Broward
County Libraries Division’s Bienes Museum of the Modern Book: The Dianne
and Michael Bienes Special Collections and Rare Book Library, Ft. Lauderdale,
Florida, is pleased to announce the opening of: “So This Is
Florida: An Exhibition of Decorative Book Bindings and Book Jackets, 1873-1999,
June 21-October 6, 2008
http://digilab.browardlibrary.org/sothisisflorida.html
The exhibition begins by showcasing
gracefully designed pre-dust jacket decorative cloth bindings from the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A few decades later in the 1920s,
paper dust jackets begin to dominate. For the next twenty years the dust jacket
gains more marketing prominence while decorative cloth bindings become less
noteworthy. By the 1950s-1960s the dust jacket has won the publishers’
visual battle for the reader’s eye and the illustrated publishers’
cloth and paper bindings practically disappear. The exhibition closes with
predictably triumphant, wildly colorful and exuberant paper dust jackets from
the 1970s-1990s.
Some of the well known authors in the
exhibition who have written eloquently, and occasionally, ineloquently, about
Florida are: Harriet Beecher Stowe;
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings; Stephen Foster; Munroe Kirk; Carita Doggett Corse;
Dee Dunsing; Don Blanding; and Tim Dorsey; and among the subjects they have
covered range from Florida fiction and literature to children’s books;
satires and parodies; mystery and crime novels; travel and retirement guides;
how-to and recreation books; poetry; and cookbooks.
In one way or another, all of the exhibited books
are about the endlessly fascinating and complex State of
James (Jim) A. Findlay
954-357-6762 (fax)
Main Library
Bienes Museum of the Modern Book
The Dianne and Michael Bienes Special Collections
and Rare Book Library
100 S. Andrews Ave.
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301
www.broward.org/library/bienes_about.htm
Current Exhibition:
So This Is Florida: An Exhibition of Decorative Book Binding and
Book Jackets, 1873-1999
June 21-October 6, 2008
Please visit the virtual
exhibition at:
http://digilab.browardlibrary.org/