Say it’s the year 1675 and you need to ride from London to the city of Bristol. Siri won’t be invented for centuries 鈥� how will you find your way? Don’t worry, there’s a map for that.

Drawn expressly for the purpose by Scottish cartographer , the map now sits under glass in the Special Collections area of the UW’s Allen Library, in great shape for being 340 years old.

The map is one of dozens of items in a new exhibit titled “.” Carefully chosen and organized by 91探花Book Arts and Rare Book Curator Sandra Kroupa, the exhibit is a celebration of cartography, geography and travel, featuring maps, travel literature, vintage books, photos, manuscripts and more.

“I really love that map,” Kroupa said. “The interesting thing is that it doesn’t put you in any context, so you don’t know where in the world you are. You know to get from here to there, but that’s it. And all along the road are symbols of what happens there, and one of the things is a tree that people were hung from. We even have an artist book from the collection that was inspired by that map.”

To Kroupa, on the job just months short of 50 years with no retirement in sight, caring for centuries-old original items like these is like a “sacred trust.” She added: “Here are these things that have managed to make it through God knows what, and 鈥� especially some of the early maps 鈥� where have they been?” Some were individual sheets in atlases long dismantled and sold off separately, she said.

Nearby Ogilby’s cartography are other vintage maps as well as travel books by Charles Dickens and others, including a small 1804 book about touring England told in letters from a brother to a sister and an intriguing 1905 guide to “The Ruined Abbeys of Great Britain.”

Behind glass in another shelf are a few 19^th century photographs by William Babcock 鈥� and really, nothing says “colonial” like a formal British couple solemnly riding an elephant on their honeymoon.

Also included are cycling diaries “recorded in map form” by the late, beloved 91探花historian . He was 鈥� who knew? 鈥� evidently a biking enthusiast who cycled around England and Ireland in the 1920s. Kroupa said colleague John Bolcer, librarian and university archivist, brought these to her attention. Nicolette Bromberg, 91探花Libraries visual materials curator, suggested photos for the exhibit and Lisa Oberg, associate director of Special Collections and history of science and medicine curator, provided the exhibit title.

Book arts, scientific instruments and ephemera are represented here as well. Kroupa herself donated a 1950s-era Disneyland Viewmaster slide promoting Tomorrowland that lures the viewer with: “Let’s go ahead in time to 1986 鈥� a world of spaceports, moon rockets, modernistic buildings and the fun rides of the future!”

Kroupa created the display in just a few days after learning that she had a hole in her schedule to fill. Curators know their collections, and exhibits compiled in this personal way can be a rare glimpse at favorite items from the trove, which at 91探花Special Collections numbers about 250,000 printed materials and 1,500,000 visual images in all.

It鈥檚 like putting together a big puzzle, she said.

“I say to people that when I walked in here at age 21, someone handed me a whole bunch of puzzle pieces, but I never saw the box! So I didn’t know if I was facing Mount Rainier or four kitties in a yarn basket, or fresh fruit. It just seems like everything you do gives you more puzzle pieces.”

“All Over the Map: From Cartographs to (C)artifacts” will be on display until Jan. 31, 2018.

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For more information, contact Kroupa at 206-685-3248 or skroupa@uw.edu.

A dark-haired girl, rendered in angular figures of copper against black as if from ancient Greece, hauls mightily on a water jug, following her mistress. But look closer: The girl’s eyes are squeezed shut in effort 鈥� it’s a tough job.

This is “A Woman’s Work,” one of 32 colorful and creative artist books on display as part of the exhibit “,” in 91探花 Libraries’ Special Collections department, in Allen Library. The exhibit, featuring local, regional and national artists, was co-curated by 91探花alumna Lauren Dudley with , 91探花Libraries’ well-known book arts and rare book curator.

The exhibited books resulted from collaborations between artists and faculty members in the humanities, many from the UW. “A Woman’s Work,” inspired by figures on Greek vases, was created by former student Emma Schulte, who studied ancient Greek vase painting with , 91探花associate professor of classics. The work also was inspired by “,” by Sian Lewis of the University of St. Andrews. The book’s scenes unfold accordion-style, speaking to the question: What would Greek faces look like if they showed the work Greek women actually did?

Each book in the exhibit was similarly inspired by a text that was suggested, in most cases, by 91探花faculty from 91探花Humanities areas, including , , , , , and . Oral stories from the Salish, Muslim and Latino cultures are also included.

For co-curator 鈥� and donor 鈥� Dudley, who selected the texts submitted by faculty for assignment to book artists, mostly on commission, the collaboration between artists and academics was crucial to the potency of the exhibit.

“I’m interested in how creativity manifests over a variety of disciplines, so I really like seeing how everyone in this show, whether submitting a text or making a book, does a lot research and a lot of deep thinking,” said Dudley. “I love to see that cross-collaboration, and I think it was very rewarding for the new faculty who hadn’t experienced artist books.”

