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Great Fun for Book Lovers

  • Do you like looking at book collections? At creative gifs of old photos and miniature oddities?

    The Tumblr from the Special Collections & Archives of the University of Iowa is terrific.

    Take ten minutes and look.

    It’s just plain fun. You’ll see things like secret “fore-edged paintings” from 19th century books. These are paintings you can’t see unless to fold back the pages of the book. Here’s a video that explains it:

    And here are some of the University of Iowa gifs that make it more understandable and wonderful.

    The site has historical features — look at these scans from J.R.R. Tolkien and Charles Dickens (the latter a first edition print from 1843!):

    And one of the best parts of the Tumblr is their “Miniature Monday” posts. 

    Hindu devotional books that fit into a matchbook (from 1999):

    And oddball historic children’s books the size of half-dollars:

    The blog is a treat. They specialize in very entertaining gifs and miniatures.

    From the Who2 blog:

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