In a ceremony yesterday afternoon, the Bowdoin Library’s Department of Special Collections got a special gift: a large slate titled Stone Alphabet, incised by English stone letter-carver David Kindersley.

The slate was donated by Roger Stoddard, a bibliographer and retired curator of rare books in the Harvard College Library, in honor of his friend Kenneth E. Carpenter ’58, fellow bibliographer and retired Harvard University librarian.  Carpenter began working in libraries while a student at Bowdoin and served as a reference librarian at the college early in his career.

The Kindersley slate, now mounted on the wall of the reading room, is unusual in that it was cut freehand — without guidelines, drawing, or previous layout. Director of Special Collections Richard Lindemann described the work as “a masterful demonstration of skillful carving and elegant typeface design.”