A Turn Up From the Books. Unanticipated discoveries from Early Printed Book Cataloguing.

A Turn Up From the Books. Unanticipated discoveries from Early Printed Book Cataloguing.

Congratulations to Sharon Corrigan from Dublin City University Library, whose blog post was highly commended in the CONUL Training and Development Library Assistant Blog Awards 2025.
There tends to be a smattering of surprises each week working in special collections, unexpected connections between the past and present that pop up and elicit a quiet ooh from me along my journey as a library assistant currently working with early printed books (EPBs) at DCU. In these collections each book has been on its own individual saga and it is the uniqueness of both items, (a handwritten dedication inside), and manifestation (the printer’s chosen dedicatee for that edition) that I am endeavouring to capture when cataloguing, together with the usual publication information and descriptions that will lead researchers to find the records in the first place.
Unanticipated considerations have included how long one can spend finding the apt term for a quirky binding or stamp, and how differently cities in Latin sound compared to their modern Anglicised names. Luckily
RBMS
have an invaluable table of Latin place names providing that all important consistency.
Local history hidden amid foreign texts.
Latin is not my first language, I have picked up a little on the job. I do, however, feel confident in saying that 800+ page tomes on ecclesiastical theory are not ‘light reading’. Inevitably even the most committed cleric needed study breaks. So, secreted in the pages of some EPBs are bookmarks, beautifully preserved, forgotten pages, that give a glimpse of 19th century Dublin. A Dublin, where you might have correspondence with shopkeepers on personalised stationery. These include a linen order from Webb’s wholesalers,
Upper Bridge-Street
, on the back of which are listed the necessities of the day, a grocery list, including mustard and beer. Hopefully used after ‘the messages’ had been fetched. A receipt for two baskets showcases the wares of the weavers of the Richmond Institution for Instruction of the Blind, on O’Connell Street. Finally a letter of reply to a query about a flute was found bearing a letterhead from
M. Gunn & Sons
at 61 Grafton Street; now home to the Disney store.
A receipt from James Webb, wholesale & retail linen draper and importer of English flannels, 15 and 16, Upper-Bridge Street, (Joining Corn-Market) dated 21st April 1826.
The reverse of the same receipt on which is a hand written list of groceries signed by a John Taylor.
An order slip for two baskets from the Richmond Institution for Instruction of Industrious Blind, located at 41, Upper Sackville Street,Dublin [Now O’Connell St] dated July 1855.
The letter head from a response to an enquiry for the costing of the repair of a flute showing the letterhead of M. Gunn & Sons, Music & Musical Instrument Warehouse. 61 Grafton Street, Dublin, dated January 2nd [18]71.
Folios don’t fool around, …