When working on our biography of a book midterm projects, the biggest inquiry at hand is how. How are these books made, and how does that lead us to the bigger picture? For instance, “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.” This quote helps make the idea of a bibliography clearer, especially since the term isn’t as well-known as one might think. The biggest point that stands out to me is the “how”. That is the biggest question that lies before us when examining these artifacts. How are these books crafted? How were the pages bound? How were the pictures printed? How does the font reflect the culture of the time? These are how questions then lead to the bigger ideas, the so what, which is really what is important. We are close reading these books in a new way, which most of us have never done before. We are used to opening up a book and reading its contents, then reading closely from there. But here we are reading the spine, the cover, what the pages are made out of, how the pictures were printed, the marginalia, the signatures, the bookplate, and ext. This analysis then helps us see how people read the book during its heyday. Does it have a hook on it? What is the size? If it’s small, we can assume it’s a personal book, but if it’s large, then we can picture it being used in a public space such as a church.

There are so many questions at hand, especially so many how questions. I am very much looking forward to jumping into this project and close reading a book for myself to see into its past and glimpse into the culture that it reflects.