“It is fascinating to see the variety, the characteristics of everyone’s unique handwriting. Unfortunately this is vanishing with technology.”(Karoly Keserü)
Inspired by Karoly Keserü’s project “CON-TEXT-WORX”, which values the text as graphic medium, visual pattern and drawing, this publication looked to the non print marks left by people on physical books. The history of a book goes beyond its author, text and edition.
The book is created to be read. And readers add value. In the digital era, full of immaterial and fleeting supports, it is worth to remember the add value of personal traces written or drawn by the reader: dedications, marginalias, and drawings. They establish
a conversation between the reader and the author. Even when they are indecipherable, they are always visually readable. It is precisely this diversity, this manuality, that gives a private/intimate nature and a new meaning to the book. This traceability has been lost in e-books.
This publication shows the traces left in books belonging to author’s relatives (including an academic publication from Casimiro d’Oliveira who wrote a dedication to his brother Domingos Manuel d’Oliveira, brothers of the film director, Manoel d’Oliveira) and to three private libraries: private collection of Rui Carrington da Costa (pedagogue, teacher and researcher from Braga) and Manuel de Oliveira (physician and bibliophile from Ponte de Lima) donated to The Public Library of Braga (BMB); private collection of Domingos Marques (lawyer from Braga) donated to Lucio Craveiro da Silva Library. The author thanks to the directors of both institutions — Elísio Araújo (BMB) and Aida Alves (BLCS) the access to those assets of books.
