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The essays included here present case studies prepared within the project 'Sounding the Bookshelf 1501: Music in a Year of Italian Printed Books', funded by the Leverhulme Trust and hosted at the University of Sheffield. The project asks a simple question: standing in a Venetian bookshop towards the end of the year 1501, what information about music might you encounter as you browse the new printed titles available for purchase? Very few of the books printed in Italy in 1501 were 'about' music, but almost all of them mention music in passing, and sometimes at length, whilst discussing something else. These kinds of casual, fragmentary comments on music were surely read by many more people than specialist music theory, the audience for which was probably quite small. To recover these comments, and characterise the contradictory and incoherent field of everyday musical knowledge they comprise, we are reading every book printed in Italy in 1501 cover‐to‐cover, excerpting every passage mentioning music, sound or hearing. The final product of our project—a co‐authored book, yet to be written—will present our findings in synoptic fashion. The essays presented here take a different approach, offering detailed case‐studies on particular books within our 1501 corpus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes four types of historical shelf mark—a letter, number, or other symbol in or on a book that signals the book-press, -case, or -shelf to which that book belonged—that survive from the University of Virginia's first library, a collection of approximately eight thousand volumes that first opened to students in 1826. While shelf marks can serve as evidence of ownership and provenance, they can also facilitate efforts to reconstruct a historical library's architecture and arrangement. From the evidence of the University of Virginia's early shelf marks, we propose a timeline dating each mark to a particular period in the library's history, establish that significantly more books survive from the university's first library than previously accepted, and show how these shelf marks inform our work to reconstruct the layout, size, and location of the university's earliest bookshelves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the seventeenth century, the story of the private library is one of architectural and intellectual transformation of knowledge privacy. This article aims to retrace the formation of the "Devonshire library," which comprised the ensemble of books that the Cavendish family had at their different estates, including Chatsworth, the old and the new Hardwick Hall, and their London residence. By combining inventories, account books, and catalogues, we reconstruct the physical and intellectual environment of knowledge gathering at Chatsworth and Hardwick. The "library" evolved from a private closet containing only a couple hundred books locked in chests to a communal room with bookshelves with over sixteen hundred books accessible to the household, the servants, and a restricted public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the profound impact and personal experiences with Michael Scriven, a leading figure in the evaluation field. Topics include his pioneering contributions to evaluation methodology, his passion for diverse interests and personal hobbies, and the kindness and support he provided to his students and colleagues.

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By introducing Taoism— the understanding of flow —and the meaning of cultivation as a basic human ability, an essential challenge in our current understanding of science can be discovered. Human interaction with nature is a meaningful process, which can reveal a better understanding of the inner cultivation processes and with it a multidimensional field of endless inputs triggering an ongoing process of growth. For this purpose, MyCu -cultivation (My cultural cultivation) is introduced as new terminology. A construct that allows to separately elaborate the social concepts of culture and the process of metaphysical reality perception—generated in our mind. At the same time, the layers of physical experienced reality and imagination are reintroduced in an alternative interrelation, leading to new insights in the layers of metaphysical understandings. Therefore, the central manifestation of meaning-making will be elaborated through the metaphorical use of bookshelves, allowing to perceive new insights in the raw information processing of individuals—underlining the human limitations, in processing the overwhelming meaning flow. This theoretical knowledge leads us further to a new possibility of understanding the constructive externalization of the imagination, highlighting the diversity of phenomenological insights in our everyday life, resulting in a complex theoretical repositioning between semiotics, cultural psychology, and Naturwissenschaften. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the interconnectedness of Indigenous texts and Pacific literature, focusing on the impact of colonialism on these connections. The author emphasizes the importance of decolonizing relationships with other Indigenous peoples and calls for a reconnection with the wider Pacific region. The text discusses the need to recognize and include Indigenous writers and texts that came before the 1970s, as well as the importance of collaborative and relational research. It also explores the connections between Australia and the Pacific, highlighting the forced migration of Pacific peoples to Australia and the need for recognition and inclusion of Indigenous Pacific writing in Australian literary studies. The text references various Indigenous Pacific writers and their contributions to literature and discusses the concept of "cousins" as a way to think about Indigenous-Indigenous connections. The author acknowledges their position as an outsider and emphasizes the need for Indigenous scholars to be central to the research process. The text calls for a shift in power relations and control over resources and highlights the importance of transnational conversations and actions in the study of Australian literatures. [Extracted from the article]

