An exhibition of books in Oaxaca

Each time I am in Oax­a­ca I stop into the Casa De La Ciu­dad. There is always some­thing inter­est­ing in the lit­tle sala to the right of the entrance.

When I was last there (Sep­tem­ber 2008) it was the exhi­bi­tion ‑Los Libres, Los Via­jes, y El Tiem­po (Books, Trav­els, and Time — roughly)

The prob­lem of how to let peo­ple look at/through old­er books is not often solved at all let alone nicely.

Here they have scanned/photographed the cov­ers and por­tions of the text from sev­er­al books that tie in with the exhib­it. Then bound them togeth­er and left them out for peo­ple to look at.

These aren’t sophis­ti­cat­ed fac­sim­i­lies. They’re just-good-enough repro­duc­tions that aren’t expect­ed to last beyond the cur­rent exhibit.

They are scanned and then print­ed sin­gle sided on mat­te pho­to paper and “bound” by being sta­pled at the left mar­gin. The sta­ples are cov­ered by cloth tape.

There was this one that fas­ci­nat­ed Jim — the excerpt was from the anten­nas chapter.

This one is fine just for the cov­er illustration.

This is a great solu­tion to the prob­lem of how to let peo­ple get hands on with books that can’t take the handling.

Cheap, tidy, and cer­tain­ly the only way I’ll ever get my hands on Dueno del Mun­do by Julio Verne.