Hello everyone,

Due to a morning meeting I’m just catching up with the first session and I’m sorry if this comes a little late.

I’m Anna Vlasova and I’m a Project Cataloguer at Eton College Library.

I was always fascinated with antiquarian books and after getting bachelor’s degree in Library Science and Information at the University of Latvia I worked at the Early printed and rare books department of at the University Library.  Seeking to expand my knowledge of early printed and rare books I moved to London where I first attended LRBS ‘Introduction to Bibliography course and then completed an MA in the History of the Book’ at the Institute of English Studies. I have catalogued both modern and ‘old’ books at the London Library, mostly Russian publications. I’m currently cataloguing rare books at Eton College Library, in particular collections of Etoniana and Schoolbooks, which is a real treat!

As my current role requires recording detailed copy specific information, including ‘deciphering’ ms. inscriptions, I found London International Palaeography Summer School‘s course ‘Reading and Editing Renaissance English Manuscripts’ with Chris Stamatakis invaluable; it gives a good introduction to scribal hands of the period and lots of practice reading them.

I’d be interested to know how different libraries describe book bindings, if at all (with the limited time we can spend per book, it seems bindings tend to get minimal description)? Does anyone try to give some description of the structure, or only the covering material and decoration?

Many thanks,
Anna