Tag Archives: bibliography

Biography of a Book: “Gallop!” by Rufus Butler Seder

Posted on by
Reply

Bibliographic Description

Gallop! By Seder, Rufus Butler. New York: Workman Publishing Company, Inc., 2007. First edition. First book by Seder.

Gallop! demonstrates Seder’s “Scanimation” technology. The upper cover instructs the user to “Open this book to see the animals move!” When the verso is flipped, movement between bound leaf layers produces an animated effect in each accompanying recto’s acetate display. In each of eight interlaced acetate panels, illustrations of a different animal appear to move via this barrier-grid animation technique. A tenth panel animates a cutout star shape. Large text in primary-color lowercase font asks the reader if they can move “like” each animal (“can you gallop like a horse?”).

Duodecimo with 12 leaves, nine being composed of multiple folded or adhered layers. Conjugate leaves adhere atop of six-layered gatherings in a variation on the duodecimo folding style. Interior hinges are overlain with a perforated crease on the conjugate leaves, allowing the movement of the verso to also move the recto back and forth between card and acetate layers. Nine acetate sheet panels are each layered between a recto and verso of opposite leaves. The Scanimation effect is produced when the book’s verso is moved along its hinge, creating a Moiré illusion as the recto’s illustrated underlayer and interlaced overlayer interact. One acetate panel simulating Eadward Muybridge’s The Horse in Motion (1878) forms the frontispiece; a die-cut on upper cover reveals this frontispiece panel when Gallop! is closed.

The book’s unusual folding technique creates six pages in a 5×1 formation. These leaves fold multi-directionally and adhere to tightly stabilize the interior acetate panels. Leaves are unattached to hinges, with endpages instead adhered to the board binding. Interior paper strips bind all gatherings together by their outer folds, resembling a simpler accordion fold when viewed from the edge.

The copyright page notes that Scanimation holds “U.S. Patent #7,151,541” under Seder’s EyeThink, Inc. toy company, with “Additional patents pending.” The copyright acknowledges that “some illustrations in this book are based on the motion photography pioneered by Eadward Muybridge.” Book is “Printed in China”.

Stamped as library copy of San Diego State University Special Collections, Toy Book collection. Pencil handwriting on the copyright page records the book’s Library metadata.

Scholarly Analysis

As indicated by the book’s place in SDSU Library’s “Toy Books” collection, Gallop! is a technology of bookish play. Gallop! hypermediates reader activation through its bindings, which produce unconventional animated effects through the normalized reading process of ‘flipping’ versos. Only through physically interacting with Gallop! could I activate – and be activated by – its mechanical functions. Following the book’s lower cover instructions “to flip and flip and flip [each page] again”, I observed in my time with Gallop! that contact between its perforated edges produced a creaking sound with each of my flips. I consider these creaks to suggest little use before I interacted with Gallop!, as greater use (even that of my own gentle turnings) wears the creases into silence. As my examined copy contains no marginalia apart from the SDSU Library Special Collections’ identifying metadata, I infer that this Special Collections copy of Gallop! has not been frequently used for its instructed use in “flipping.” This is perhaps not a played-with copy, but a show piece donated to SDSU Library’s “Toy Books Collection” as a relevant object in toy book history. Considering this possible provenance, I analyze the materiality of Gallop! to theorize why the book is maintained as a significant object to SDSU Special archive.

Gallop! hypermediates the book as a display interface that is activated by its reader. Though book scholar Amaranth Borsuk refers to text when she notes that book “[a]nimation is not . . . limited to images” (The Book 160), we might also conceptualize the material bindings of Gallop! as animated in that their interactions produce the movement of both Scanimation and reader. The volume’s illustrations of animal locomotion are animated through the reader’s own bodily movements, with the motion of the reader producing animation by creating interactions between the book’s bound features. For Gallop!, this means that the reader “flip[s]” the book’s pages to produce movement between Scanimation layers. Gallop! is not only watched, but produced; there is no simulation of movement without reader movement. Gallop! thus hypermediates the function of the reader in producing meaning from books.

