Lit Lang Library

Please join us for an opening reception to celebrate the acquisition of the first edition of Frankenstein and explore the life and career of Mary Shelley. Exhibit curator Lynne Thomas will give brief remarks, and refreshments will be served.

The techniques for making texts have changed across multiple media and historical contexts since antiquity, but a regular feature of the work of authors and scholars through all those changes is the reliance on helpers or amanuenses. Dr. Ann Blair (Harvard) will discuss the factors that have made them both invisible and occasionally visible, and the kind of work they did.

This event will highlight the collaborative project involving Emblematica (U of I), a digital library of emblem books, and Compositor (U of Birmingham), a database of printers’ ornaments. Dr. Hazel Wilkinson hypothesizes that “emblem-literacy” caused historical readers to engage with ornamented books in ways previously unaccounted-for in scholarship.

Come and celebrate the semester’s end with hot apple cider, sweet and salty treats, and relaxing RBML-themed activities. Make a button, fill in a coloring sheet, collaborate on a big puzzle, and snag a fresh print of our annual holiday linocut card! This event is part of the library's Reading Day De-Stress Fest; it is open to the public and refreshments will be served.