#thingsleftinbooks

[librarycompany]

A boarding pass, a bit of string, an old receipt. We all leave things in books.

Yesterday's readers left these lovely bits and pieces inside books either as place markers or sentimental tokens, but unfortunately we have no record of where these pieces of ephemera were found. Thus they became the curious "Things Found in Books" collection.

Our policy now is to leave these unique traces of readership in place. They add to the story.

[librarycompany]

It’s #ManuscriptMonday, and we’re wondering whether the “candles” and “britches” noted here are somehow related to the “Bellum Piratium” mentioned below?

This manuscript fragment is part of our Things Left in Books Collection. Unfortunately, the book in which this fragment was found is not identified in the collection. Since the mid 1980s, the Library Company no longer separates such materials without tracking the connection through accession numbers.  #LiveAndLearn

A small sampling of the Things Left in Books Collection can be viewed here.

[librarycompany]

Things Left in Books Collection

Anonymous readers left these lovely bits and pieces inside books as place markers or sentimental tokens, but we have no record of where these pieces of ephemera were found. Without the book as context, they lose meaning. It is our policy now to leave these traces of readership in place.

You can see these items in person as part of our current exhibition, The Living Book: New Perspectives on From and Function on display through January 5th, 2018.