topics in the History of Books and Printing, 1400-1800," graduate seminar (Ryan and Traister, UPenn)
"History of the Book, 1450 to the Present" (Joel Silver, Indiana)
"Popular Fictions: Bestsellers from the Greeks to Grisham," (Ryan and Traister, UPenn)

"History of the Book" (Kate Martinson, Luther College)
"History of the Book," (William C. Robinson, U. of Tennessee, Knoxville)
"History of the Book" (Bertrum MacDonald)
"The Culture of the Book," (Nancy Mace, U.S. Naval Academy)

"Technology of the Book" and web ring (Dino Felluga, Purdue University)
"Cultures of the Book," bibliography and syllabus (James O'Donnell, Univ. of Pennsylvania)
"The History of the Book and Its Forms," (Deborah McGrady, Tulane University)
"Technologies of the Word (Robert M. Fowler, Baldwin-Wallace College)
"Survey of Publishing, Text to Hypertext" (James C. Morrison, Harvard University)

"History of the Book in Britain and Europe" (Jonathan Rose) [New]
"History of the Book in France, from the Ancien Regime to the Present" (Willa Silverman, Penn State University)
"Readers and Reading in History" (David Nord, Indiana University)
"Print, Literacy & Power in America to 1900," (Mary Kay Duggan, U.C., Berkeley)

"History of Reading" (David Pearson and Nell Duke, Michigan State University)
"The Profession of Authorship in 19th-Century America," (Sherry J. Linkon, Youngstown State Univ.)
"American Literary Circles: The Atlantic Monthly Circle" (Sherry J. Linkon, YSU)
"American Literary Genres: The Bestseller" (Sherry J. Linkon, YSU)
"Bestsellers in America, 1790 to the Present" (Paul Gutjahr, Indiana University)

"Street Ballads" (Michael Hancher, University of Minnesota)
Knowledge, Literacy, and the Politics of Information in Early Modern England" (Sabrina Baron, University of Maryland)
"Medieval Orality & Literacy" (Gadi Algazi, Tel Aviv)
"Shakespeare and the Material Book" (Douglas A. Brooks, Texas A&M)
"Victorian Studies: Illustrated Periodicals," syllabus, bibliography (Michael Hancher, Univ. of Minnesota)
"Authorship, Collaboration, and Literary Property" (Michael Gamer, U. Penn)

"Transitions in Media: Manuscript to Print, 1450; Print to Digital, Today," (Mary Kay Duggan, Berkeley)
"The Book as Technology and Trope," (Terry Harpold, U. of Florida)
"The Rhetorics of Print/Digital Culture" (Dickie Selfe and Bill Powers, Michigan Tech)

Programs in Book History

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Postgraduate Study in Material Cultures and the History of the Book, CHB, University of Edinburgh
Graduate Program in Book History and Print Culture, University of Toronto
Book and Media Studies undergraduate program, University of St. Michael's College, U. of Toronto
Master's Programme: 'Text and Book', University of Birmingham
MA in Literature and Publishing National University of Ireland at Galway
Gutenberg Institute for Book and Media Sciences, MA and PhD program (Mainz, Germany)

Ph.D. minor in Print Culture History, CHPCM, University of Wisconsin
MA/PhD Program in History and Culture: Book History Concentration, Drew University
Rare Book School at the University of Virginia

Rare Book Summer School, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
"Book and Byte: Book and Digital Media Studies," Master's Programme at Leiden University
Book and Manuscript Studies, MA Programme at University of Amsterdam
Traditional graduate degree programs with strong "book studies" components, Center for the Book, University of Iowa
MA in Publishing, with book history modules Oxford Brookes University
Planned postgraduate program in History of Text Technologies Florida State University

Notices and Calls for Papers

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SHARP 2009: "Tradition & InnovatioN: The State of Book History," University of Toronto, June 23-27, 2009
Call for nominations for leadership positions in SHARP. Deadline March 1, 2009.
"The Reformation of the Book: 1450-1650", NEH Summer Seminar for College and University Teachers, 22 June to 24 July, 2009, in Antwerp, London, and Oxford

"What Did Mr Miniver Read? ", IES conference, London, March 13-14, 2009
Conference on Intellectual Property (CIP) , June 12-13, 2009, Iona College, New Rochelle, NY, call for papers
"Narrative Dominions: On Writing the History of the Novel in English", University of Reading and the IES, 20-22 July 2009, call for papers
"Collectors, Librarians and the Book Trade," Print Networks - British Book Trade History Conference, Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 28-30 July 2009, cfp
"Periodicals and American Realism," cfp for special issue of American Literary Realism, deadline April 15, 2009

Best Journalism/Mass. Comm. Book of 2008 prize offered by History Division, AEJMC
"Reading Anthologies in Sixteenth-Century France", University of Liverpool, 20 Nov. 2009, call for papers
"Books for Sale: The Advertising and Promotion of Print from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-First Centuries," Book Trade History conference, Nov. 29-30, 2008, London
Edinburgh Book History Seminars, Centre for the History of the Book, 2008-2009 schedule
Reading Experience Database project, charting the history of reading in Britain, 1450-1945. Now live, seeks contributors.

Publishers' Series in Book History

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Library of the Written Word (Brill)
Series on Palaeography, Manuscript Studies and Book History (Brepols Publishers, Belgium)
Studies in the History of MSS and Printed Books (EBS)
Studies in Print Culture and the History of the Book (University of Massachusetts Press)
Material Texts (Penn Press)
Penn State Series in the History of the Book (Penn State Press)
Studies in Book and Print Culture (University of Toronto Press)

Selected Journals

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American Journalism
American Periodicals
Bibliologia : An International Journal of Bibliography, Library Science, History of Typography and the Book
The Book Collector
Book History, SHARP's journal seeks submissions
Convergence: A Journal of Research into New Media
Discipline del libro
Fine Books & Collections (formerly OP)
Journal of the Early Book Society
Journal of the Printing Historical Society
Libraries and the Cultural Record
The Library
The Library Quarterly
Library and Information History
Media History
Media History Monographs, online journal
Mémoires du livre, online journal
Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America
Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada (now freely available online in full text)
Paradigm: Journal of the Textbook Colloquium
Printing History, journal of the APHA
Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society
Publishing History (with article index)
Quadrat
Rare Book Review
Studies in Bibliography
Victorian Periodicals Review

Publishers' Records and Histories || Projects, Resources, Societies || Exhibits || Teaching || Announcements ||Series|| Journals
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SHARP Web copyright 1994-2008 Patrick Leary, for SHARP
Last updated December 20, 2008