News Release

SAN FRANCISCO - The San Francisco Public Library and the Asian Art Museum will co-host "Money to Burn: The Chinese Use of Ritual Papers," a slide lecture by Roderick Cave on Wednesday, April 9, 2003. The event begins at 6:30 p.m. in the Koret Auditorium of the San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin Street (at Grove), Civic Center.

Roderick Cave is a researcher and writer on the history of printing. Formerly a Foundation Professor of Librarianship at Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand) and head of Information Studies at Nanyang University Singapore, he has taught in universities in Jamaica, Trinidad and Nigeria, as well as in Britain and the United States. He has lectured frequently at universities and to bibliographical and book collecting groups in the United States, including the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the American Printing History Association, the Book Club of California, the Caxton Club (Chicago) and The Rounce & Coffin and Zamorano Clubs in Los Angeles. 

Probably best known for his history, The Private Press, Cave was also founding editor of the annual bibliography "Private Press Books." He has written widely on aspects of private presses and modern fine printing, particularly in the Whittington Press's distinguished annual "Matrix." In 2001, a selection from his articles over the past 40 years was published in the prestigious British Library Studies in the History of the Book series as Fine Printing and Private Presses. His long-awaited A History of the Golden Cockerel Press (co-authored by Sarah Manson) was published in 2003.

Over the past 20 years, Cave has traveled in East Asia and studied the very different traditions of papermaking and printing in those societies. Chinese Paper Offerings, his introduction to Chinese ritual papers, was published in 1998; his Chinese Ceremonial Papers (Whittington Press) in 2002.

This event is sponsored by the Marjorie G. and Carl W. Stern Book Arts and Special Collections Center, 6th floor of the San Francisco Main Library in Civic Center.

All events at the Library are free and open to the public.

For more information, please call 415.557.4560.