Velhos tipos / Old type

Rosa Pomar teve a sorte de estar a passar por uma velha tipografia de Lisboa prestes a deitar para o lixo os seus preciosos tesouros que foram prontamente salvos do seu quase certo destino.

Rosa Pomar was lucky to be passing in front of the open door to an old typography in Lisbon about to throw in the bin its precious treasures that were quickly saved from their almost certain destiny.

Fingertype

Jonathan Looman, "Lowman", 2007, The Hague-Utrecht, Netherlands (via Type for you.)

Ernest Hemingway, The old man and the sea

Holly Ormrod, 2007, United Kingdom

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 104

Holly Ormrod, 2007, United Kingdom

Gabinete de curiosidades / Curiosity cabinet

O site BibliOdissey dedica-se à tarefa de recolher nos recônditos mais obscuros dos arquivos disponíveis on line verdadeiros tesouros bibliográficos, como este Museum Gottwaldianum.

Christoph Gottwald(t) (1636-1700) era um médico alemão de Danzig que reuniu um dos maiores gabinetes de curiosidades do seu tempo. Gottwald encomendou ao pintor polaco Daniel Schultz, o Jovem, a realização de uma série de gravuras feitas a partir dos desenhos que ele próprio elaborou dos vários componentes do seu wunderkammer, trabalhado realizado por volta de 1665. Em 1714, um inventário manuscrito acompanhava estas gravuras de crustáceos, especimens anatómicos e criaturas marinhas num compêndio do qual se fizeram apenas três cópias. Mais tarde, em 1782, surge uma edição alemã do Museum Gottwaldianum. Estas ilustrações da edição original de 1714 estão disponíveis no site da Universidade de Estrasburgo. Consulte-se BibliOdissey para ver outros exemplos e identificar outros centros de recursos on line.

BibliOdyssey is a website dedicated to retrieving from the darkest corners of the internet real treasures like this Museum Gottwaldianum.

Christoph Gottwald(t) (1636-1700) was a German physician in Danzig and created one of the largest cabinets of curiosities of his time. Gottwald commissioned the Polish baroque painter, Daniel Schultz the Younger, to render drawings he made himself of the contents of his wunderkammer into engravings, which was undertaken in about 1665. A handwritten inventory of the shells, anatomical specimens and marine creatures accompanied the engravings in a 1714 compendium of which only three copies were made. Later a German version of the Museum Gottwaldianum appeared in 1782. These illustrations come from the original 1714 print and are available on line at the University of Strasbourg website. Check BibliOdissey for other examples and links to on line archives.

Autópsias de livros / Book autopsies

Brian Dettmer, Naperville, Illinois, 1970.

Os ninhos de Douglas Coupland / Douglas Coupland's nests

De há uns tempos para cá, Douglas Coupland tem passado algum do seu tempo à frente da televisão a ver episódios de Law & Order e a mascar os seus próprios livros, cuspindo depois as páginas e esculpindo com elas estes ninhos de vespas para tentar responder a questões como: / For some time now, Douglas Coupland has been spending some time in front of the television set watching episodes of Law & Order and chewing his own books, spitting out the pages and sculpting these wasp nests, trying to answer questions like:

Is our bunkered mentality about the sanctity of books more genetic than cultural? Are we no different than wasps defending against intruders when we force students to read Henry James or Nadine Gordimer?

E para chegar, por exemplo, a este tipo de conclusões: / And, for example, arrive at conclusions like:

Since 1991 I’ve witnessed the triumph of the superstore, the near death of the independent bookseller, the rise of Amazon, the rise of the Internet, the comings and goings of the e-book and the rise of the P.D.A. Books are not under siege, but they are evolving and mutating. The more this process disturbs you, the more necessary it might be to try and engage with these changes. Right or wrong, they are inevitable, and the choice for anybody is whether they want to be able to live fully within the future, or whether they want to become a recluse and vanish into the past. The only way to go is forward. It’s all there is.

A resposta está sempre a mudar / The answer changes all the time

A propósito do Pirls (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study), um estudo sobre hábitos de leitura realisado a cada 5 anos entre crianças com 10 anos de idade de 40 países pela IEA (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement), Chris Meade, um dos co-directores do Institute for the Future of the Book, levanta uma série de questões pertinentes sobre a leitura e a literacia, a mais importante das quais se relaciona com o papel desempenhado pela leitura em suporte digital por oposição à leitura tradicional em papel. A sua visão é uma desdramatização dos que vêem no digital uma ameaça à aquisição de competências de leitura (literacia). Num outro artigo, Meade, que foi director da Booktrust (uma charity britânica que se dedica à promoção da leitura entre as crianças) e ainda antes disso da Poetry Society, chama a atenção para a necessidade de não confundir leitura com livros, uma ligação ainda pertinente mas não exclusiva:

About Pirls (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study), a report on reading habits made every 5 years with 10 year-old children from 40 countries by IEA (Intenational Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement), Chris Meade, one of the co-directors of the Institute for the Future of the Book, raises a series of important questions about reading and literacy, the most important of which is related to the role taken by reading on digital suport as opposed to traditional reading on paper. He refuses to dramatize what some see as a threat to the aquisition of reading skills (literacy). In another article, Meade, who was director of Booktrust (a British charity dedicated to the promotion of reading among children) and before that of Poetry Society, points to the need of not confusing reading with books, an obvious connection but not necessarily an exclusive one:

"I’ve been struck recently by how so much reading promotion cuts literature off from other media, as if anyone still lives solely in a ‘world of books’. We all exist in a multiculture now, and there’s a need to look much harder at how we connect ideas gleaned from tv, websites, books and real life conversations to patch together our personal stances and narratives. (...) Where do literature and stories fit in our lives? That’s the question I’ve always been most interested in. The answer changes all the time".

Mais reacções ao Kindle da Amazon / More reactions to Amazon's Kindle

O post the Steven Poole - The Kindle doesn't light my fire (literalmente)- no blog do Guardian Unlimited dedicado aos livros e um dos comentários que se podem ler a seguir: / The Steven Poole's post - The Kindle doesn't light my fire (literally) - at the Guardian Unlimited blog on books and one of the comments you can read next:

(...) think of the social potential of a mobile phone combined with an ebook reader:
"I'm outside Boots - Reading Proust."

O futuro da leitura / The future of reading

O artigo de Steven Levy na Newsweek sobre Jeff Bezos, o patrão da Amazon, empresa que acaba de lançar um e-book reader: Kindler e que se prepara para uma ofensiva de larga escala na comercialização dos livros digitais. Confrontar com a reacção de Seth Godin (via Blogtailors). Consultar o vídeo demonstrativo aqui. / The article by Steven Levy in Newsweek about Amazon's Jeff Bezos on the launch of their e-reading device Kindler and on their large scale initiative to promote e-books. Check Seth Godin's reaction (via Blogtailors) and watch the video here.