Getting back into it

 Obviously, since we've been away there's been no cataloguing for a month now.

Normally, today would be my day at the Athenaeum, but since today's Good Friday, the Athenaeum is closed.

I'd been planning to get some work done next Friday, but that's suddenly looking a bit iffy with the power company threatening to turn off all of Stanley that day

I could manage without power for a morning by using my portable internet modem, a powerbank, and trusting that the battery in my old Thinkpad holds up for a cataloguing session (actually I could take a second machine as a backup device if needs be) but the problem is the light.

While the Athenaeum has, like a lot of nineteenth century public buildings, tall windows to catch the light (take a look at an old school building or library building to get the idea), there's a possible health and safety issue climbing up and down the ladder if the light's poor, so I guess we'll just have to see what happens on the day - after all the electricity people could decide to postpone the work at the last minute.

Otherwise I've been catching up with some possible leads about Joseph King's cheap circulating library in Norwich.

It's a bit of a puzzle - 1841 is very early for the collection - we have very few books from before the mid 1850s as the Athenaeum was only founded in 1863. 

What we do know is that many books were bought second hand from book importers some of whom bought up stock from failed circulating libraries in the UK.

Did Joseph King simply keep older books among his stock - we'll probably never know, but if we could find out when he was in business we can speculate with a purpose.

The other thing I did was read an interesting paper about coffins in nineteenth century Sheffield. I know it sounds macabre, but often coffin plates are the only way of identifying early goldrush era graves - any wooden grave makers having vanished long ago.

Coffin plates, and other coffin furniture are also potentially interesting. Due to a desire to treat the dead with respect, they were imported from the early days of the Australian colonies

This is an example from Tasmania in 1840, but coffin plates are also among the imported ironmongery advertised in the Sydney Gazette in 1820

meaning that stylistic changes in coffin furniture in England could be used to tentatively date early colonial burials in Australia and New Zealand where no records exist...