The strike-throughs, underlines, doodles, and marginalia made by historical figures in their personal papers at the Library of Congress give researchers a more intimate sense of who they were. These markings sometimes shed light on the story of how a work was made or received. Researchers can understand more about the creative process, opinions and musings of people throughout the centuries by understanding these historical markings that are often, literally and figuratively, in the margins. Artist and educator Courtney McClellan is inspired by this tradition of mark-making, and today the Library of Congress announced her appointment as 2021 Innovator in Residence.McClellan’s project, Speculative Annotation, will invite Americans to join this historical lineage of annotators by creatively engaging with a curated collection of free to use items from the
Bookmarked on 2021-06-20 at 7:19 PM; Read on 2021-06-21 at 5:22 PM
doodles ❧
aka drolleries
Annotated on June 21, 2021 at 05:19PM
These markings sometimes shed light on the story of how a work was made or received. Researchers can understand more about the creative process, opinions and musings of people throughout the centuries by understanding these historical markings that are often, literally and figuratively, in the margins. ❧
In addition to looking in the margins, one must also look at contemporaneous copies of both printed and privately held (or collected) commonplace books to cast a wider net on these practices.
Annotated on June 21, 2021 at 05:21PM
The project will be available in summer 2021 on labs.loc.gov. ❧
Return to this project in July 2021 to see it in action.
Annotated on June 21, 2021 at 05:22PM
