The clay cuneiform tablets, only inches tall, record business from about 2000 B.C.

Determining the exact size of the rare-books collection brings up an interesting question: What exactly constitutes a book? The answer seems simple enough until you consider Dickens' "Bleak House" (pictured on the preceding page). Is the work a single book, or does the stack of serial episodes count as 19 books? And what about papyrus scrolls from the first century B.C.?

"It's always open to debate," says Kevin Grace,  MA (A&S) '77, head of the University of Cincinnati's Archives and Rare Books Library. "But if a book is the recording of information in convenient forms, then what about cuneiform tablets? The techniques and physical forms change, but they all record information along with the experiences of humanity."

UC's rare book holdings do indeed have cuneiform from 2048 B.C., as well as ancient papyrus fragments. There also are illuminated medieval manuscripts, an 18th century Sumatran book with pages made of bark, Buddhist books recorded on palm leaves and more than a thousand "anonymous poetical pamphlets" from the 1700s, which sold on British streets for pennies. Of course, some forms of "recorded information in convenient forms" simply defy acquisition at all. To help students view books and reading in less than conventional ways, Grace recently taught a class, "The Anthropology of Books and Reading," which examined the topic from a cross-cultural perspective.

For one assignment, he had UC Honors students observe someone with a tattoo, then write an essay about the person based strictly upon "reading" the tattoo and its owner, without speaking to the person. Tattoos often serve as "mini-autobiographies," making statements about who people are, he says.

Above is a fragment of a papyrus manuscript. The library has several such samples, most dating from around 1200 B.C.	An illuminated manuscript on vellum, "The Ascension," is from "The Limoges Book of Hours," Limoges, France, circa 1475.
	All photos/Dottie Stover

An overview of UC libraries
P&G donation gave UC Dickens

Archives and Rare Books
Blegen Library's 75th anniversary
Architectural Symbols of the Carl Blegen Library

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