Illuminating the Past

Claire Battershill’s latest research project explores how special collections, often seen as exclusive spaces, can be opened up to the public through new ways of seeing.

Claire Battershill, a book history scholar, began her academic journey by pursuing her love of physical manuscripts, but along the way she reached a fork in the road. One path led to historical printing presses and the people that ran them, the other to digital archives and data visualization. Battershill pursued them both and continues to do so with her most recent projects. “What has become increasingly clear is that there’s a logical extension of the history of the book into the digital future,” says Battershill, who is jointly appointed with the English Department. “So, to think about the full lifecycle of a book, you have to take it forward into digitization as well.” Building on the experience she gained as a co-founder of the Modern Archives Publishing Project, which digitally reunites publishers’ archives spread across the world, Battershill is now turning her attention to special collections. In a new Research project – entitled Lighting the Windows of the Past and supported by both the Connaught New Researcher Award and SSHRC – she is collaborating with David Fernandez at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library and Kit MacNeil at the Massey College Robertson Davies Library to approach special collections and their associated data and metadata. The project proposes a reconceptualization of literary and historical special collections using the methods and research creation practices of queer and feminist analysis. Working together, librarians, artists, students and researchers will activate materials from the Fisher and Massey College libraries using data visualization techniques, poetic analysis and book history-informed approaches to collections-based research. The goal is to set the stage for an opening up of special collections, which are often seen as exclusive spaces for highly qualified researchers, to the broader public.

“I love introducing students, especially undergrads, to research experiences,” says Battershill. “We’ve already been able to work on making both Massey and the Fisher feel like more welcoming spaces and there’s much more of that work to come.”

On her second research path, Battershill has continued to explore her interest in historic printing presses and practices. Following the publication, in 2022, of her short book, Women and Letterpress Printing 1920-2020: Gendered Impressions, she oversaw a summer research project to revitalize the historical print shop at the Uxbridge Historical Centre near Toronto. Doctoral student RA J Hughes (Department of English) and Jessica Lanziner, a Museum Studies alumna who was then working as a curator at the Historical Centre, undertook conservation work and assessment, collected oral histories of professional printers, and organized public workshops. Then, supported by the Faculty of Information’s GLAM Incubator, the research team created toolkits for cultural institutions interested in holding low-cost printing workshops to explore implications for literacy, artistic experimentation and community building. The Uxbridge project was not without its challenges. During the spring of 2022, major storms hit the region and destroyed the space at the Historical Centre where an exhibition was to be held. Luckily the print shop remained intact and the team was able to offer up alternative programming that could take place as the town recovered from the storm. Battershill found it especially meaningful to see the impact the research had on the families of community members who had worked for local newspapers and in the printing industries. “They were so happy and excited to see interest in and investment in that space and attention to its history,” she said.