F is for…

Fingertabs

Fingertab in Portiforium seu breuiarium, ad insignis Sarisburiensis, ecclesie usum (1555)

 

A finding aid, a fingertab is a piece of material glued to or threaded through the foredge of a leaf, used to bookmark a significant section. We can find fingertabs in both manuscript and printed material, such as here in Bolton Library I.15.21, a lovely mid-16th century Sarum Use breviary printed during the brief reign of Mary I.

 

Flora

Pressed flowers and leaves founds inserted in Elementa chemiae (1732)

 

The items which comprise the Bolton Library are of a great age, and most bear witness to centuries of readership and use, trade and misuse through markings, signatures and scribbles, sometimes effusive, often illegible, at times disparaging and always intriguing. Secreted away inside Bolton Library E.4.12 is something much more delicate, and rather beautiful: an array of pressed flowers and leaves, now safely removed and separately housed.