A wonderful article to begin the week

I, like other librarians, subscribe to numerous listservs that perpetually fill up my inbox with pedantic discussions and irrelevant minutiae. Nonetheless, once in awhile something interesting comes along.

For instance, a discussion began recently in the Book Arts listserv concerning books bound in unusual skins and animal pelts. (Among the more standard skins and pelts of snake, crocodile, and other reptiles, for instance, a quite common material is Shagreen, the skin of a shark or ray). This discussion naturally (I could see it coming) devolved into a discussion of books bound (or purportedly bound) in human skin. Such items are not that rare and it seems as if every rare book room and special collection has an example. The listserv renewed the discussion this morning since an article was discovered in a Harvard Student Magazine on the topic. What is particularly neat about the article is that it focuses on a book that I actually have held in my hands since it is located at the Harvard Law School library rare book room, a place I worked as a library student.

But what really made me giggle was a term that may or may not be a neologism to describe these things:

Anthropodermic Bibliopegy!

I want that to be my trivia team name this week: the anthropodermic bibliopegists. I find this to be a wonderful start to a week.


~A