In Türkiye, many destructive earthquakes have occurred on the seismic zones (North Anatolian-Eastern Anatolian fault lines) up to now. Due to the repetition of these earthquakes in certain periods, necessary structural repair and strengthening should be made. While structural damage up to the collapse of buildings may occur in an earthquake, economical losses, serious injuries and even deaths occur as a result of damage to nonstructural elements in buildings which is still standing on. In this study, overturning analyzes of slender items such as refrigerators, bookshelves, wardrobes, which have a height/width (H/B) ratio greater than 2.00 and may be at risk against overturning, were carried out for 40 different situations, taking into account 8 different earthquake peak ground acceleration (PGA) levels in between 0,1g-0,8g and 5 different soil classes in our country. In addition, to prevent the overturning of items, a simple approach is presented in order to raise awareness in determining the number of anchors, depending on load carrying capacity of anchor type and size to be used and also the type of wall material to be anchored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shelf space is a precious commodity in libraries, especially for special collections, which rarely deaccession materials. To deal with this problem, many librarians try to maximize efficiency in their shelving approaches. A common solution to space constraints is adjusting shelves to store materials by size categories. This approach is understudied, however, and projects to reorganize materials by size are often undertaken with little more than anecdotal evidence or intuition to support them. Using a reorganization of the oversize materials at Special Collections at the University of Missouri as a case study, this article lays out some concrete numbers for librarians who are considering shelving their books by size. The study indicates that subdividing oversize materials into upright and flat shelving can result in an increase in shelving efficiency of up to 600 percent for the materials that are stored upright. A systemic approach to shelving by size also offers some preservation benefits, especially for materials that are stored flat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Books containing hate speech against Koreans and the Chinese have become a common sight in Japan's bookshops. The publication of 'hate books' has increased in tandem with the struggles of the publishing industry and the deterioration of Japan's relations with South Korea and China. This article seeks to explain the causes of Japan's hate book phenomenon, with a particular focus on books targeting Koreans. While South Korean researchers have mainly identified rising nationalism in Japan as the key factor, Japanese analysts label peculiarities in the Japanese publishing industry as the main cause of hate books. We argue that both these explanations are necessary but ultimately insufficient because they ignore each other's key findings. We propose a synthesized explanation that takes account of both the role of nationalism in creating demand and the unique structure of the Japanese publishing industry, which tends to incentivize the supply of hate books. The article also shows that nationalism only translates into hate book demand in times of diplomatic crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text is a review of two books that provide insights into the intellectual activity and royal culture during the decline of the Mamluk sultanate. The first book, by Christian Mauder, focuses on the religious life in the citadel and Qānṣūh al-Ghawrī's participation in events and rituals. The second book, by Kristof D'hulster, examines books marked by Qānṣūh al-Ghawrī's bookplate and provides a detailed analysis of the titles and genres found in the royal library. Both books contribute to the understanding of Mamluk society and challenge previous assumptions about the military aristocracy. [Extracted from the article]

