An example of a binding commissioned by Thomas Hollis complete with gold embossing. The owl indicates wisdom and the cap (Pileus) on the spine signifies liberty. Henry Neville, Plato Redivivus, or a dialogue concerning government (London, 1763). National Library of Scotland: ([Ad]. 7/1.8). Reproduced under a Creative Commons License with permission from the Library.
Special Collections exhibitions have allowed visitors to experience displays more freely.) We numbered display items and numbered display cases, but the resultant references proved too complex for some visitors and the pre- scribed route was too subtly signposted and often unobserved.
To display the digital texts, two tablets were introduced into the exhibition.
They sat on the cases (locked onto a boun- cepad or tablet enclosure and secured to the feet of the cases). They displayed dig- itised versions of texts hosted on external websites, which necessitated the purchase of licences to lock them down. The need to secure the tablets to the cases impacted on the placement of the physical texts they linked to within the cases, and there- fore on the narrative, due to the location of power sockets.
We learned that there were limitations on the hardware that was available for Android tablets and in the functionality of compatible apps; in retrospect, iPads would have been easier to use but the University’s procurement policies had made purchasing iPads problematic. The themes of political imagery and of political ideas were evident in the striking pink graphic design which reproduced both images from the displayed historic texts and the outputs of the contem- porary visual scribing, by Nifty Fox, of
The Experiencing Political Texts exhibition at the Philip Robinson Library, Newcastle University. Photo © Rachel Hammersley
The display cabinet on The Physical Book from the Experiencing Political Texts exhibi- tion, including a tablet tethered to the case. Photo © Rachel Hammersley
the project’s reading group discussions. Additionally, an electronic kiosk show- cased the project website.
The exhibition brought increased traffic to the Special Collections exhibition web pages: 54 visits which noticeably rose when the exhibition opened and dimin- ished as it drew to a close. Social media impressions also increased. Footfall was counted and behaviour observed on specific days and at different times: most visitors to the exhibition came during the Library’s core hours and stayed for an average of 23 minutes; others spent an hour and upwards engaging with the exhibition and experiencing the political texts more deeply. Some of these find- ings are taken into consideration in our second exhibition which will be hosted at the National Library of Scotland between the 8 December 2023 and 20 April 2024 using materials from their collections. The Experiencing Political Texts project, then, has revealed both the interest of readers and audiences in the physical form of texts, but also the challenges of reading early modern texts in their original versions and of conveying the original reading experience to exhibition audiences. While no magic bullet solution is available, advances can be made when editors and librarians alert readers to the different formats of texts and the advantages – and challenges – of each. Moreover, as our experience with the exhibition suggested, being more creative with our use of the digital might provide ways of overcoming some of the challenges. Rather than being seen as competing formats, original and digital editions can work together to offer new insights. IP
January-February 2024 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 41
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