An exhibition on the history of veterinary medicine is currently on display in the NLM (National Library of Medicine) reading room, featuring manuscripts and early printed books from the past five centuries. The exhibition focuses in particular on the history of the care and treatment of horses.

Michael North, Head of Rare Books, and curator of the exhibition, said he "was inspired to put on the show to help recognize World Veterinary Year, which commemorates the 250th anniversary of the opening of the first veterinary school in the world in Lyon, France in 1761 by Claude Bourgelat."

Bourgelat's school marked the first concentrated effort to study the horse from a scientific perspective. This new "veterinary science" would eventually replace the farrier system, in place since at least the medieval era. Farriers were blacksmiths who also trained in basic horse medicine and surgery. Soon after Bourgelat founded his school, veterinary science became a licensed profession requiring an academic degree.

On Thursday of this week Sotheby's NY will hold the second part of its incredible sale of the library of an English Bibliophile. Judging from the list, this English bibliophile was quite the collector of the high points of American literature. Several of the lots estimated in the six-figure range* are American first editions, including:

Catalogue Review: Schubertiade Music, Fall 2011

Music collecting made a splash earlier this year when the Lehman collection of musical manuscripts went up for sale (for more on this, see our coverage in our fall issue). There are several dealers that focus on this area, Schubertiade of Allston, Massachusetts, is one with an impressive stock of music, dance, and opera material.

In Schubertiade's fall catalogue, you will find autograph musical quotations, albums, photographs, first editions, manuscripts, even portrait medals. From a striking mezzotint of Arcangelo Corelli ($600) to an ultra rare Jimi Hendrix-signed Bob Dylan album ($12,500), the names you will find within are as varied as the formats.

Some names appear a number of times. Josephine Baker, for example, is here in a beautiful piece of French sheet music from 1930 ($50), as well as a caricature drawing of her by Raoul Cabrol ($1200). Martha Graham is also well represented with several photographs, including a signed and dated print of the one perhaps best known to the world -- "Letter to the World" ($6,000).

Collectors should take note that there are a few non-musical items, so if music isn't your thing, it's still worth a peruse. There's a solid section of film photography, as well as a literature section featuring Twain and Dickens first editions and an Updike letter.

Music to your ears? The entire catalogue is here: https://www.schubertiademusic.com/lots/index/catalog:21

Today marks the beginning of a new series at the Fine Books blog profiling the next generation of antiquarian booksellers. We begin with Teri Osborn of William Reese Company in New Haven:

NP: What is your role within William Reese Co.?

TO: I think technically my title is Americana Cataloguer, but I always tell people that I'm here to do whatever Bill tells me to do. So far that's included--in addition to cataloguing--working book fairs, putting together lists of items for sale, packing up entire libraries, and trying to sell as many books as humanly possible.

NP: How did you get started in rare books?

TO: I was a rare book librarian in a former life. I went to library school because it was very practical and I would be employable. A friend said to me, "Hey, you should take this course on rare books with me," to which I replied, "That doesn't sound very practical." But I did take the course and have been smitten ever since. And I've been fortunate enough to work as a rare book professional since I graduated in 2005. I spent three years in libraries before serendipitously landing a job at the Reese Company and have never looked back.

The Veil, Julie Chen. Berkeley, California: Flying Fish Press, 2002. Athenaeum purchase, John Bromfield Fund, 2003.

Artists' Books: Books by Artists opens today at the Boston Athenæum's Norma Jean Calderwood Gallery.

Selected and organized by Stanley Ellis Cushing, curator of rare books and manuscripts, this is the first public display drawn entirely from the Boston Athenæum's artists' book collection. The work of Russell Maret, Laura Davidson, Donald Glaister, and Xu Bing are among those on display, as well as those pictured here and more.

In a press release, Cushing was quoted: "It's a fun show, a fun collection. If you like books, I think it's going to be irresistible. I want it to appeal, I want to surprise people. They don't know they like artists' books yet."