The largest earthquakes in Iceland occur in the South Iceland seismic zone (SISZ) and the Tjörnes fracture zone in the northeast. With the latter being primarily offshore, the seismic risk in Iceland is highest in the relatively densely populated SISZ. Past probabilistic seismic hazard assessment (PSHA) efforts in Iceland have, however, been based on statistical analyses of various historical earthquake catalogues and limited ground motion models (GMMs), all subject to varying types and degrees of uncertainties. Moreover, they relied on simplistic source descriptions and largely ignored that the unique 'bookshelf' strike-slip fault system of the SISZ extends along the plate margins towards the west and over the entire Reykjanes Peninsula Oblique Rift (RPOR) zone. Namely, the bookshelf fault system in Southwest Iceland is twice as long as previously thought and it dominates the strain release of transcurrent plate motion in Southwest Iceland, having potentially important implications for PSHA. In this study, therefore, we propose a new 3-D finite-fault model of the Southwest Iceland bookshelf transform zone. The model has been calibrated on the basis of first principles to the rate of transcurrent plate motions across the transform zone and constrained by the salient features of the fault system geometry as reported in the literature. We model the systematic spatial variability of the seismogenic potential along the zone by its provisional subdivision into six distinct zones. The fault system model allows both deterministic and random fault locations, with each realization completely specified in terms of the maximum expected magnitude of each fault, its maximum dimensions and its long-term slip rate. The variability of the model has been estimated through sensitivity analyses of its key parameters. The total seismic moment rates produced by the fault system model are completely consistent with those reported in the literature. The new model allows the derivation of simple but self-consistent zone-specific Gutenberg–Richter (GR) relationships, and the total long-term seismic activity predicted by the new 3-D fault system model effectively explains the historical earthquake catalogue of the SISZ–RPOR transform zone in Southwest Iceland. We are therefore confident that the model can serve as the foundation for future time-independent physics-based PSHA for Southwest Iceland. Moreover, the consistency and versatility of the model allows its application in conventional approaches to PSHA, which has the potential of bridging the gap between physics-based and conventional approaches to PSHA in Southwest Iceland. Such efforts will improve our understanding of the key elements that affect the hazard, thus improving the reliability of hazard estimates, with important practical implications for the optimized assessment of seismic risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

History of Urdu literature has been a very phenomenal subject of Urdu research. Our book-shelves are adorned and well equipped with esteemed writings of esteemed historians of Urdu language and literature. It is the subject of keen importance to analyze, compare, value and put them on the touch-stone of modern research that invites the critic to highlight the right areas where the historians have done exceedingly well and find genuine requisitions, still deemed necessary to revise the existing history works. Jameel Jalibi is the most famous and wellread historian of Urdu language and literature among the all. His (book series) "Tareekh-e-Adab-e-Urdu" consisting of 4 volumes keeps the place amongst highest ranks of history of Urdu. In this article, the technique of all of his four volumes has been discussed chronologically, critically and analytically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to topics discussed within the issue is presented, including the bookshelves showcased by celebrities and famous personalities during the COVID-19 pandemic, digital mediation during the pandemic and representation of physical books and bookish places in video games.

The opportunity for display of books is a frequently cited reason for choosing print reading over e-reading. But the desired display is not always intended for others. For many, the most important observer of a personal bookshelf is the person to whom it belongs: a physical shelf as means to access, commemorate, and honour reading history and reading identity. This makes it essential to consider bookshelves in the era of COVID-19 not only in terms of the Zoom feed, beaming snapshots of collections to the outside world, but also Zoom "self view": the digital selfportrait hovering in the corner of our device screens. Drawing on qualitative data from surveys, focus groups and interviews conducted between 2014 and 2021, this paper will explore the phenomenon of the backdrop as mirror, and examine curated bookshelves - including manipulated, misattributed, or appropriated bookshelves - in terms of self- as well as public image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The national lockdowns brought in in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 forced many people to work from home, including journalists, politicians, cultural commentators and celebrities. The familiar faces we would normally expect to see in television studios and sets, were now being beamed into our homes from their homes and we saw their kitchens, offices, and bedrooms. What at first seemed surreal and incongruous, soon became the norm. Viewers could not help but notice the most common: an individual sitting in the foreground with their background displaying shelves or stacks of books. As a result, books and bookshelves became an object du jour, representative of the owner's prestige and cultural cachet. This article argues that far from being a ubiquitous domestic item, such notions are socially constructed and perpetuate books as symbols of classed notions of cultural prestige and intellect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]