The perforated crease of Gallop!’s bindings facilitates the repeat movement of “flip[ping] and flip[ping] each page again.” The patent identifier provided in the book’s copyright page corresponds with Seder’s United States Patent petition, which details the mechanics of this “Moveable Animated Display Device” technology (2006). Seder’s petition refers to these perforated folds as “crease biasing formations” which hold together the “pressure plate and the animation layer” of the Scanimation apparatus (13, 12). If, as Seder stresses in his petition, his Display Device technology can be implemented across a variety of print media for “widespread market success” (11), then its manifestation as a toy book in Gallop! invites closer consideration of Scanimation’s specific relationship with book media.

Fig. 4 of Rufus Butler Seder’s “Moveable Animated Display Device” patent illustration, depicting the folding process for his Scanimation mechanism. 2006.

As pictured in Seder’s patent petition, each page of Gallop! is composed of a leaf folded into six layers, which together hold an adhered acetate panel. These multidirectional bindings are necessary to hold these elements in alignment and with pressure, producing clear images as the leaves are activated by reader movement. To follow Seder’s patent petition, it is the “relative movement” of book features and reader bodies which together produce Scanimation’s effect (13). When the text questions if the reader “can” move “like” the pictured animals, the reader is invited to movement through the mechanics of reading.

The back-and-forth sliding of Gallop! layers retools the mechanics of the pull tab as demonstrated by the Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking (“Movable Mechanisms”). As with a pull tab mechanism, Scanimation animates printed illustrations when the reader physically moves an activatable feature of the book. In Scanimation, however, the sliding of layers occurs covertly beneath each page’s upper card layers. The production of animation becomes an unconventional effect of operating what is designed to appear as a single-layered board book. The normalized process of flipping book pages is hypermediated as a mechanical interaction between user and book.

Gallop!’s bindings perform conformity with the mass-market convention of single-layer pages, normalizing the book’s appearance to hypermediate reading as a transformative activation. While hypermediation makes conscious the normalized processes of engagement with a medium, Gallop!’s design is a performance: it simulates conventional board book bindings (single-layer pages, accordion folds) to hypermediate ways of reading books that do not share its interior mechanics.

Visual emulation of accordion binding in Gallop!.

Borsuk identifies the book, and particularly “the accordion book”, as “a recombinant structure [that allows] readers to create new juxtapositions within it” (168). The binding of Gallop!, in disguising multilayer assemblages as individual accordion folds, visually normalizes the exterior design of Gallop! as a board book. Gallop! does not offer readers the easy “ability to completely open this [accordion binding] structure” (Borsuk 168), a blockage necessary not only to maintain the “pressure” of Scanimation layers but to protect Seder’s patented construction process. Rather than unfolding the complex leaves, the reader flips these as one to produce animation within the limits of the page and panel. The “recombinant structure” of Gallop! occurs across book and reader bodies, with its binding mechanism producing juxtapositions between the animated Gallop! and the other media technologies that it references.

This containment of animation within its bindings frames Gallop! as a screen interface. Unlike lenticular animation, which Seder would later copyright for use in toys, Scanimation technology does not ‘activate’ legibly upon changing one’s perspective of the book object. The Scanimation effect is produced only through the physical activation of the book’s pages in relation to each other and to the reader, as the acetate overlay blocks and reveals portions of the underlying animation layer. The reader produces meaning from this optical effect as they interpret continuity between the revealed image fragments. Following this juxtaposition-based reading, Seder’s choice of Muybridge’s iconic Horse as the cutout display for Gallop! constructs the book’s bindings as a pane into an interface. Gallop! continues a tradition of books as animated “proto-movies”, as in flip-books (Borsuk 157). Borsuk identifies Eadward Muybridge’s own “sequential photography” prints as a parallel technology to books, suggesting the way that collected images like Muybridge’s The Horse in Motion might be read or operated as book technologies. The choice of Muybridge’s iconic Horse as the cutout display for Gallop! connects Scanimation with film technology and history. This media association expresses the capacity of the book for literally and figuratively mediating “the persistence of vision” effect. This effect enables viewers to simulate sequence by inferring associations between keyframes.

