Yesterday, Shippensburg’s special collections librarian James Sterner gave a presentation about the history of book printing in Early Modern Europe. The university recently recieved a collection of rare books, including a 1609 copy of an English translation of Josephus’s _History of the Wars_.
James Sterner used this copy to discuss the process of printing at this time, including how to tell the difference between a folio and a quarto, how presses stamped their signatures, how to find watermarks, how moveable type worked, and how paper was made in the Early Modern period.
In fact, paper was the most expensive part of the printing process in its early phases.
Sources: Shout-out to both librarian Special Collections director James Sterner and Dr Jordan Windholz and his English Renaissance Lit class, who allowed me to sit in on this presentation! My original post featured this statement prominently, but somehow the AI of Instagram thought I was violating legal permissions and removed three of my posts, so that’s why I am putting this in the comments!
