Recently I attended CILIP Rare Books and Special Collections Group Conference, held at Clare College Cambridge, 9-11 September.  This was a very enjoyable and thought-provoking conference, in a beautiful and convenient location.  The conference was about the links between the antiquarian bookselling trade and rare books librarians.   Libraries are the source of many of the books circulating in the trade, legally as withdrawn stock, or illegally if stolen.  We discussed how we can work together to improve security, and the ethics of withdrawing stock, particularly the thinking behind certain high profile deaccessions.  The conference will be written up more fully in the Group’s newsletter in due course!

Coloured blobs flashing in our brain. Our most hidden feelings and intentions unveiled. No more truths or lies. Everything exposed as if under full sunlight.

Brain imaging technologies are helpful in investigating the structure and function of brain areas. They promise to make real something unthinkable: reading the secrets of our mind.

But can brain imaging really read our thoughts? And what are the potential applications in medicine? Which are the social, legal and ethical implications?

Scientists, clinicians, service users, science communicators, experts of legal, social and ethical issues from all Europe will discuss this and much more during the workshop bid, brains in dialogue on brain imaging, at Clare College, Cambridge, UK, on 17-18 March 2009.

(I promise that this is the last entry for a while I will begin with a non-medieval piece of token coinage. This one is relevant, but possibly only to one reader. Back to the real deal shortly, after I have met some deadlines…)

Reverse of a copper halfpenny token issued by an uncertain party between 1787 and 1805 depicting Pandora's Breeches afire with a serpent beneath

… on the other hand, one persistent advantage of the attachment to Clare is the conversation. One Monday not long ago, after finding a fellow Thomas Spence enthusiast (see above), I got talking to my more immediate colleague Dr Tatsuya Mitsuda, who has now landed a job in Japan and so will not be my colleague for much longer. This means that he is wrapping up his current field of research, which has been on the ownership of and fascination with the horse in modern culture. Among the interesting things he said is that it takes till horse-racing becomes a popular sport for horses to become so personalised as to get names, as before that the focus is on the rider and also very upper-class; affection for horses, he suggested, was mainly a middle-class thing.

A stone carving of Odin on Sleipnir

This, it seemed to me, was likely to be vulnerable to attack from the Middle Ages, which is a concern fresh in my mind as you know, but the only named medieval horse I could immediately think of was Sleipnir, who is something of a special case. Now, having been directed by the Unlocked Wordhoard, who were also good enough to link to me, to an almost-irrelevant post at In the Medieval Middle that referred to a relevant one, I have the full answer and a characteric recommendation to read more Jeffrey Cohen, which indeed perhaps I should do some day, though I may wait for his Leeds keynote before I judge the urgency of this given my to-read pile. Anyway, the answer is that, as I suspected, chivalric literature has quite a few named horses in it and Karl Steel also had some more twisty examples that you can follow up there if such things interest you. All the same, I think Tats has some safe ground to retreat to from this onslaught of the medievalists in terms of popular, that is widespread, ownership of horses and the identification of the horse as celebrity is still interesting. Just, perhaps, not as new as all that.

Newnham College is the second women’s college in Cambridge University.

Newnham College is the second women’s college in Cambridge Univeristy, which was found by Henry Sidgwick in 1871. (The woman first college is Girton College).

Pfeiffer Arch is the original main entrance to the college before the Porters’ Lodge moved to the above one in Sidgwick Avenue.

The Chapel in Newnham College.

Sidgwick Hall from the sunken garden.

It’s not very significant; there’s no salary involved, only a fairly straight swap of dining rights and access to facilities, plus an affiliation if I need one, in exchange for readiness to teach a few supervisions, but all the same Clare College in Cambridge have agreed to make me a College Research Associate. This is mainly good news for the teaching, though it may have its social benefits too and Clare is a very lovely college. But also, I think it may be the only job I’ve ever got purely through written application with no degree of who-you-know operating at all. My only contacts at Clare are either very busy being an MP or tragically dead.¹ So, if I can, by my CV alone, convince people to take me on because of my research and expertise when there’s only a bit of money and a few students involved, it’s only a matter of scaling up from here…

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From Gay-Clare
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Hello,

The Gay Clare Group wishes to let you know that we are holding a Summer disco . It will take place on Saturday 5th July in the Inisheer Suite of the West County Hotel, Clare
Road , Ennis.
Time 10.30 till late. Admission €10.

We are hoping to have a very special guest on the night, details of which will follow once they are confirmed.

More information is available on www.gayclare.com or
www.bebo.com/gayclare.

We also have the photos from our last disco up on the website.

We have accommodation details on our website.

Please spread the word and let anyone you know who
might be interested in coming along.
The night can only be a success with everyone’s support.

Hope to see you on July 5th

Regards & thanks

Diarmuid

Gay Clare Group

www.gayclare.com

www.bebo.com/gayclare

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