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2011-2012 Schedule:

June-July-August: no meetings

September 14: Our guest will be Sarah Horowitz, Special Collections Librarian from Augustana College. She will be presenting a talk entitled The Wig and Powder School: Gender, Empire, and 1890s Illustration. As she writes: The most famous British illustrated books of the 1890s were those of Aubrey Beardsley and William Morris, but there were many other illustrators working at that time. This talk will explore the work of the Wig and Powder School illustrators, who tended to illustrate canonical British novels. The talk will use examples from Special Collections as well as Sarah’s personal collection. It will also look at the question of how these illustrations shape the reader's experience of these books.

October 12: An evening at the Herbert Hoover Library & Museum

November 9: Our guest will be Arthur Bonfield, who will be speaking on Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century English Herbals: Turner; Dodoens-Lyte; Gerard; Johnson-Gerard; Parkinson; Salmon. He will be speaking about these books as a collector, and we are thrilled that he will be bringing his own copies of these books to show us.

December/January: no meeting

February 8: Paul Juhl will be presenting a program that centers on nineteenth century photography.  Although not a photographer himself, Paul has amassed a large collection of early Iowa images and will share with our group information concerning not only the earliest types of photography but also marketing techniques used by the early photographers to prosper in their trade. Many interesting stories accompany the people who made up this profession and the choices of images that they made during the early decades of the “art.” There will be special emphasis on Paul’s favorite type of photography – stereography – that produced the three dimensional image viewed through the stereoscope that some of us remember from childhood.  Looking carefully at a historical image in whatever form can reveal many things and tell us much about the daily life of the people living at that time.

March 21 (new date): Bibliophile Al Dawson will present "How Sherlock Holmes Turned Me Into a True Bibliophile!" He will give a preview (with behind-the-scenes material) of a paper which will be published this year in Toronto. The bulk of the research, however, was done right here in Iowa. The topic concerns a mystery as to the identity of the recipient of twelve letters written by Arthur Conan Doyle some 116 years ago. Get ready for a Wilde ride that will start in Egypt and end in Los Angeles, with several stops in between. Three first editions are involved in solving the case.  

April 11: Our guest will be Brian Harvey, retired UI staff member and collector and dealer in rare and used books. He will talk about his collection of rare and antiquarian dog books that date from the 16th through the end of the 19th centuries. He will show examples of the earliest breed books, early works where dog stories were used for social satire, and the development of several new genres popularized during the 19th century such as the sentimental dog story and dog biographies and even dog autobiographies. Be prepared for a fun time!

May 9: We will end the 2011-2012 academic year with a field trip to the Masonic Library in Cedar Rapids. This should be a fascinating opportunity to learn more about one of Iowa's oldest libraries, one with deep connections to the beginnings of the State and the University.

We start programs promptly at 7 p.m., and presenters are asked to conclude by 8 p.m. so those who need to leave can do so.  Everyone, however, is welcome to stay until at least 8:30, either to carry on the discussion or simply to socialize with other Bibliophiles. Guests are always welcome. Booksellers catalogs recently received by the Libraries are available for review and can be taken away if wanted.