Adopt-a-Book

Limited edition artist's book. Special Collections' copy is number 7 of 100. Signed by the artist. The book consists of 5 kites, each representing an element; instructions for assembling and flying the kite; and a poem, "Ten Thousand Things", by Melinda Kennedy.

Pierre Gassendi was a French philosopher, priest, astronomer and mathematician, and is best known for publishing the first data on the transit of the planet Mercury, and as one of the first intellectuals to employ both skepticism and empiricism in his writing. This text is one of Gassendi's major works on astronomy.

Hadrianus Junius was a Dutch physician, classical scholar, translator, lexicographer, antiquarian, historiographer, emblematist, school rector, and Latin poet. Batavia was one of his major works--a history of Holland comprised of a number of individual and antiquarian histories. It was first printed in 1588 (USC's copy is an example of this first printing).

18th century edition of the first full German language translation of the Bible produced by Martin Luther. The translation was based not on the Latin Vulgate translation but on original Hebrew and Greek texts. The publishers of this edition, Johann and Christian Cotta, were members of a storied German publishing family who managed a publishing house and printing press founded in 1659.

Limited edition artists’ book. Consists of poems and glyphs. From the colophon: "These poems were translated from hieroglyphic sequences generated by chance...."

Limited edition artists’ book. Special Collections' copy is number 19 of 60. Printed on hand-made paper.

Limited edition artists' book. Special Collections' copy is number 57 of 250. From the colophon: "Invited to 2nd China Open in 2001. Started in Beijing and by bus train and foot ended up somewhere inside Sichuan province in the middle of nowhere. This book is a compilaton of images of my travels and explorations in a vast landscape culminating in my performance: 'Cleaning in China'.

A universal chronology summarizing the events from Christ to 1566, including descriptions of Columbus, Magellan, Vespucci and the discovery of America, and the Reformation. Genebrand was a French Benedictine theological writer and professor of Hebrew and Scripture at the Royal College in Paris; among his students was St. Francis de Sales.

Johannes Sleidanus was an historian and chronicler of the Reformation, born in the duchy of Luxembourg. Sleidanus was appointed the historian of the Reformation by Philip of Hesse, and completed his Commentarium (history of the Reformation) in 1554; it was first published in 1555, the year before his death. Since Sleidanus had access to official documents of the Reformation, his text remains a valuable contemporary history of this period.

Limited edition artists’ book. Special Collections' copy is number 52 of 100. Consists of envelopes containing printed cards. From the colophon: "...[Y]ou can take all the cards out and: A. Read the book without the cards / B. Shuffle the cards and make your own story with them alone / C. Put the cards back into the envelopes in a totally different order and read the book again / D. Take the cards out and put them back in the original order using the color codes and numbers as your guide / E. All of the above."