the shrinking librarian

Mar 6

fuckyeahiowacity:

iowa city - iowa city bike library by herbacae on Flickr.

iowa city - iowa city bike library by herbacae on Flickr.

Aug 31

Corporate History Buffs Find Hidden Treasure - WSJ.com

“Mr. Bullington is a member of a small cadre of workers who spend their days digging around on eBay, hitting up former employees and mining the corporate nooks and crannies for branded artifacts.

Their toils are the result of carelessness (items long ago lost) and ambivalence (items thought to be of little value). Nowadays, such corporate ephemera is prized for myriad reasons. Some can help a company define its legacy, flesh out its history, serve as décor—or even inspire new products.”

(via Library Stuff)

Jul 26

libraryjournal:

ex-tabulis:

libraryjawn:

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library

In 1996, Dolly Parton launched an exciting new effort, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, to benefit the children of her home county in East Tennessee, USA. Dolly’s vision was to foster a love of reading among her county’s preschool children and their families by providing them with the gift of a specially selected book each month. By mailing high quality, age-appropriate books directly to their homes, she wanted children to be excited about books and to feel the magic that books can create. Moreover, she could insure that every child would have books, regardless of their family’s income.

Dolly’s Imagination Library became so popular that in the year 2000 she announced that she would make the program available for replication to any community that was willing to partner with her to support it locally. Since the initial program launch in the United States, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library has gone from just a few dozen books to nearly 40,000,000 books mailed to children in the United States, into Canada and across the proverbial pond into the United Kingdom! Currently over 1600 local communities provide the Imagination Library to almost 700,000 children each and every month. Already statistics and independent reports have shown Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library drastically improves early childhood literacy for children enrolled in the program. Further studies have shown improved scores during early literacy testing.

So, Dolly Parton is legit one of the coolest ladies around. I’ve always thought the Imagination Library was such a great idea. Plus, she has the BEST theme park ever.

Auto Dolly Parton reblog.

Jul 14

52hearts:

“Bookyard” - an outdoor library by Massimo Bartolini

First 2 photos by Ivan Deboom; Second 2 photos by TRACKGent

May 1

A history of the Gerber Hart Library - chicagotribune.com

“The Gerber/Hart Library was founded in 1981 by a group led by historian Greg Sprague, who several years earlier had launched the Chicago Gay History Project. It eventually grew into the Midwest’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender library, featuring more than 14,000 volumes, 800 periodical titles and 100 archival collections.”

Apr 11

laphamsquarterly:

Help the Morbid Anatomy Library!

Our dear friends at Morbid Anatomy suffered a seriously blow over the weekend, when a fire set off the sprinker system and ruined much of the library.

Joanna Ebenstein provides this wonderful set of books about medicine, the occult, photography, and esoterica (and LQ!) free of charge to anyone who wants to study it. It’s an invaluable resource for artists and academics and now much of it has been lost.

Joanna has compiled an Amazon list of lost books, please consider buying one and sending it to Joanna Ebenstein c/o The Morbid Anatomy Library, 543 Union Street #1E, Brooklyn, NY 11215 or you can donate cash to Morbid Anatomy directly

(via libraryjournal)

Mar 18

Clash Guitarist Hopes to Found Rock Library

“An exhibition entitled The Rock and Roll Public Library will open March 9 in London. The Subway Gallery will showcase more than 10,000 items from Clash lead guitarist Mick Jones’s personal collection of books, videos and other memorabilia, according to the Hampstead and Highgate Express.”

(via LISNews)

Feb 28

Athena's Library, The Quirky Pillar Of Providence : NPR

“The Ath is always looking for relevance: new ideas, new faces and new activities. ‘There are people like me who are not that old-guard, cultural elite of Providence,’ says Kipp Bradford, a lecturer and design engineer at Brown. Bradford is curating three salons at the Ath this spring, linked to manufacturing and the history of Providence.

‘Fundamentally, the Athenaeum is about community, and creating this discussion and this interaction that you can’t have listening to a podcast and you can’t have blogging and Twittering and Facebooking online,’ he says. ‘It’s not your grandfather’s library.’”

Feb 17

undercovershelf:

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Library + Archives
http://rockhall.com/library/

In case you haven’t heard the amazing news yet, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Library and Archives is now open! They have some really cool collections, and I’m sure they will only continue to acquire more as they gain more visibility. The Library is free and open to the public and archival collections are accessible to scholars and by appointment. Check out the finding aids for the archival collections via the Resources tab. Highlights include the Sire Records Collection, Clive Davis Correspondence, the Wilco Collection, and the Four Tops Collection. I also like the fact that this kind of makes it official that it’s ok to like rock and roll AND be a librarian.

(via librarianista)

Feb 6

myimaginarybrooklyn:

The Vatican Secret Archives.