Astrolearn astrology library progress report
– No. 24: 6th February, 2016
As anticipated in the previous report of 30th January, this past week I have created product pages for all eighteen of the first batch of Astrolearn Vintage Astrology CDs. First I tested them all to make sure that all the files would load, and they do. The artwork had also transferred correctly.
The Products page at Astrolearn has been extended and presentationally improved. Beneath the existing DVD links, it now gives full details of prices, postage costs and ordering procedures for the CDs, as well as links to the eighteen separate product pages that themselves include the cover images, disc images and details of the contents of each CD.
I have also updated all the bibliography pages affected by the parcel that arrived last week (as discussed in the previous update), and further taken delivery of two other books from separate sources, both of them fairly recent academic titles.
The first is “Scientia Astrologiae” by Andreas Lerch; the second a commentary on the second book of Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos, by the late Giuseppe Bezza. You will find the first title on the page for Lerch and the second on one of those for Ptolemy.
On order from England is Kim Farnell’s edition, newly published last year, of the English edition of the main work of Indagine, a popular broadly-focused text on the occult sciences including a section on astrology, that ran through multiple Latin, French and English editions in the 16th and 17th centuries. Kim’s edition is unreasonably bargain-priced, and would seem an essential addition to any collection of historical texts on astrology for anyone who lacks an original printing. I did at one time purchase an original 17th century English-language printing of this book, but had to return it to the bookseller because the copy had condition issues that made it unworthy of its high price, such as a very close binding that made some text unreadable and impossible to scan. That was at least eight years ago now. Kim’s modern edition will therefore be the only one in my collection when it arrives. It’s really long overdue to have Indagine’s work represented here.
Lastly, I have made a small start on improving the usability of the bibliography pages by adding colorful (green) navigation links at the foot of each page to the previous and next pages. I have only done this for the first ten pages so far (it takes longer than you might imagine), and expect to fit in bits and pieces over an extended period of time ahead. At the same time I’m adding green titles to each page to mirror the green navigation footers and add visual balance.
Looking ahead, I have a shortlist of 15 or so further academic books published in the past couple of years that I would like to acquire this year in order to bring that side of the archive up to date. There is no way that I can afford new general astrology books published since 2010 for the forseeable future because my income is too low, but I regard academic ones and those related to the history of astrology as essential. In fact I’m unlikely to start affording any of those other academic ones until April because of major expenses these next two months, including domain name renewals and VAT bills to pay to the Swedish government.
I would also like to have a printed version of the bibliography published eventually, but want to catch up with those 15 books first, so that as far as academic books are concerned it is up-to-date through to the end of 2015 before the printed edition is published. Another reason for wanting to wait before publishing the first printed edition, however, is that two long-awaited lynchpin academic books may finally be published in 2016 – Charles Burnett’s edition of Abu Ma’Shar’s “Great Introduction” (first announced in 2004) is expected, and Stephan Heilen’s critical edition of Rhetorius (first announced around 2007) is strongly anticipated although there is no firm date still for it. A printed bibliography without these books will forever be incomplete. I think they are worth waiting for. In the meantime, I’ll keep the online version updated as and when I make new acquisitions, in addition to notifying readers via these reports.
Best wishes to all,
Philip
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