“Ghostwrist.” Submitted by asfaltics.
From p. 686 of Proceedings of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, v. 59 (1921). Original from the University of Chicago. Digitized April 13, 2012.
April 29, 2013
April 29, 2013
Employee holds plates closed.
Throughout The Philosophical Transactions (From the Year 1732 to the Year 1744), edited by John Martyn (1747). Original from Montserrat Abbey Library. Digitized February 9, 2011.
April 10, 2013
Don’t touch that! An employee’s hands over an illustration of the Portuguese man o’ war.
From p. 8 of Gatherings of a Naturalist in Australia by George Bennett (1860). Original from Oxford University. Digitized September 11, 2006.
April 1, 2013
Tissue paper cone.
From p. 32 of My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass (1855). Does not include metadata indicating library of origination or date of digitization (but does include Stanford library artifacts).
March 27, 2013
Glitched hands.
From the front and back matter of The Works: Serious and Comical, In Prose and Verse by Thomas Brown and James Drake (1730). Original from the Bavarian State Library. Digitized September 27, 2011.
March 23, 2013
The transformative gutter.
From the back matter of A Homoeopathic Materia Medica On a New and Original Plan: A Sample Fascicle Containing the Arsenic Group by Marvin W. Van Denburg (1894). Original from the University of Michigan. Digitized October 8, 2007.
March 11, 2013
Employee turns pages.
The frontispiece and title page of Traits and Stories of Anglo-Indian Life by Henry Robert Addison (1858). Original from the New York Public Library. Digitized November 21, 2007.
February 26, 2013
A book composed entirely of employee’s corrected fingers over blank pages.
A True Copy of a Letter from the Reverend Mr. Greenshields (1709). Original from Oxford University. Digitized April 27, 2009.
February 4, 2013
Employee’s many-ringed fingers.
From the front matter of New Orleans: The Place and the People by Grace Elizabeth Kin (1895). Original from the University of Michigan. Digitized July 17, 2006.
January 30, 2013
Employee’s fingers autocorrected with mirrored text.
Throughout An Exact Narrative of Many Surprizing Matters of Fact Uncontestably Wrought By an Evil Spirit or Spirits, In the House of Master Jan Smagge (1709). Original from Oxford University. Digitized March 10, 2009.
January 24, 2013
Uncropped; distorted.
Throughout The Army Ration: How to Diminish Its Weight and Bulk, Secure Economy in Its Administration, Avoid Waste, and Increase the Comfort, Efficiency, and Mobility of Troops by Eben Norton Horsford (1864). Original from Harvard University. Digitized December 7, 2005.
December 4, 2012
Small book in large library boards, with hands of employee and digitization equipment clips.
Throughout Mother Goose’s Melody: or, Sonnets for the Cradle by William Shakespeare (1794). Original from Indiana University. Digitized July 2, 2009.
December 1, 2012
“Unlike books, we cannot feel the impressions of the digital. The touch of the page brings us into the world, while the screen keeps us out. All that remains of the hand is a ghostly remnant of its having been there at the time of scanning, like the chance encounters with scanners’ hands from Google Books, accidental traces of the birth of the digital record. The hand no longer points, like the typographic manicule; rather, it covers over or gets in the way. Hand was there, we might say.”
The Art of Google Books was mentioned in Andrew Piper’s recent contribution to Slate, “Out of Touch: E-reading isn’t reading.”
November 8, 2012
Employee’s pixellated hands in high-contrast black and white.
From the front and back matte of Progr. de Periergia in Anatomes Studio Vitanda by Johann H. Schulze (1720). Original from the Bavarian State Library. Digitized December 12, 2011.
November 7, 2012
Employee turns pages (quickly).
From p. 16-17 of The Whist Reference Book by William Mill Butler (1898). Original from the New York Public Library. Digitized September 7, 2005.
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