Booklyn and the Library of Congress

Don't miss Booklyn curator Marshall Weber's interview about Mark Dimunation (Director of Special Collections at the Library of Congress) in the recent Fine Press Magazine.

Excerpt -

Fine Books Interview: Nation Building,
June 2009

At the Library of Congress, Mark Dimunation Collects for America
By Sarah L. Courteau

Sarah L. Courteau is literary editor of The Wilson Quarterly.

Many book collectors and curators would give all their first editions for Mark Dimunation’s job. Since 1998, Dimunation has served as chief of the Library of Congress’s Rare Books and Special Collections Division. It is the largest rare book collection in North America, housed in the largest library in the world, a “huge theme park of materials,” as he describes it. The division contains some 850,000 items—including Charles Dickens’ walking stick, the contents of Abraham Lincoln’s pockets on the night he was assassinated, and The Bay Psalm Book, published in 1640, the first book printed in what became the United States.

Rare does not always mean old, of course. Marshall Weber, an artist and head curator for Booklyn Artists Alliance in New York, has known Dimunation since he and fellow book artist Christopher Wilde visited the rare books chief shortly after he started at the Library of Congress. They tried to interest him in buying their one-of-a-kind creations.

Dimunation’s initial response, says Weber, was, “This isn’t even a book. It’s a piece of art.” But the discussion about whether a unique book is a valid form of American publishing didn’t end there, says Weber, and years later Dimunation changed his policy. “Mark is interesting as a curator because he functions in the fullest definition of that word,” Weber says. “He’s not just buying things. He’s deeply involved in the dialogue around the history of the American book…. When the field is changing, he will be the first person to take the risk to make the change.”

Last year through Booklyn Dimunation purchased a limited-edition portfolio, produced by the collaborative known as the Combat Paper Project, that consists of sheets of paper made from an Iraq War vet’s shredded combat uniform; depicted on them are images of the soldier removing his uniform and cutting it. You might wonder, says Weber, “How can the federal government collect something like that, that’s so critical?” But the ultimate goal of preserving American history means that political orthodoxy doesn’t rule the library’s acquisitions—and that what tomorrow’s users of the library will be interested in is as important a consideration as what today’s users want to see. Artist books such as this one and others are “the perfect intersection between contemporary issues and contemporary book arts,” says Dimunation.

This page is maintained by Marshall Weber.