In his patent petition, Seder describes his aim for Scanimation to “be hand held and manually operable” (11). By situating the book as a “moveable animated display device” (12), Gallop! frames bodily movement as an always-on analog alternative to electronic animation. The aspect ratio of Gallop!‘s Muybridge panels resembles not only the landscape ratios of conventional film and television screens, but also the screen size of “hand held” “animated display devices” like the Nintendo DS (released 2005). Seder notes that Scanimation’s animation layer can be constructed from “any suitable material” of any opacity (13), but Gallop! uses black-and-white cardstock for its animation layers. Combined with its semiopaque acetate overlay, each black-and-grey Scanimation panel then visually and tactilely resembles the plastic surface of an inactive CRT television or LCD screen. Compare the landscape acetate panels of Gallop! to the inactive Nintendo DS screen pictured here.

The visual association between Gallop!‘s animated display and that of the Nintendo DS occurs in the context of 2007’s anxieties surrounding childhood inactivity and screen use. Unlike the CRT and LCD screens referenced in its design, Gallop! only moves if the reader moves: it cannot be passively watched, but must be actively produced in accord with its user’s movement. The normalized process of reading – flipping the page – becomes a solution to inactivity and disengagement, united with calls to physical movement that suggest playful exercise. Reading a normalized book — flipping the single-layer pages of a bound duodecimo — is hypermediated as an exercise of both body and mind.

Gallop! is read physically, and is thus hypermediated: readers are made conscious of their role as activator of and by the book as we “flip” its pages and activate its Scanimation mechanism. The user produces animation by animating their own body, and is by extension animated by the book. By engaging readers in physical play with the boundaries of movement and sequence, Gallop! models the book and reading as technologies of activation. The examined copy’s position in the SDSU Library Special Collection’s Toy Book archive reflects Gallop!‘s function as a technology of book play.

Citations below the cut.

Continue reading →

Week 7: Hyperactivation!!

Posted on by
2

Johanna Drucker and Amaranth Borsuk each center the book’s reader as its activator. Artist’s books, “which integrat[e] the formal means of [their] realization and production with [their] thematic or aesthetic issues”, hypermediate material production and interactivity (Drucker “The Artist’s Book as Idea and Form” 2). As both Drucker (14) and Borsuk (174) show, this meta function of the artist’s book is remediated in much electronic literature and interactive fiction. Following my interest in undertaking bibliographies of the Electronic Literature Studio’s collections, I’ve begun to read Drucker and Borsuk for guidance in bibliographing transmedia book objects. I had intended to codify these methods into personal guidelines for bibliographic work with objects in Special Collections and the E-Lit Studio, but I realized that I have more questions than answers regarding good bibliographic practice, and especially regarding the bibliography of inaccessible media.

For Drucker, an artist’s book is identified in part when “the informed viewer . . . determine[s] the extent to which a book work makes integral use of the specific features of [its] form” (9). Following this, Borsuk argues that artist’s books “remind us that books are fundamentally interactive reading devices whose meanings, far from being fixed, arise at the moment of access” — or inaccess (The Book 147, 188). Inaccessibility is intentionally encoded into many artist’s books, and, whether by artist design or tech companies’ designed obsolescence, it permeates digital media. The bibliographer’s context might itself create this inaccessibility, as in the case of a CD-ROM that can’t be played for simple lack of playback equipment. Such a bibliographer’s limited access to the object might actually invite closer documentation of what features are available for analysis, like the CD-ROM’s surface, jewel case, or related ephemera. This context also emphasizes that the CD-ROM should not be approached with assumptions that it is meant to be played or read in a singular, specific way (ex. by playback in a disc reader). Just as “‘bad’ printing” makes more obvious the materiality of printing processes (Drucker 17), digital inaccessibility makes obvious the systems on which a work is dependent for functioning. The limitations of the bibliographer’s activation invite connections between contexts.

…but where is the line between meaningful connections and presumptive conjecture? My main struggle is in balancing the positioned activation of a reader with the archival project of the bibliographer. The distinctions between speculation and inference are often ambiguous to me. What is the code for identifying conjecture versus evidence, particularly when informed speculation is the only way to connect historical gaps? Will my bibliography fail if I overly situate my own positioned interaction with the object, or is this an essential aspect of responsible bibliography?

