On 8 March, Cambridge University Library was thrilled to host the launch of the AHRC-funded project ‘Small performances: investigating the typographic punches of John Baskerville (1707-75) through heritage science and practice-based research’. Around sixty attendees at the launch enjoyed a series of short talks from the project team, and displays of eighteenth-century materials relating to Baskerville (including some of the punches themselves) and a demonstration of technological processes involved in the project by Mark Box of the Library’s Cultural Heritage Imaging Laboratory.
A second launch was held on 21 March at the Library of Birmingham which was, appropriately, built on the footprint of Easy Hill, Baskerville’s home and manufacture in Birmingham. The event was attended by eighty people from across the region including members of the Baskerville Society. A series of short talks from members of the team and other experts on the life and work of Baskerville were accompanied by a display of Baskerville’s books and a small selection of original punches which represented something of a home-coming for these immensely important artefacts.
Both launches in Cambridge and Birmingham were a fitting start to an exciting project and the level of interest in the research was a tribute to the value of the work the team plans to undertake.