{"id":1776,"date":"2013-08-06T17:42:26","date_gmt":"2013-08-06T17:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/speccoll\/?p=2478"},"modified":"2013-08-06T17:42:26","modified_gmt":"2013-08-06T17:42:26","slug":"identifying-our-4mm-miniature-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/2013\/08\/06\/identifying-our-4mm-miniature-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Identifying our 4mm Miniature Book"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2479\" style=\"width: 279px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/speccoll\/files\/2013\/08\/microminiature_book_tiny.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-2479 \" alt=\"tiny book perched on a fingertip\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/speccoll\/files\/2013\/08\/microminiature_book_tiny.jpg\" width=\"269\" height=\"179\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Microminiature Bible<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The University of Iowa Special Collections and University Archives is home to\u00a0the Charlotte Smith Collection of miniature books with more than 4,000 tiny tomes.\u00a0 Most perplexing has been this\u00a0microscopic\u00a0Bible\u00a0that remained unidentified, likely\u00a0because we lacked the tools to\u00a0adequately magnify the page with the publisher&#8217;s information.\u00a0 Highlighting this tiny\u00a0book yesterday on our social media pages brought it to the attention of our conservator, Giselle Simon,\u00a0who suggested that we try the microscope that recently arrived in the conservation lab.<\/p>\n<p><a href='http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/speccoll\/2013\/08\/06\/identifying-our-4mm-miniature-book\/washedoutviewing\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/speccoll\/files\/2013\/08\/washedoutviewing-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail\" alt=\"washedoutviewing\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<a href='http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/speccoll\/2013\/08\/06\/identifying-our-4mm-miniature-book\/colleen_microscope\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/speccoll\/files\/2013\/08\/Colleen_microscope-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail\" alt=\"Colleen_microscope\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<a href='http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/speccoll\/2013\/08\/06\/identifying-our-4mm-miniature-book\/viewing\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/speccoll\/files\/2013\/08\/viewing-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail\" alt=\"tiny book under a microscope\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Handling it safely proved to be no easy task!\u00a0 With some extra sets of hands we were able to read the name of the publisher &#8211; Toppan Printing Co.\u00a0 (You can see the damage on this page from earlier attempts to read it).<\/p>\n<p><a href='http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/speccoll\/2013\/08\/06\/identifying-our-4mm-miniature-book\/microscope4\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/speccoll\/files\/2013\/08\/microscope4-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail\" alt=\"Text viewed under the microscope\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<a href='http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/speccoll\/2013\/08\/06\/identifying-our-4mm-miniature-book\/microscope3\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/speccoll\/files\/2013\/08\/microscope3-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail\" alt=\"Text viewed under the microscope\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<a href='http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/speccoll\/2013\/08\/06\/identifying-our-4mm-miniature-book\/microscope2\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/speccoll\/files\/2013\/08\/microscope2-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail\" alt=\"Microscope view of publisher&#039;s information\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Following the trail we were able to identify the item as being a set of two books sold at the 1965 World&#8217;s Fair in New York.\u00a0 In fact, the larger miniature book in the set was already in the collection, unassociated with the ultra microminiature that could not be read.<\/p>\n<p>Now the two have been reunited and they will be cataloged together.<\/p>\n<p><a href='http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/speccoll\/2013\/08\/06\/identifying-our-4mm-miniature-book\/small_mini_books\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/speccoll\/files\/2013\/08\/Small_mini_books-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail\" alt=\"The two books in the collection, reunited.\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<a href='http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/speccoll\/2013\/08\/06\/identifying-our-4mm-miniature-book\/microbook_original\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/speccoll\/files\/2013\/08\/microbook_original-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail\" alt=\"Books as they appeared for sale at the 1965 World&#039;s Fair. (Image from &quot;Miniature Books&quot; by Anne C. Bromer)\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Citation\u00a0as included in\u00a0Anne C. Bromer&#8217;s excellent reference book, <em>Miniature Books: 4,000 Years of Tiny Treasures <\/em>from 2007.<\/p>\n<p><em>Holy Bible<\/em>, Tokyo: Toppan Printing Company, 1964.\u00a0 4x4mm.\u00a0 Published to coincide with the New York World&#8217;s Fair in 1965, this Bible was printed by a new process called &#8220;microprinting.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The University of Iowa Special Collections and University Archives is home to&nbsp;the Charlotte Smith Collection of miniature books with more than 4,000 tiny tomes.&nbsp; Most perplexing has been this&nbsp;microscopic&nbsp;Bible&nbsp;that remained [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":115,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1776"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1776"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2088,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1776\/revisions\/2088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}