Summer 2012 / Printed Matter

The latest round of PLL Printed Matter has been printed, amassed, collated, addressed and enveloped.  Included in the Summer 2012 are two posters and two 3x5 library cards:

Above is the Textual Genetics poster, following how texts can relate and lead to one another (11" x 17" / edition of 200.)  Below is a stack of the latest in the Entering the Robert Smithson Library series, Alain Robbe-Grillet's 'Snapshots' (8.5" x 14" / edition of 200.)

Two 3" x 5" letterpress printed cards round out this summer's packet.  Both are recreations, of sorts, of book cards left in formerly-deaccessioned books that are now part of the PLL collection.  Each card has been translated through OCR and hand-set in metal type.

Geological Acquisitions / June 2012

Four new acquisitions add to the Robert Smithson Personal Library, all with a focus on Geology:

Treatise in Sedimentation, Vols. I & II by William Twenhofel
Field Geology by Frederic Lahee
The Geological Evolution of North America by Thomas Clark & Colin Stearn

From the aforementioned tome by Clark & Stearn: a look into 20th century ideas of dinosaurs.  A bit of marginalia lets us know that dinosaur means "terrible lizard."

The Los Angeles Southwestern College Library deaccessioned this gem, and it eventually found its way to the Personal Libraries Library.  It will not be deaccessioned again.

April 2012, New Acquisitions (Arendt to Wyndham)

The Personal Libraries Library newest acquisitions comprise of:

The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt (Robert Smithson Collection)

On Human Communication: A Review, a Survey, and a Criticism by Colin Cherry (Robert Smithson Collection)

The Red Redmaynes by Eden Phillpotts (Jorge Luis Borges Collection)

The Cantos (1-95) by Ezra Pound (Robert Smithson Collection)

Time & Western Man by Wyndham Lewis (Robert Smithson Collection)


The Cantos (1-95) of Ezra Pound include the first 95 Cantos of Pound's monumental poem. These were first published as six separate books: A Draft of XXX Cantos, Eleven New Cantos, The Fifth Decad of Cantos, Cantos LII-LXXI, the Pisan Cantos, and Section: Rock-Drill.

Please contact the PLL at personallibraries{at}gmail{dot}com for membership details or other information.

TWO YEARS OF PLL.

The Personal Libraries Library is two years old! Over the past two years, the Library has had 118 members and has accrued over 200 books. Much printed matter has been created and sent out to the members and friends of the Library. To celebrate the two year anniversary, I have sent out another package of posters and printed ephemera.


Included is the poster of a spread of mine shafts from Jay Ellis Ransom's A Range Guide to Mines and Minerals from the Robert Smithson Personal Library Collection.


Also included is a new Pocket Wishlist that details some of the books needed for the Library. The wishlist is specially-made to fit in your wallet. Please carry this with you for those moments when browsing at a bookstore.


A commemorative poster celebrating the two years of the Library is also included. The poster was printed by letterpress in the PLL Press. Above is the poster in progress, while below shows the poster in process.

Please contact the Library at personallibraries{at}gmail{dot}com if you have any questions or want to join.

Fall 2011 Acquisitions: From 'Cryptanalysis' to 'Pleasure of Ruins'

New acquisitions include:

Cryptanalysis: A Study of Ciphers and Their Solutions by Helen Fouche Gaines (Smithson Personal Library)
Mathematics and the Imagination by Edward Kasner & James Newman (Smithson and Borges Personal Libraries)
Four Short Novels: Benito Cereno, Billy Budd, Bartleby the Scrivener, The Encantadas by Herman Melville (Borges Personal Library)



Also new to the Personal Libraries Library is John Stacks' Stripping. This volume is one out of the Sierra Club Battlebook series, that also includes Oilspill, Clearcut, Oil on Ice, and Mercury. The title page image is directly related to Robert Smithson's work.


More new acquisitions include:

Italo Calvino Personal Library:
Joan of Arc and The English Mail-Coach by Thomas De Quincey
Tristam Shandy, Gentleman. by Laurence Sterne

Jorge Luis Borges Personal Library:
Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard
Above the Dark Circus by Hugh Walpole


Robert Smithson's Personal Library:
The Story of Maps by Lloyd Brown
Pleasure of Ruins by Rose Macaulay
The Age of Energy: Varieties of American Experience 1865-1915 by Howard Mumford Jones


A ruin-cum-living tower in Macaulay's influential Pleasure of Ruins.



Engravings of Abraham Ortelius of Antwerp (1527-1598), who "compiled and edited the first general atlas of the world in modern times," and Gerard Mercator (1512-1594), whose eponymous mercator projection is the primary way that we understand the world in maps. It distorts the shape and size of many landmasses and countries, particularly towards the poles.


Please contact the Personal Libraries Library Librarian at personallibraries{at}gmail{dot}com if you want to check out any of the books or for inquiries about membership.