Postscripts
How the Gutenberg Bible and the world's first photograph was moved from the Harry Ransom Center to the LBJ Library.
By Clay Smith, Fri., April 13, 2001
Moving the Gutenberg
Tuesday morning, a group of photographers, news cameramen, and some librarians and curators and I were standing at the loading dock at the LBJ Library waiting for the Harry Ransom Center's Gutenberg Bible and the world's first photograph, which also belongs to the HRC, to arrive. On the rare occasions when these two artifacts leave the HRC, an armored car or policeman has to be with them at all times. The HRC's copy of the Gutenberg is one of only 21 known copies that are complete; it was printed in 1454. Someone from the LBJ Library said that the HRC staff was a little bit concerned that the media would be sticking their microphones and cameras in the faces of the curators who would be handling the artifacts, and that there needed to be a clear path for the curators to swiftly maneuver the items up to the second floor, where an exhibition titled "From Gutenberg to Gone With the Wind: Treasures From the Ransom Center" will open on May 3. (And let me just say that the image this concern planted in my mind -- reporters hounding librarians, curators, and archivists instead of the usual suspects -- made me laugh and be happy all day.) The request to not be meddlesome seemed to make sense to everyone, although a photographer wisecracked that if she heard the voice of Jesus erupting from the Gutenberg, she would, in fact, obey her journalistic imperative and hover around the Bible while taking pictures. And it was clear that there was nothing anyone could do about that.
When two cop cars finally did maneuver into the dock, Barbara Brown, who has been a photograph conservator at the HRC for 13 and a half years, had her seat belt on in the front passenger seat of the first car that arrived. There was a big yellow trunk in the seat behind her. For a brief second, although Brown doesn't seem to be the unruly type and is just as studious and gentle as we assume all people who work in a library are, since she was being driven by a cop, I couldn't help but think that she had done something terribly wrong and that the policeman was going to handcuff her in a pique of fury and tell us that she had nabbed the Book of Obadiah or some other disturbing thing. Then I returned to planet Earth, and Olivia Primanis, senior book conservator at the HRC, took the Gutenberg from the car and marched it assuredly up the stairs and into the elevator before most of the media realized that the Gutenberg was actually inside the surprisingly small box wrapped in plastic that Primanis was holding and not nestled in the big yellow trunk in the cop car. Later, after the Gutenberg had been placed in its case and the photograph had been removed from its trunk and installed, I needed to know what people who get to drive around in a cop car with the Gutenberg Bible and the world's first photograph talk about. "We were just sort of chatting in general about things," Brown said. "Traffic and negotiating campus and if closing off Speedway had made any difference in getting around campus. We're dealing with traffic initiatives, and it's cut down on some traffic, but if we have to get someplace in a hurry, we can't really go through Speedway. So just things like that."
Upcoming
Michener Center visiting poet Heather McHugh (The Father of the Predicaments, Shades, among others) will read from her work on Thursday, April 19, at 7:30pm in the fourth-floor auditorium of the HRC (21st & Guadalupe)… P.D. James fans should make note that she'll be coming to Austin on Friday, April 27, at 7:30pm, at Barnes & Noble Arboretum, to read from her new Adam Dagliesh mystery, Death in Holy Orders.
