The product of my silence of the past days: a better proposal?

Traces of Use. Ownership marks and marginalia in circa 500 books printed in Lyon 1487-1600, at Special Collections of the University of Amsterdam.

Introduction and theoretical framework
The focus of this research will be on ownership marks and marginalia in the University of Amsterdam collection of books printed in Lyon 1487-1600. The research will take place within the context of 16th century Lyon, the emphasis will be on the significance of the Lyonnese Humanist influence on publishing, printing and reading. A definition will be given of ownership marks and marginalia and an outline of their function in manuscripts and books. The value of ownership and marginalia research within the field of Book History will be explored, as will the methodological problems that are confronted during research.

Statement of the problem

Do the ownership marks and marginalia found in the corpus reflect the 16th century Humanist approach to history, education and philosophy?

Purpose of the study 
The purpose of the study is to make an inventory and analysis of ownership marks, marginalia and other traces of use found in the corpus in order to interpret their meaning and to define their significance regarding research into the provenance and the contemporary reading of individual copies of a title.

Hypotheses

Due to traces of use, every copy of a title is unique. The traces of use found in the corpus will disclose information about the owners of the books and about their reading habits. The marginalia reflect the contemporary reader's contribution to humanist thought. The information gathered through studying traces of use can be applied toward a history of an individual copy of a title. 

Questions

How does the research corpus relate to the overall production of 16th century printing in Lyon?            

Questions concerning the interpretation of the ownership marks and marginalia (provenance and reception):
Are there ownership marks on the binding or inside the book. Can the contemporary owners be identified? What relationship is there between the owner and the genre of the book? What conclusions can be drawn from the quantity and genre of books with marginalia in relation to those without? Are the marginalia contemporary or later? What systems are used for annotating? What is the relevance of the marginalia to the text they accompany? In what way do the marginalia in the corpus reflect 16th century Humanist thought? What other manuscript texts besides annotations are to be found in the books?

And any further questions which will arise as the research develops. Looking for the unexpected.

The design -  methods and procedures - instrumentation, data collection and data analysis

The research corpus will consist of circa 500 books printed in Lyon, France 1487-1600 at Special Collections of the University of Amsterdam.
The descriptions of the books and the inventory of the marginalia and ownership marks found in the corpus, will be collected and analysed in content management software Devonthink.
 Spreadsheet categories will be a.o.: U.v.A. call number; author; title; publisher; year when published; genre; ownership; manuscript date of ownership; types of marginalia; language used in marginalia; legibility; when acquired by the U.v.A.; binding; date of binding.
The temporary format is a blog in which trains of thought and actual results concerning the research are recorded from first activity on 9th March 2010, till conclusion, date unknown. 

The purpose of the blog: notes to self, storage of material and reflection. A system to facilitate the picking up of thoughts sidelined at an earlier stage and a forum for exchange of information with peers. 

Sampling

The case studies will consist of in depth investigation of the 16th century traces of use in a number of titles from the corpus. An attempt will be made to follow the titles' paths from the publisher to inclusion in the library of Amsterdam Special Collections with the objective of (re)creating the individual titles' reading-histories.

Limitation

Is a corpus of circa 500 books large enough to permit the drawing of conclusions? 

Delimitation
Illegible annotations will be noted as 'illegible'. Their presence will be noted but not analysed.

Significance of the study

The significance of the study lies in what meaningful traces of use will be found in the corpus and what conclusions may be drawn upon these findings. Many titles have minimal descriptions in the U.v.A. library database, a more complete description could benefit further research.

References
http://tracesofuse.blogspot.com/
Pajares, F., Elements of a Proposal. Atlanta: Emory University, 2007. Online.

Amsterdam, 15th June 2010