Kroupa, who has curated decades of book arts exhibits, said she was impressed with the flexibility the assignments gave the artists to proceed “absolutely without any boundaries.” She provided the list of book artists for Dudley to consider 鈥� many being artists Kroupa had worked with for many years 鈥� and arranged the exhibit’s physical layout.

Commissions usually come with specific instructions as to content, length or tone, Kroupa said, but in this case she advised the artists, “Just read the story and let your mind go wherever it wants.” Some ventured into styles and media they’d never used before.

That suited Dudley: “As a producer 鈥� and this is not the only complicated event I have worked on 鈥� I like to put people in a position where they are pushing themselves a little bit,” she said.

The exhibit was created as a component to the upcoming conference 鈥� called FemCon for short 鈥� to be held May 19-22 at the HUB. There, scholars in classics will gather from around the county to discuss the theme of “vision in 鈥� and visions of 鈥� the ancient Mediterranean world.” Alongside the book art pieces in Special Collections are videos about the exhibit and the conference theme, produced by Dudley.

She said, “The classics department was in fact the genesis of this whole exhibit. They asked me if I’d be willing to do something in conjunction with what they call FemCon, so Sandra and I will do a lunchtime presentation, and then we’ll bring them to the exhibit.”

• Also related is a by , professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside, and author of “The Moor’s Account,” at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 7, in Room 250 of the HUB. Lalami’s topic will be “Creativity, Art and Scholarship: The Research and Writing of ‘The Moor’s Account.'”

All of the artist books in “Just One Look” 鈥� many one-of-a-kind items 鈥� will become part of the UW’s book arts collection, now with over 21,000 pieces both historical and modern.

And as for the hard-working girl in Schulte and Topper’s Greek-themed “A Woman’s Work,” the piece is a particular favorite of , chair of the Department of Classics, where all this began.

“When I bring people here,” Connors said of the exhibit, “what they see is a tremendously intense and vital process of reading, and responding 鈥� and also what I hear is their response to the dimension of time 鈥� the time it took to make each of these artifacts, these amazing things.

“We spend a lot of time in classics reading the books that we read 鈥� what we do takes a lot of time,” she said. “And to see someone else being equally intense about the storytelling that we engage in is very exciting.”

“Just One Look” continues through Friday, July 29. The exhibit is hosted by and conference by the and the Libraries; both are also sponsored by the .

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For more information, contact Kroupa at 206-685-3248 or skroupa@uw.edu.

Sandra Kroupa had to learn a lot about Russian children’s literature in a hurry to curate the exhibit now on display in 91探花Libraries Special Collections. But it wasn’t meant to be that way.

Kroupa is the longtime book arts and rare book curator for 91探花Libraries. The exhibit is “.” It is on display outside Special Collections and in its Reading Room in the Allen Library south basement, and in its North Balcony.

Most of the 60-some items in the exhibit came from Seattle rare book collector Pamela Harer, a highly respected donor Kroupa had and known for many years. Harer studied the topic for more than three years and, though she did get to see the final exhibit, she grew seriously ill before she could fully share her knowledge for the catalog to accompany the show.

“It was all kind of inside her,” Kroupa said. “She had been telling me stories for the past two years about what the were like and how much pressure the artists were under to make their art more representational. And that artists were killed because they did not portray what children looked like really. All this stylistic stuff was not acceptable after the (Russian) Revolution.”

Kroupa said Harer’s family members helped put together a basic catalog for the exhibit that she later expanded on with her own research. She worked quickly, too, receiving the items at the start of June for a June 30 opening.

The exhibit comprises about 100 different items, which Kroupa has arranged in rough chronological order, from the late 19^th century 鈥� where some items already in the 91探花collection are shown 鈥� through the revolution and the 1920s. With symbolic animal caricatures and swaggering military characters, the display tells of history indirectly, through books designed for the very young.

Family members told Kroupa that Harer held on until she could see the exhibit, which she did during a special family showing on June 29. She died two days later.

“From the Lowly Lubok to Soviet Realism” will be on display until Oct. 24.

听

Polly Hopkins has the rosy face of an early-19^th century belle awaiting suitors, but wait 鈥� switch paper bodies and she becomes Tommy Tompkins, a moody, flower-picking dandy.

“Promenade de Longchamps, Optique #4鈥� is a long cardboard box of hand-painted miniatures. But look through the hole at the front and this “tunnel book鈥� shows a detailed boulevard with townspeople, horses, carriages and footmen leading off to the horizon.

Illustrated postcard-style views of Queen Victoria’s coronation and parade through London don’t stop at a single scene or two 鈥� they unfold 21 times over four feet to show the entire royal procession in all its glamour.

These are the sort of pleasant surprises awaiting viewers of a new 91探花Libraries Special Collections exhibit in Suzzallo Library called Merry Company: Pop-ups, Movables & Toy Books, which runs through March 16, 2012.

You can’t touch them, but your inner child will wish you could.

