New exhibition judges books by the cover

Over 150 selected items of beauty, interest and value are on show in an exhibition of books bound in coloured cloth, on display from Thursday 14 October 2004.

Material in the exhibition has been taken from the collection of coloured cloth bindings held in the Monash University Library Rare Books Collection.

All Monash staff and students are invited to attend the exhibition opening, at 5:45pm, Thursday 14 October in the exhibition room on level 1 at the Sir Louis Matheson Library on the Clayton campus. To RSVP email merrilyn.sorensen@lib.monash.edu.au or telephone 03 990 52670 by 12 October, 2004.

Dr Alan Dilnot, Senior Lecturer from the School of Literary, Visual and Performance Studies, Faculty of Arts, will give the opening address at 6pm.

“This style of binding, popular in the late nineteenth century, produced some very beautiful pieces that are works of art in their own right,” said exhibition curator and Rare Books Librarian, Richard Overell.

 Mr Overell said there was a strong interest in the “history of the book” at Monash University, and that the items on display exemplified a bygone time of class and beauty in the development of book production and marketing.

 “At the beginning of the nineteenth century binding was usually left to the consumer, who would purchase the book and then have it bound, often in leather, to match the rest of the books in his collection.”

 “With the development of cloth bindings that allowed intricate stamping and the changing fashions in lettering and design over the nineteenth century you could say that the practice of judging a book by its cover was born.”

 The exhibition will run from14 October 2004 – 28 February 2005.

 You can view items from the exhibition online or request a printed catalogue of the exhibition items by emailing lorraine.david@lib.monash.edu.au

6 October 2004

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Over 150 selected items of beauty, interest and value are on show in an exhibition of books bound in coloured cloth.