blogis librorum. A blog about books. Rare books.

As early as the year 1040, the Chinese had made movable type out of clay and earthenware. The innovation, for a variety of reasons, did not catch on in the East, but four centuries later it became the center of a revolution in Europe. In 1439, the craftsman Johannes Gutenberg used movable type in his shop in Mainz. His screwpress method was so effective that for three and a half centuries little was done to improve its design. But evolve it did, becoming ever more complex and efficient, bringing the written word to ever greater swaths of the population.

Centuries before Europe, and as early as the 800s, Japan hosted the best papermaking craftsmanship in the world. To this day, a few hundred businesses—often family-run and owned—continue the tradition of making superior-quality paper by hand. The process is labor intensive, slow, and requires years of expertise, but why expect anything less when it comes to manufacturing some of the best paper on earth?

Paper marbling is an art form that may well date back more than a thousand years. The technique involves creating paint patterns on top of a container of water and transferring those patterns to paper, usually paper of high quality. The result is stunning, unique designs that can be used for covering leather-bound books or simply as decorative art in its own right. At the very latest, it first appeared in 12th century Japan before spreading across Asia. In the 15th century, it had either made its way from East Asia or been re-invented independently in Turkey, where a new, more sophisticated version of the practice (called ebru) would gain popularity. This spread throughout the Islamic world and eventually reached England around the 17th century. There, marbling was used not just on books but also for wrapping gifts and lining drawers and shelves. Want to see the process for yourself? We've compiled some videos of paper marbling.

Twentieth century San Francisco was a hotbed for creative thinking and artistic pursuits, including those of fine press printers. Robert Grabhorn and his brother Edwin had the most heralded press in the city for nearly half a century. Indeed, Grabhorn Press set the standard for typographic ingenuity and artistic mastery. When the press closed in 1965, younger brother Robert joined forces with a printer by the name of Andrew Hoyem who had worked for Grabhorn in the 1960s. Together, the two continued their fine press efforts, publishing impressive limited edition books including an edition of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl". When Grabhorn passed away, Andrew Hoyem continued their press and in 1974, he renamed it Arion Press. Today, Hoyem is considered one of the most distinguished printers of our time. He has published over 100 illustrated fine press books, all limited-edition, and most published on letterpress. Arion Press books are highly sought after by collectors due to their quality and limited release.

Vellum, a fine parchment traditionally made from calf skins, was for many years the default material for use in printing important manuscripts or documents. Many of Gutenberg’s first Bibles, for instance, were printed on Vellum, as were many illuminated manuscripts from the Medieval Era. And, in fact, despite the decrease in the material’s prevalence over the centuries, all British Acts of Parliament are still printed and archived on vellum. Differentiated from other forms of parchment by the quality of the animal skin used (debate continues as to whether vellum must refer to parchment made from calf skins or if it is more broadly applicable to finer quality parchment), vellum is extremely labor-intensive to produce. The resulting product, however, is durable and high-quality—suitable for printing a book of hours or a religious work.  To learn more about the process, check out the four videos below.

In 1958, Henry Morris, inspired by piece of medieval paper he'd recently acquired and a new hobby of paper making, founded Bird & Bull Press. Bird & Bull Press published over seventy-five beautiful books, each printed on paper handmade by Morris himself or carefully selected and imported. Bird & Bull publications were printed by letterpress from metal type, creating books that not only serve as a lovely example of the skill and artistry that goes into bookmaking, typography, and paper making, but as a means of preserving a history and tradition that otherwise may have been lost.

The Book Club of California was founded in 1912 when John Henry Nash, W.R.K. Young, James D. Blake, and Edward Robeson Taylor went to lunch with Charles Moore. Nash and company were hoping to showcase some of the books they owned in the upcoming Panama Pacific International Exposition. Moore said their entry would have more weight if the request came from an organization rather than a handful of individuals. Though the exhibition fell through, the newly formed Book Club of California grew to 58 members by the end of the year. Now, membership is close to 1,000. The club is the oldest fine press publisher in the country to continually release fine press books.

The word lithograph comes from lithos, the Greek word for stone. Lithography differs from similar image-based printing methods by not requiring the artist to carve into the medium, as she would have to do with a copper engraving or a woodcut relief. Instead, she draws the image onto the smooth surface of a limestone block, and then uses oil and other substances to transfer it onto paper.

No matter how far the digital age encroaches, nothing will ever replace the joys of paper. The pleasures of underlining words with pen or of feeling the page in your hand are hard to beat. Some even argue memory-retention is better when one reads on paper than on the screen. From Ancient Egypt, to Han Dynasty China, to Gutenberg’s Europe, paper has long been a treasured object. Here are seven videos to renew your admiration for the incredible craft of papermaking.

Are you considering expanding your current book collection to include paper ephemera? If so, you might want to learn more about collecting and preserving broadsides. Sometimes you will also see broadsides described as “broadsheets.” Now that you know the terminology, you might be asking: what in the world is a broadside? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is “a sheet of paper printed on one side only, forming one large page.” But this definition doesn’t fully explain the significance of these items. Broadsides are among the most sought-after items for collectors: from those interested in sixteenth-century political ephemera to those putting together collections of twentieth-century poetry. No matter what era or genre your collection spans, you might be interested in adding some of these materials to your library.