I have greatly enjoyed my time working with the Saint Mary’s Rare Book Room. I learned a lot about data, digitization, and the history of printed books and manuscripts. At first, the idea of picking ten items from the Rare Book Room and researching them seemed a bit daunting and overwhelming. I think this was due to the sheer number of different rare books that we have in the SMC Rare Book Room. There were so many different genres and types of books of varying ages that I didn’t know where to start. After deciding on the different areas that I wanted to focus on in the Rare Book Room, finding and narrowing down the ten objects became easier. I decided that I wanted to look more at the rare books that focused on nature and animals. From these ten rare books, I eventually narrowed my focus down to the two books: De Agricultura Vulgare  and The Birds of North America.  

Learning about these two books was really interesting. I discovered that De Agricultura Vulgare was published in the 1500s, and it was the oldest book of those that I researched. De Agricultura Vulgare had amazing woodcuts and lots of interesting images that I noticed connected to modern day agriculture and farming. There were images of people feeding chickens and fishing and of bees flying around in a village square of sorts. To this day bees and chickens are major parts of agriculture. It was really interesting to see the past and the present connect in a manner that makes them seem not so far apart from each other. In other words, De Agricultura Vulgare impacted me by making me realize that in the present we still use a lot of the same methods from the past.  

We learn so much from the past. A lot of what we learned from the past is contained in rare books that are at risk of being lost due to their rarity and fragile physical attributes. In The Birds of North America, I learned, for example, about the passenger pigeon. What I learned about the passenger pigeon really impacted me because I had never heard of the species prior to my research involving the rare book room. Passenger pigeons used to swarm the skies in millions, and now there is not a single passenger pigeon alive on this planet. I was surprised and in shock that a once numerous species dwindled to extinction in such a short span of time (around 44 years). In a way I was saddened that another species of animal in general had gone extinct. As I further continued my research into The Birds of North America, I also learned that the bald eagle species of bird could have easily have met the same fate as the passenger pigeon had laws not been passed to protect them. After learning more about the bald eagle and how its species dwindled to around 490 birds in the 1960s, I was disappointed to see that some of the same factors that led to the decline in passenger pigeons could also be seen contributing to the decline of bald eagles. This connection impacted me while researching and digitizing this book, because to me, it’s crazy to think that maybe 40-30 years from now some of the birds we see outside could just be illustrations in a book sitting in a Rare Book room. I realized how fragile nature is, and how careless man has been in general throughout history. 

I really enjoyed getting to go through all the books in the rare book room and see the various types of prints. Some of the coolest books were printed in an entirely different language, so I couldn't fully understand what the author would have been trying to convey, but I feel I was still able to learn from and appreciate the art form that was evident in how these books were made during the early years of print. I feel like there is so much value in being able to actually sit down and flip through these rare books because it is essentially like holding a piece of history in your hands. Being able to look at and read what other people thought was important enough be be printed and shared during the time period in which the book was made was fascinating. Each book that we looked at and added to our website was like another artifact we were adding to a museum of sorts that other people would be able to enjoy. There where some learning difficulties when it came to the use of Scalar, but after some practice, it became easier. Arranging and organizing all of the rare books into our own exhibit that curates these artifacts was really memorable. We got to pick what we though was important and relevant and had the chance to share that and why we thought they were important. 

Overall this project had really left its mark on the way I view printed books, and books in general. There is so much that goes into the printing of a book, and so much to be learned about digitizing books to ensure that the contents of their pages may be less likely to be lost. I say more to be learned because technology is evolving at a fast pace every day, and so there are bound to be some improvements and or adjustments to the digitizing process. I hope that viewers will be able to take away some sense of the importance of physical printed books, and the importance of what old books can teach us. There is so much knowledge in the pages of the books in the SMC Rare Book Room that has yet to be translated, digitized, or read through. All of that knowledge is just sitting on a shelf, and I hope the viewer gains an interest in learning about the past history of books so that more of these pieces of history can be added to websites similar to the one we made in this class. In addition to viewers feeling a call to learning about printed books and digitization, I also hope that they are able to take away just how many different voices and passions are observable through the books chosen in our collection of rare books on the website and through the research we included to explain the contents of our rare books. If the viewer is able to recognize how we were able find our current passions present in the pages of old rare books, maybe they’ll want to give it a try too. 

Amaya Vega-Fernandez
Fine Arts Major with a concentration in Design
Class of 2027