Browse more books here. The exhibit runs through March 3, 2012. If you're in Boston for the book fairs next month, don't miss it!

There seems to be a lot of media coverage of book anniversaries this past week. Perhaps closest to my heart is the fiftieth anniversary of Catch-22 this week. This novel is easily in my top ten. When I worked in the book publishing business in the late nineties, I supervised a "classic edition" of it, which afforded me the great honor of corresponding with Heller a few times. The reprint itself is nothing special--a hardcover with deckled edges, and the dust jacket features a serial design--but my personal copy is warmly inscribed to me from Heller. Can't beat that.

The Phantom Tollbooth is also celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, as anyone who has read our fall feature, "Fe Fi Fo Feiffer," will know. There's a new 50th anniversary edition out, as well as an Annotated Phantom Tollbooth by Leonard S. Marcus, who wrote our feature. In this week's New Yorker, Adam Gopnik spends some time with Jules Feiffer and Norton Juster to talk about their collaboration fifty years later.

Art Spiegelman's Maus is about to celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary (it was originally published in two parts, one in 1986, the other in 1991*), and his new book, MetaMaus, is making headlines. It's an analysis of Maus, its format, and its history. Publishers Weekly has a great interview with Spiegelman about the intersection of books, art, and technology. In it Spiegelman says, "...while bookstores are all in a tizzy, one of the more lively and alive sections is the so-called "graphic novel" section, because those are harder to replace." Dead on.

*A previous version of this article misidentified the date of the first publication of Maus as 1992. That was the year it won the Pulitzer Prize. --Ed.

The Guardian reported this week that readers of romance novels are leading a mass exodus away from printed copies to eBooks. The simple reason: romance covers attract judgement. eBooks provide romance readers a welcome anonymity from peering eyes on bus rides and at subway stops.

And who can blame them? Romance covers (and titles) are not known for their subtlety. Nor are they accredited much merit by non-readers. So I guess this trend toward eBooks will eventually take over the genre. Most romance, like the pulp fiction of yore, is produced to be consumed quickly then discarded. It's a perfect opening for eBook publishing. Mills and Boon, the leading romance publisher in Britain, already produces over 100 eBooks a month.

Catalogue Review: Lorne Bair, #13

Lorne Bair Rare Books of Winchester, VA, offers here 159 items relating to radical politics and American social movements from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Just reading that had me rubbing my hands together in excitement of what I was about to see: Anarchism, Crime, Revolution (Mexican & Russian), Radical Fiction, Socialism, Utopia, and so much more. The catalogue is beautiful too--eye-popping cover (pun intended), fine glossy pages, nice images, and descriptions that educate and entertain.

One bright poster caught my eye in the early pages. It's a scarce offset litho designed by Milton Glaser to promote David Loeb Weiss' 1968 documentary, No Vietnamese Ever Called Me N--er ($850). There are several books and ephemera in the African American subject. Another interesting offset litho broadside shows a gruesome graphic from the 1968 Detroit race riots and is titled Being a cop is more than just a gig ($150).

The Booksellers Association (BA) in Britain has requested aid from the UK government to keep bookshops in operation. Tim Godfray, head of BA, urged the government to act soon to protect more bookshops from closing.

The requests came after the BA discovered a decline in membership of 20% over the last six years, with an even steeper decline in independent bookshop members, which are down 26% over the same period.

Coming up this weekend is the Seattle Antiquarian Book Fair! On Saturday and Sunday, 101 book, map, and ephemera dealers will set up at the Seattle Center Exhibition Hall and offer some amazing items. Here's a quick look at a few of them. 

Ed Smith Books of Rolling Bay, WA, specializes in modern literature, photography, and screenplays. Smith is bringing some first edition westerns by Clarence Mulford, a first edition of No Country for Old Men, and a presentation copy of Hunter S. Thompson's Screwjack in bright red cloth with gilt decoration (seen above; $1,250).