Display Card For Valentine Maker Jonathan King, London c. 1870's.(All Images Courtesy of Bodleian Library.)A permanent collection of temporary items. That's one way to sum up what libraries and archives call "ephemera." Preserving items that were meant to be briefly used and thrown away seems like an exercise in futility at first glance. But paper ephemera -- such as leaflets, tickets, programs and playbills, posters, bookmarks, trade and calling cards, advertising inserts, and product packaging -- often reflect the day to day history of the average person in a way that more formal historical records can't.The Manufacture Of Valentines As...
