Even when it’s not a hot summer day, the dark, cool environment of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library is welcoming. You are greeted by great walls of books several storeys high—the stacks!
“I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.” Jorge Luis Borges
On the downtown campus of the University of Toronto, you enter the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library through the doors of the Robarts Library. With over 800,000 holdings, the Fisher is home to the largest collection of publicly accessible rare books and manuscripts in Canada, including a solid collection of medieval manuscripts.
Tim Perry, Medieval Manuscripts and Early Books Librarian, opened the reading room to the Calligraphic Arts Guild of Toronto and selected a dozen manuscripts for us to examine. Each book was removed from its housing and placed in a cradle for support. Tim introduced each manuscript, explained its distinct features, and then let us loose to examine them closely. Following careful instruction, we were given permission to turn the pages (at the corners), examine the letters and paintings (but don’t touch), and take photos (no flash). The one manuscript that had full page illuminations decorated with gold was too fragile to be handled by anyone other than the librarian.
The large reading room is normally crowded with researchers, but on this August morning, we were alone. It was a privilege to be in the presence of these ancient books. I imagined scribes preparing vellum, cutting quills, pointing brushes, mixing pigments, and settling into a rhythm of lettering in a scriptorium—silent except for the scratch of quill on parchment.
Design Quest 