When my group and I examined a sixteenth-century codex in class, we carefully flipped its pages, moved it through light sources, and felt its cover to try identifying its materials. These were activations made possible and necessary by our positions in relation to the book object. Even documenting the book sculptures of Brian Dettmer and Doug Beube would involve moving around the objects and examining them — breathing in their space and context, connecting ocularly with their positions. Just as Borsuk shows that a reader’s movement through a book is a movement through time, space, and meaning (156, 178), the bibliographer has to move with the book, and this means that their subjective bodily experience is the contextually significant position for their activation.

So how do I reconcile my function as activator with the documentarian function of the bibliography? Isn’t the bibliographer’s context essential to document? If an artist’s book is only identified by “the informed viewer”, and if a book’s meaning only manifests “at the moment of access”, then an objective bibliography (as all objectivity) is impossible. What makes a bibliography functionally useful, and which actions of the bibliographer might damage this function? Is this really a question of objectivity versus subjectivity, or might it be more generative to foreground the function of the bibliographer as a subjective activator?

I realize that this is one of the most basic questions of archival and historian work, but it is also among the most essential to continually ask ourselves. I’d appreciate any thoughts that you all have on this, as I was hoping to come to some guiding conclusion but am still uncertain. Isn’t it only ethical for a book’s bibliographic activator to disclose the context of their activation?

Sick again, so sorry for the weakest post of all time.

Bibliography as an act of resistance and defiance

Posted on by
2

Bibliographies are commonly known as a list of: books, sources and articles– typically used to cite sources. Though, scholarly, there has been a shift regarding what is a Bibliography– challenging our preconceived notions and prejudices regarding the materialistic content of what constitutes a Bibliography; a Bibliography is not merely a works cited but material with intellectual depth– not with discourse but with the actual content characterization. A Bibliography is not a superficial list of works but examines the cultural value of texts, books and digital forms of literature. There are different aspects that should be considered when scrutinizing a Bibliography– the social-cultural framework surrounding the period in which book/ content was produced. In this instance, physical elements should be considered– the type of paper that was used/ produced, watermarks and the mechanism used to reproduce and spread literature; in this manner, converging material characteristics with our social-cultural time period and values– all dependent on our surroundings. This further demonstrates the fix set of objects in a culture that constantly shifts its values– acting in a feedback loop. And, unlike other branches in the department of arts and humanities were certain objects and materials are reserved for a particular demographic, bibliographies are entrenched in our society: scholars, professors, students, book collectors and libraries are all filled with Bibliographies– providing a sense of community and unity rather than alienating individuals that value academic curiosity and intelligence.

Maruca and Ozment’s position regarding Bibliographies converge material books with critical theory– the liberation of ideas that constrains society from ideology– ideology rooted in behaviors and rituals rather than merely ideas according to Althusser’s standards. The framing of critical theory intervenes against dire social prejudices– one that is intrinsically interconnected to the Bibliography– demonstrating how books are a symbol of power and resistance– echoing topics viewed in books such as 1984 and Brave New World.

Week 6-Bibliographies and Books as a Living History

Posted on by
2

If you had asked me before starting this class what a bibliography was, I would’ve said it’s a research trace of a project, but it doesn’t add any value to the project. It’s just there to insure we did thorough research, and our work is truly ours. But now I see what fully encapsulates that research trace. The Bibliographical Society of America state that “as a field of inquiry, bibliography examines the artifactual value of texts – including books, manuscripts, and digital texts – and how they reflect the people and cultures that created, acquired, and exchanged them.” By making a bibliography, you are making an imprint of your actions caused by thinking impacted by social and cultural systems. What search engine you use could come up with different results first and that engine put onto your computer could indicate what model and make you have, which you chose from the impact of cultural and economic influence. Our own bibliography tells a story of how we made the choices and thoughts from outside influences that got us to our research conclusion.

