The December seminar in the new book-collecting series organised jointly by the Institute of English Studies (London University) and the ABA Educational Trust will be given by Roger Gaskell (www.rogergaskell.com), a leading dealer in early scientific, medical and technical books.

This seminar will spell out the importance of images in scientific books of all periods, analysing different kinds of graphics to show how they function in scientific communication. The Scientific Revolution in Restoration England is a particularly important for this story and examples will be drawn from the works of Robert Boyle, Sir Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke and other members of the Royal Society – including Sir Christopher Wren, not always remembered as a scientific draughtsman. The knotty problems for collectors of the bibliographical description of plates in book will be dealt with.

Before setting up as an independent dealer more than twenty years ago, Roger was the science and medicine expert, first at Bernard Quaritch Ltd., then Pickering and Chatto Ltd. where he was also managing director.  He has written and given conference papers on the history of libraries, bibliography and scientific illustration and is an occasional lecturer in the Department for the History and Philosophy of Science in the University of Cambridge.

Make a note in your diary: 6pm on Tuesday 11 December 2012 – The Court Room (Senate House, First Floor), Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU. All are welcome.

All the seminars will be aimed at a broad audience including book-collectors, book-dealers, historians of all kinds, librarians, indeed at anyone with an interest in collecting any sort of text from the sixth former to the retired professor. The atmosphere will be informal, as will the presentations. We hope and expect that many of the talks will be illustrated by actual examples.

They will all be held in the University of London’s Senate House Library (Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU) – generally in the Durning-Lawrence Room – and will run from 6.00 to 7.30 pm, usually on the second Tuesday of the month.

All the seminars will be aimed at a broad audience including book-collectors, book-dealers, historians of all kinds, librarians, indeed at anyone with an interest in collecting any sort of text from the sixth former to the retired professor. The atmosphere will be informal, as will the presentations. We hope and expect that many of the talks will be illustrated by actual examples.

They will all be held in the University of London’s Senate House Library (Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU) and will run from 6.00 to 7.30 pm, usually on the second Tuesday of the month.