Adding the third would have meant a delay of some days, and I want to keep to a regular schedule. If we can publish something each week, it works better than publishing a lot once every two months.
Judith told me after editing this weeks first publication that there were so many letters, that she expected everybody could find a suitable monogram here. The Album of Alphabets and Monograms nr 2 is part of my own collection. In real life it looks like a disreputable stack of old newspapers. Judiths work made it look like new again. We haven't charted the many cross stitch letters, and it does not have a high priority. The images should be clear enough to work from.
The second item is a quickie: there was this lovely teapot stand on ebay, and we got a fast reply on my request for permission to republish, so it's one of the shortest stays on the backlog in our history. Thank you, William Philip, for giving your permission and even adding new photos to the listing. I was and am really tempted!
It did raise a question, though: last weeks pincushion was 60x60 stitches and this is about the same size. Could I have been mistaken? Was last weeks pincushion also a tea pot stand?
What do you think? Should I change the description?
FUNDRAISING
We've had some lovely donations the past week. Some money and some image donations, both equally welcome. We're off to a good start for the New Year, and let's hope it does improve even more.
Apart from money or scans, you can also support us via Amazon Smile.
The limit of small donations is 700 EUR, a bit more than 700 USD. It may increase if we get more small donations. Judith will help me recalculate this years limit, but to be safe we'll keep to 700 until I know for sure it can be higher. That's the limit to what you can donate per year and still have it count towards the small donations. It's recalculated every year. If you donate more, the IRS puts your donations on the other side of the public funding ratio. So, if you were planning to donate just above the limit, give some to another organization, buy a cup of coffee and donate just the limit amount. ;-)
Also, we are looking for people who can afford a one-time larger donation to support our goals for 2016, which will cost us some money.
It will help speed up our publication speed, and make more time available for the actual library work, which is sadly suffering. Judith and I have spent most of January on bookkeeping and IRS compliance and stuff like that. Fortunately that's behind us now.
We've had one large donation already. That one has helped to improve the programming for the site so that now somebody else is able to do the entire round of publishing (except writing special notices and the blog) on her own, without help from me. That's going to make it easier to keep publishing every week, even when I'm on holiday. And I can spend more time on editing the acquisitions, and visit people with laptop and scanner in a bag, if they have a suitable book and live within reach.
(Next week I'm off to Haarlem, where a marktplaats seller offered me an opportunity to photograph and/or scan her samplers - some from the seventeenth century!)
Basically, what I'm looking for right now is to get professional help to scan the really large publications, sized A2, A1, and maybe even A0, of which we have a chest full. Some leaves are so fragile that we get the chance to scan them once, then they fall apart. I've inquired at a nearby photographer, and they will have to build an installation too (just like Willem and Nettie, but larger), in order to get the sheets properly photographed. The more money I plonk down, the more sheets they can do. And of course, the building and taking down of the installation, as well as closing the studio for one day, will cost money of itself. So, money is very welcome!
If you can't afford to give anything, which also happens in these difficult times, introducing the Library to people who don't know of it yet, is very useful, since it broadens our user base and therefore our donor base. I'll try to publish a flyer in black and white which can be printed and used as handout, for anybody wanting to do that. It would be more useful than a visiting card.
Anything you donate for the Library, goes to the Library. The donations of the larger donors are far more than enough to cover our overhead, so what you give, goes straight to Library improvement.
HOUSEKEEPING
The publications are free to download and to share, not to sell. Also the screendumps and later the text pages are published under the creative-commons licence - enjoy, but don't sell. If ever you see a PDF for sale, especially with the Library creative-commons copyright notice or something that looks like it, we'd be glad to hear. Most we've heard of so far are legitimate sellers of their own copies, but every now and then there's one that isn't. In such a case, please email us privately with your concerns and give as much detail as possible. We don't want peoples' names aired about before we've had a chance to look the matter over, in order to protect the truly innocent.
Thanks to all the donors and volunteers, for all the help and new or improved material you provided.
Enjoy this new set.
Best wishes all,
Sytske