I did not consider before this class that physical objects or anything but a project or paper for school could have a bibliography. It is fascinating to me how much information about the world books hold. A book tells us about accessibility, culture, value, place, and time. A books bibliography and books as an object, is a living, breathing, history about humankind. W.W. Greg states in “Bibliography – A Retrospect” (1945), “For in the ultimate resort the object of bibliographical study is, I believe, to reconstruct for each particular book the history of its life, to make it reveal in its most intimate detail the story of its birth and adventures as the material vehicle of the living word. As an extension of this follows the investigation of the methods of production in general and of the conditions of survival.” (27) The history of a book and creating a bibliography for it crafts the intimate life and history of that book. Through bibliographers piecing together parts whether it be what material it’s bound in, where is it regionally from, is the making of it a cultural or period specific practice, are putting back a piece of history for us to be able to understand the past and people. A book is an imprint made by putting parts of different lives together and then is untangled and translated by bibliographers in the future for those lives and customs to continue on.

Critical Bibliographical Lens

Posted on by
3

Throughout the entirety of my academia, I have never once considered a bibliography to be more than a “work cited” section at the end of a text. To me, it was always just a way to grant credibility for liability reasons and in order to maintain academic integrity. A bibliography expands far past a way to avoid plagiarism. As The Bibliographical Society of America explains, there is a difference between the words bibliographic and bibliographic. Bibliographic being a citational record and bibliographical referring to the study of the physical features of the material printed texts (a.k.a. the bookishness of texts). 

When thinking about texts from a bibliographical perspective I immediately thought of the feelings and emotions that occurred when I was in the presence of the various texts in Special Collections. Although I was unable to read or understand any of the content on the pages, I was able to comprehend the history, craftsmanship, and purpose of the books simply by observing the physical characteristics in the paper, binding, cover, etc. The textures, designs, and structures of these texts revealed stories beyond their written content, highlighting that meaning can be derived not only from what is written but also from how it is materially presented and preserved.

The further reading section portrays the evolving discourse about bibliographical studies. Lisa Maruca and Kate Ozment explain the intersection between critical theory and bibliographical studies as a critical bibliography. Maruca and Ozment (2022) write “critical bibliography explores how critical theories can (re)shape our histories of the book and bookish objects and in turn how bibliography can be used as a tool to resist oppression.” For example, cheap mass production of printed texts accelerated the spread of hegemonic beliefs by making certain ideologies widely accessible while excluding others. The printing press not only expedited the production of texts but also lowered their cost, making the spread and consumption of oppressive ideas much faster. As someone who loves to know the “why” behind most things, I am eager to take this new approach to Special Collections this week as we also begin to start our midterm project. I will continue to ask myself: What historical occurrences shaped this text? How might the material qualities of the book itself reflect systems of power or resistance? How can I use a critical bibliographical lens to uncover stories that may not be visible in the written content alone?

New understanding of „Bibliography“

Posted on by
2

When I first heard the word “bibliography,” I honestly thought only about the list at the end of an essay you know, where you dump all the sources in MLA or Chicago style. That’s what I did in high school in Germany and it felt like the most boring part of writing. But after reading the Bibliographical Society of America’s page “What Is Bibliography?”, I realized that I had completely misunderstood the term.

The line that stuck with me was: “Bibliography examines the artifactual value of texts … and how they reflect the people and cultures that created, acquired, and exchanged them.” I had to pause on the word “artifactual.” It means that a book is not just words on paper, but also an artifact, like a piece of history you can hold. Thinking about it this way, even the small scratches, the kind of paper, or notes in the margins become part of the story.

The site gives the example of watermarks in old paper. I never thought about this before, but these tiny patterns can tell scholars where and when the paper was made. It’s like a hidden code inside the book. I find this so cool because it shows that books are physical witnesses of history. You don’t just read them you also “read” their material.

I also liked how the page made a difference between “bibliographic” and “bibliographical.” At first, I thought this was just English being confusing again. But now I see that “bibliographic” means data like author, date, publisher while “bibliographical” means the actual study of the object itself. It’s a small detail, but it helped me understand the field better.

For me, the big takeaway is that bibliography is not only about organizing sources. It’s about looking at books as objects that carry the marks of people, cultures, and histories. As a student who mostly reads PDFs on a laptop, I think it’s important to remember that the material side of texts matters too even if the “page” is just a screen.

