[DCRM-L] Question on blank-paper ephemera in books

[Laurence S. Creider]

Kate,
I am normally in favor of preserving ephemera associated with books, but I
am a bit stumped here.  What is the purpose of preserving the paper?

My question would be what is this blank piece of paper evidence of or for?
Sometimes I use blank pieces of paper (or restaurant receipts) to mark my
place in a book that I am reading, sometimes to mark the index or notes
when I find I am making frequent reference to them as I read the book. 
When I finish the book, I may just put the paper anywhere in the book or
just throw it out.  I frequently put pieces of paper in books or journals
in which I am photocopying pages (I know, old-fashioned).  I might insert
a piece of paper to indicate something I want to share or to quote in a
talk or even to find again.  With the exception of the photocopying, any
of these purposes might have motivated someone from the time of printing
forward.  While the type and condition of the blank paper may give me some
idea of when the book was read, that will usually only be narrowed to a
century or so unless a watermark is present.  Once there is writing, even
probationes pennae, the matter changes, of course.

I will be interested to hear what others can teach me about this.


Thanks,
Larry

-- 
Laurence S. Creider
Head, Archives and Special Collections Dept.
University Library
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, NM  88003
Work: 575-646-4756
Fax: 575-646-7477
lcreider at lib.nmsu.edu

On Thu, June 18, 2015 9:15 am, Kate Moriarty wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
>
> You've helped me before with our ephemera procedures. We are refining
> those
> procedures and were wondering, do you record/process/or otherwise
> acknowledge blank pieces of paper found in books? If so, do you do it
> across the board or does your practice depend on the paper or the age of
> the book or the collection the book is a part of? Or do you ignore or
> remove blank paper (there's only so much time in the day)?
>
> On the one hand, blank paper doesn't carry information beyond the type and
> age of the paper. On the other, papers do vary and they are evidence of
> reading practice.
>
> Our general current practice is to keep ephemera in place in the book,
> enclosed in glassine, and record their presence in a note in the bib
> record. We identify three types of ephemera in the bib record: manuscript
> ephemera, printed ephemera, and ephemera (catch-all for everything else).
>
> Thanks for any information you can share,
> -Kate
>
> --
> Kate S. Moriarty, MSW, MLS  |  Rare Book Catalog Librarian  |  Associate
> Professor  |  Pius XII Memorial Library  |  Room 320-2
> Saint Louis University  |  3650 Lindell Blvd . |  St. Louis, MO 63108  |
> (314) 977-3024 (tel)  |  (314) 977-3108 (fax)  |  moriarks at slu.edu  |
> http://libraries.slu.edu/
>