Mercantile Library Executive Director John Faherty leafs through a catalogue of items currently or once held by the almost 200-year-old Cincinnati institution.
” ‘Declaration of Independence,’ ” he reads out loud, “and then, parenthetically, ‘in Chinese.’ Bible, folio-size, printed in Nuremburg, 1479.”
Faherty isn’t after obscure 19th century copies of America’s founding documents or rare bibles. Eventually, he comes to what he’s looking for…