The exhibit, of about 150 pieces 鈥� some modern but a few dating back to the 17^th century 鈥� was curated with pride and affection by Sandra Kroupa, book arts and rare book curator for Special Collections. But much of the exhibit comes from the extraordinary collection of Pamela Harer of Seattle, who has sought rare books for decades.

“Historically, pop-up and movable books were intended to delight, excite and charm,鈥� Kroupa said in the preface to the exhibit catalog, written and compiled by Harer. “Probably the main clientele were children but it is difficult for me to think adults of the period were not enchanted by the magical qualities of these books just as adults are today.鈥�

Later, talking with Harer and others about the exhibit, Kroupa said, “If you want to study the history of the book, you cannot avoid looking at the history of children’s books,鈥� even though they were considered insufficiently academic by many scholars.

“We have a huge children’s literature collection, and all the best stuff has come from Pamela,鈥� Kroupa said. Though many other older books are worn and in poor shape, “Pamela’s materials are in wonderful condition,鈥� she said. “You can study the paper and the binding and the printing. She has really helped.

“We sort of had half a collection 鈥� for years I had been collecting alphabet books the modern book artists were making. I said some years ago, 鈥楽ome day I will meet someone who is collecting the historical things and we will make a big collection’ 鈥� and she showed up at my door.鈥�

Harer attends antiquarian book fairs (Seattle’s is excellent, she said) looking to expand her collections.听 “A lot of the dealers know me and will have put something aside,鈥� she said, “I don’t have to go searching for them.鈥� She said some dealers may buy an item “with the condition that if I don’t buy it, they don’t have to buy it 鈥� I’m sure that goes on.鈥�

She said this exhibit is the largest single group of items she has donated to 91探花Special Collections, and there are likely more to come. “I’m doing it primarily because I was intrigued by the book arts collection, and I know how much it derives from the early movable books 鈥� and of course I collect children’s books and have for many years.鈥�

She said she’d like visitors to the exhibit to come away knowing that there is more to movable and pop-up books than they’ll see in even the best book store.

Condition matters but is not everything. Harer said old pop-up books in good condition “are truly rare because they got very well used, and torn up and thrown out, basically because they no longer worked. Once they stopped working they were no longer interesting to children, or to collectors. It’s very expensive to have them repaired and only a handful of people know how to do it.鈥�

She said book collectors generally want a book as close as possible to the way it was created. “In other words, it might be in great condition but if there’s a page missing, it doesn’t just drop the value in half, it drops it down to about 10 percent.鈥�

Still, other collectors want the telling look of heavy use. Kroupa said, “A lot of what researchers come to me for is that patina of wear 鈥� I had one interested in coming to Seattle to look at our collection but was only interested in mother-mended books 鈥� hand-stitched. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work very well. It holds the stuff together but its not very good for opening and closing the book.鈥�

Harer said, “I have some that are so worm-eaten you cant even read some of the pages. But the truth is, it makes a fascinating design.鈥�

The expensive part of production, Harer said, is all the folding and gluing together of individual pieces, which was done by hand even when such books became more readily available in the mid-19^th century. “In those days they could use child labor, and they did use child labor for听 a lot of it.鈥�

The collection also includes items that were products of their time but are disturbingly outdated now, such as patronizing depictions of race and gender. One colorful example is “Look Who I Am,鈥� a 1952 book that folds out to become a doll dressed for different stereotypical female roles. “I’m a little waitress / I wear an apron neat / I come up to your table / And bring you food to eat,鈥� one caption reads.

Which brings us back to Polly Hopkins, whose face gets moved from one paper doll to another to become different characters. These are sometimes called “changeables.鈥�

With Victorian flourish, Polly 鈥� perhaps pretending to have fallen on hard times 鈥� poses as the street urchin “Cherry Ripe鈥� in one and sells brooms in another. As Tommy he/she dramatically sheds “The Sailor’s Tear鈥� on one card and preens fancily in the other, captioned “I have pluck’d the fairest flower.鈥�

The exhibit was prepared with the help of several other people, including Kate Leonard, Judith Johnson, Moriah Nells, Chloe Horning and Wesley Nelson.

On the whole, Harer said, modern movable and pop-up books tend to be “very repetitive and not as intriguing or inspired鈥� as older creations. Still, she added, “some of them are amazing 鈥� (t)here are some very, very clever people out there.鈥�

Asked if there is any particular book shes still searching for, Harer added, “Or that I found and it was far too pricey to buy?鈥�

As if ordering from a genie, she answered, “I’ll take the ,鈥� a 1658 textbook whose title translates to “The Visible World in Pictures.鈥澨� “And Ill take it in English, or Ill take it in German.鈥�

Harer said she doesn’t mind donating such fine parts of her collection “as long as I have something else to concentrate on.鈥�

Next up, she said, is consolidating her collection of “object books, which are books that teach through pictures that illustrate the words.鈥�

After all, she said, “I’m not getting any younger 鈥� or have you heard that before?鈥