One of the curses of cataloging, is that you are forever sampling books but never get to fully digest them. I used to try to keep lists of books I wanted to revisit, but, once they left my desk I never got back to them…there’s always an excuse, it’s shelved on the other side of campus, why did I want to read that book anyway?, why did I save that German title when I can’t read German, etc. My favorites are the art books since I get a sense of the artist in the time it’s on my desk. Currently, I have a ton of art books to catalog, one of those hidden collections. So, I spend my time shifting between the art books and other materials. Today, I thought I’d include a sampling of the different books I handled:
For the regular books, I handled all sorts of topics like Estonian music, biographies (World War 2 veterans mostly), William Blake’s complete works, Canadian fiction, Cameroon poetry, economics, and logic. Luckly, today was mostly an English language day, with a little French and Italian thrown in for good measure. None of these really held my attention, instead today was all about the art books.
The hidden collection I mentioned above is called the “Artist’s Vertical file.” These books are all exhibition catalogs (a book published to accompany a gallery show). I also had some art gifts. One book I liked in particular was Minidoka revisited : the paintings of Roger Shimomura. Shimoura is an American artist exploring cultural identity (in this particular exhibition anyway). I enjoyed the interplay between the traditional Japanese print style and pop art to emphasize sterotyping and discrimination.
Another artist that caught my attention was Randy Shull and his juxtaposition folk art and modern design. Then again, I’m a sucker for mid-century modern.
And finally, an old book, The Japanese House and Garden. Unfortunately, the photos are in black & white but it includes plans and architectural details.
Cataloging the abyss 
Leave a comment