Bibliography Defined

Posted on by
3

On the Bibliographical Society of America’s page “Bibliography Defined: Further Reading”, I was surprised how many different ways there are to define bibliography. At first, I thought it was just about making lists of books, but the readings show that it’s much more complex.

One sentence that stood out to me was from G. Thomas Tanselle, who defines bibliography as “a historical scholarship field investigating the production, circulation, and reception of texts as physical objects.” When I read this slowly, I realized how much is packed into it. Production points to the craft of bookmaking, from scribes copying manuscripts to modern printing. Circulation reminds me that books move through time and space. Who owns them, how they get into libraries, or how they are traded and collected. And reception shifts the focus to readers, how books are actually used, marked up, or even censored. This short definition opened my eyes to how dynamic the life of a book really is.

The other scholars on the page expand on this in different directions. For example, W. W. Greg focused on the material study of books, while D. F. McKenzie argued that bibliography must also include social and cultural contexts, not just paper and ink. More recently, Derrick Spires writes about liberation bibliography, which shows that the history of books is also the history of exclusion, who gets to be published, preserved, and remembered. Thinking about this makes me realize that bibliography is not neutral. Just like Tanselle says, books are physical objects, but the way they are made and circulated is shaped by power.

As a German exchange student, I think about how our libraries at home privilege certain “classic” authors while other voices are harder to find. Bibliography, then, can also be a way to uncover those silenced histories.

Overall, the BSA’s list shows that bibliography is both technical and political. It studies bindings, editions, and typography, but also the cultures that decide what counts as a book.

Curiosities about Digital Bibliography

Posted on by
1

When considering what a bibliography was, I assumed it would be a sort of contextual listing that could give context into the written contents of a book, similar to the bibliography seen at the end of essays. But, as The Bibliographical Society of America states on the About Page, “Bibliography is much more than your ‘works cited’ page.” A bibliography examines and assesses the physical aspects of a text and how those aspects relate and reflect the time the text was made. 

The art of bibliography is composed of numerous practices like enumerative, systematic, analytical, critical, descriptive, historical, and textual, as Terry Belanger mentions. All of which aim to decipher a book’s physicality and history. When reading how bibliography is approached and interacting with the examples on the website, I began to understand what sort of questions one must ask in order to really understand a book. Things like: What are the physical aspects of the paper used? Are there any splotches of ink from messy printing or etchings in the paper from whatever machine was used on the paper? What’s written on the page other than the story?

I thought it was interesting when interacting with the second sample of The Bibliographical Society of America’s About Page, which points out that “anonymous print production is a common occurrence, especially when the content is political.” When considering how political content was published anonymously, I thought about how today it’s almost virtually impossible to make any statement without a digital footprint being left behind. Though many posts may go under the radar as millions of people make daily posts, simultaneously, with enough care from one netizen, whoever made a certain post or appeared in some video can be traced, along with a good chunk of their personal history. This makes me wonder how modern bibliography is being approached today, especially because G. Thomas Tanselle, in Bibliography Defined,” mentions that “traditional bibliographical approaches are also now being applied to objects carrying electronic texts.” Reading how books can be explored outside of just their written content, though it’s most certainly considered, has gotten me excited to attempt creating my own bibliography with something from Special Collections. 

Understanding the Society Around the Book

Posted on by
Reply

They’re always talking about “what you know you know,” “what you don’t know you don’t know,” and “what you know you don’t know.” Right now, I am staring down the barrel of a football-length cannon loaded with what I know I don’t know. It is vast. More and more, I am coming to the central idea in all of the texts and objects we are looking at in this course, that the history of the book is the history of nearly everything.

And if “the ultimate resort the object of bibliographical study is, I believe, to reconstruct for each particular book the history of its life, to make it reveal in its most intimate detail the story of its birth and adventures as the material vehicle of the living word,” as WW Greg said in “Bibliography, A Retrospect,” then it is clear that I must be more intimately familiar with the many ways books came into the world, and to be more familiar with that I must better understand rudimentary production processes, how to make board, paper, ink, when and where and how all these ingredients were created, in what corners of the world were different types more common, what were the socioeconomic factors of the society in which a book was produced, what were the ongoing political struggles, what type of government did that society have?

