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The Collation

A look back at our 2013

Here on The Collation, it’s been a busy 2013. Today’s post will be our 68th of the year, and as of December 15th, we’d racked up 46,012 visits from 33,411 unique visitors, producing 67,361 pageviews this year. *phew*

It’s gratifying that we have readers who enjoy our posts and that come to us repeatedly to learn what we have to share. But what’s even more important is that The Collation continues to be a place where Folger staff can share with readers information about our collections, where readers can share with others what they’ve learned from our materials, and where readers can help staff learn more about what we have. The first aspect of the blog is probably what most people think of if they think of what social media at specials collections libraries can do—our blog posts highlight the great work done by folks at the Library and help draw attention to acquisitions and exhibits and ways of understanding our materials. And some of my favorite posts from this past year have been some of your favorite posts, too.

But it’s the posts where we learn from readers that thrill me the most. There’s been great posts by readers sharing their research (thanks, Katie, Whitney, Vicki, and Daniel!) and collaborations between our curators and researchers elsewhere (thanks, Arnold and Bill!). And there have been posts where readers have helped us understand our collections by sharing their knowledge in the comments. Even aside from the crocodile mysteries (but thanks, everyone, for playing along with those!), Collation readers have helped us better understand who Gwen Lally was and who the mysterious Sem was. I’ve written about this before when I shared what Erik Kwakkel shared with us about his discoveries about one of the items in our bindings image collection, but it’s worth saying again: this circulation of information is a powerful argument for the value of open access and the potential vibrancy of scholarly exchanges around library and digital collections. It wouldn’t be social media if it wasn’t social, and we wouldn’t have been able to learn what we do from you if you weren’t willing to share with us. 

  1. That is, all that stuff that’s not obviously books or manuscripts or art, such as furniture and costumes and porcelain tchotchkes
  2. Okay, do you really want to see the list of top ten posts of all time, aka from August 18, 2011–December 15, 2013?

    Top 10 page views of all time:

    1. Learning to write the alphabet (May 2013): 6,882
    2. Woodcut, engraving, or what? (February 2012): 3,211
    3. Filing, seventeenth-century style (March 2013): 3,056
    4. Spectral imaging of Shakespeare’s seventh signature (March 2012): 2,809
    5. Deciphering signature marks (August 2012): 2,427
    6. An exercise in collaborative editing: Anthony Bagot’s letters and Nathaniel Bacon’s pirate depositions (October 2012): 1,810
    7. Welcome to The Collation (August 2011): 1,706
    8. What’s that smell? Getting personal with historic costumes (October 2013): 1,373
    9. Learning to read old paper (June 2012): 1,331
    10. Learning from mistakes (Feb 2012): 1,098
    11. If you’re doing research on Folger collections and think you have something our readers would like to learn, get in touch with me at collation@folger.edu.

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