I love stories like this… The NY Times published the recent account of a Brown University archivist finding, what is believed to be one of only five copies of a print done by revolutionary heavyweight Paul Revere himself. No doubt the chance of this happening increases if your job is handling books from the 1700’s. But it’s still pretty cool to think that such a unique rarity was just stuck in the back of a book on physics. Revere was quite the engraver and printer, flooding the colonies with pamphlets and political information. He’s certainly not known for any kind of iconic or religious art, which ups the “cool factor” of the find. Be sure to click through to read the article on the library archivist and see the photos.

If nifty old archives of historical significance interest you then you should tune into Book TV (on CSPAN2) this weekend. At noon, on Saturday, they will be touring old bookstores and the Nichols Collection at the University of Oklahoma. They have books going back as far as the 15th century! They also have a History of Science Collection with papers and books from Galileo, Copernicus and other famous people in white lab coats. I think it’ll be fun to watch.