To address the biography of a book without understanding much of that would be like trying to see your own house from space using a magnifying glass. Nothing but a generalized guess. To solve Greg’s “central problem of bibliography,” or to “ascertain the exact circumstances and conditions in which [a] particular book was produced,” I am going to have to choose a book produced in a society whose history I know well, or else I would be starting all of that research from scratch, and to track its adventures, as Greg said earlier, it seems like I would need some history of its provenance or of the hands that held it, so an English or Spanish reader would likely create marginalia that I could understand or come close to understanding.

So in some ways, conducting a bibliography of a book, is to do a deep dive on all the facets of the society that surrounds the book, because without that understanding, there is nothing to latch on to. A page is just a page, a material is just a material, and there is no story to be told from either.

Week 6: Thinking on Critical Bibliography

Posted on by
2

I was out sick and missed Tuesday’s practice in descriptive bibliography, as described by Terry Belanger (1977 qtd. in “Bibliography Defined: Further Reading” 2025). (Thanks to Vide for keeping me in the loop.) Now I’m typing this week’s post informally because my mind is slow-simmering with sick. I note this because it’s offering me insight into how sickness influences energy and modes of functioning in a way that, like the language and probable typos in this post, can be read in comparison with other posts to signify my material circumstances as a creator. Considering the scope of bibliographic methods described in the Bibliographical Society of America’s “Bibliography Defined: Further Reading” (2025), I’m thinking about how a disabled or sick bibliography would operate.

Following Lisa Maruca and Kate Ozment’s “critical bibliography”, I want to approach bibliography as culturally situated and potentially radical work. I’m thinking of a disabled or crip bibliography, which is a familiar practice in disability studies. There’s a quandary of identification in disability studies: How can we determine that a creator is disabled when there’s no hard evidence of this? Using bibliography, I think that we can elide this unnecessary (and at times medicalist) question and instead center how the materiality of a created object holds traces of disabled ways of being and production.

While it’s common to encounter a work and “just know” that you’re encountering crip kin, what you’re really experiencing is the recognition of familiar material behaviors in their media. The manically-typed scroll of Jack Kerouac, the multiple hands of blind Jorge Luis Borges and his assisting mother, the smudged and slanting correspondences of Frank’s Kafka during his late institutionalization, and the frenetic journal infodumps of Ada Lovelace can all be read for traces of disabled production practices. We might not know the affective experiences with which actors approached a book object, but we can read what G. Thomas Tanselle calls “physical clues [that] reveal details of the underlying production process” (2020 qtd. in “Bibliography Defined: Further Reading” 2025). There is some uphill work, I think, in defining and asserting ways of reading disabled production to a broader audience, but understanding the book as a technology means that we can understand how actors adapt it for disabled use.

This approach to bibliography is not limited to the processes of writing or printing a book object. The ways that people use books, as we’ve seen, are shaped by material circumstances; reading is, and has always been, transformed through disabled adaptations. Physical production processes are shaped by bodily limits on energy, time, and access. Charting these processes through crip bibliography can recenter the prevalence and importance of disabled life across history, resisting the dehistoricization and erasure of disabled life in dominant histories. This is critical when the erasure of our histories is used to justify the eradication of our futures.

I follow the bodily attunement of disability and affect theories in centering this way of experiencing the world as I practice bibliography from home. I’m looking over my journals and (in comparative readings with the aforementioned letters) observing how (re-)inking, formatting, and medium reflect how I was evidently using sketchbooks, notebooks, Post-It’s, and other ephemera both as existing books (mostly store-bought) and as creative adaptions. I will not be doing this project before a more foundations-based attempt at bibliography, but I do want to give it a try: I’ll write a bibliography of my written journals across my changes in health. Here I am trying out a disabled bibliography that can only be done in a disabled way. I’m thinking on this as my fever has exacerbated my memory issues, and approaching my journals does not come with memories of their creation. I would here undertake bibliography of objects that I know the context of (I modified them at some point) but not the actual processes of creating (those memories are gone). This would invite critical insight into doing disabled (auto?)bibliography, using immemory to investigate the fractured but continuous relationship between bibliographer, book object, and trace actors.