I went to the NYU Bobst Library to look for books that were printed pre-1923. The process was long and the titles were surprisingly challenging to find and once I got to see them I was, to be completely honest, underwhelmed.

The process was an arduous one because the library catalog, BobCat, was difficult to navigate in order to find books that were printed before 1923. One of the reasons for this is that a subject has to be specified for the search to be done. The librarian at the reference desk helped me for an hour looking for titles that were available in the library and most of them could only be seen at Fales’ library. I was going to register for Fales but it was closing 30 minutes, after I arrived, and on Saturday it was closed. So there were some obstacles I had to jump in order to get to the books.

Together with the librarian, I found a book called ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho, published in 1816. So, I went to the section to find the book and all the books around it were pertaining to the same topic and were also printed before 1923. I was expecting to see more marginality inside the books but there were minimal notes on the pages. Besides, the ones that were written on had pen writing that seemed to date after 1923. Thus, I don’t know how valuable my exploration was except for the fact that I got to see the bindings of these books crumpling to pieces. I thought the condition of the books was interesting and some were even put into conservation boxes, because they were so old.  Some of the books had some intelligible annotations on them and some had dedicatory messages on the front, in cursive writing, which you don’t see as often now. Overall, it was a class activity that was different and an endeavor I would have never done, so even though it was hard and not that successful, it was an experience I am glad I had.