the core
of this exhibit is the fact that
technology has brought us from
the darkness right intellectual darkness
into now
so the invention of the printing press
the invention of movable type and these
books that were created
and the effect that they had on people
was huge
before the mid 15th century all books
were really produced
by hand what we're showcasing in
reformations during the new age of print
is the moment when print culture
really took hold in the west
there's a lot of comparisons today with
the internet and with the first printed
book
being very you know how it disseminated
information and how the internet
has you know spread information around
the world the idea was
to pull together really important
materials that have been in the donahue
rare book room
and to be able to show them to our
community when you have an audience
coming in and looking at the sort of
thing they don't have the expert
knowledge
right they don't know what they're
looking at necessarily and you have to
give them that story
in a label that's 50 words so that was a
really big struggle and
writing those labels in a way that would
be interesting and fun
i think that the art of the book there's
something
else about it that that's why it needs
to be in a museum or in a gallery and
not just in a library setting