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The printing ink used in 16th century Brașov by Johannes Honterus and Coresi is described through analogy with the usual european recipes of the times. Those recipes, most probably, were used in Brașov, too. The article also evaluates the presence and the reasons of red ink usage, besides the black one. It is launched the challenging idea of undertaking chemical analyses to determine old inks' composition as a mean of dating documents by comparison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including research of old Romanian books, documentary value of ancient books catalogues and inventories; and the steps of restoring a copy.

In 1700 Mitrofan, the Bishop of Buzău, printed the first partially Romanian Triode book. In the romanian printing tradition, the Triode is usually a richly decorated book comprising church songs and sacred chants of the pre-Easter season. The analyzed book is particularly lavishly decorated with masterly cut engravings, frontispieces, initials, vignettes and typographic ornaments. The article presents each group of decorative elements, details their peculiarities and compares them with ornaments in other Triode books from earlier or later periods. This religious book was published in several editions in all romanian printing centres during the 18th century and the article states that the 1700 Triode may have served as their initial model of decoration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As printing became widely popular, wood engraving turned into a major graphic art, the most expressive mean of decorating books in the 16th century. The paper "Engravings in Coresi's printed books" evidentiates the innovations brought in this domain in Coresi's typography from Brasov. The first books printed by Romanians display engravings sporadically, but Coresi imposes the full-page engraving through a set of 12 illustrations of Christ's life and passions in the "Pentecostar Triodion" (1558). Two decades later wood engravings are used again in the "Sbornik" from Sas-Sebes, their art benefiting of a new Renaissance trend. Another coresian gain is to use in "Homily II" (1580-1581), first time in Romanian printing, the title page of the type "book's gate", a purely western motif. Coresi masterly uses illustration to enhance the written message, on one hand, and to support the commercial success of the book, on the other hand, the ways opened by him in this field, too, being followed by the Romanian typographers of 17th and 18th centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about the 43rd Annual Conference of the Association of the Hungarian Librarians that was held in Pécs, Hungary on July 14-16, 2011 is presented. Topics include librarians' specific problems, the crisis of the Internet and reading people, and the central services for libraries. It included a rich social programme with large and cheerful participation, day trip to discover the traditional Hungary, and programs to visit cultural objectives in Pécs.