Many libraries have stories of overdue books being returned decades after they were borrowed. Portland State recently received a book 52 years overdue. This beats Colorado College’s figures: in 2005, we received books 25 and 45 years overdue. (See the full story in the Winter 2006 issue of the library newsletter.) But we’re nowhere near the record: 221 years. The perpetrator? George Washington. I kid you not. See the full story here.
The librarians at Georgia Tech have a rock ‘n’ roll radio show! It’s called “Lost in the Stacks.” Charlie Bennett (Undergraduate Programming & Engagement Librarian) and Ameet Doshi (Director, Service Experience & Program Design) have been broadcasting music and library talk since 2010. Topics on the show have included Citizen Archiving, The DC Punk Archive, Our Little Free Library, Beautiful Library Renovations, and Libraries as Inspirational Space.
Thanks, Daryll Stevens!
Sometime in the year 1445 (probably), a cat stepped in black ink and made paw prints in this Croatian manuscript. I wonder what the scribe (likely a monk) said when he (likely a he) found these marks. My guess is that it involved a few swear words. Thanks, Ross Gresham!
ModCloth is selling their “Archive Got the Power” dress for $99.99 in sizes from XS to 4X. Oddly, no one has reviewed it yet, which seems strange for a dress with books all over it, somehow.
Alex Weiss, in her incisive Bustle piece “7 Reasons Libraries Are Our Only Hope In Case Of A Zombie Apocalypse,” cites “Maintaining Academic Library Services During the Zombie Apocalypse” by Sarah McHone-Chase and Lynne M. Thomas in Braaaiiinnnsss!: From Academics to Zombies, ed. Robert Smith, University of Ottawa Press, 2011. You can read the chapter online at Google Books for free.
Thanks, Lynne M. Thomas!
This is not exactly a library shenanigan, but since libraries are almost the only places you can see medieval manuscript books, I included it anyway. Two monks discover how tall women and horses are, and also how wars work and how to fit someone into a cauldron. Thanks, Lynne Marie Thomas!
We all need some fake library statistics now and then, and Fake Library Statistics on Facebook provides. Did you know that 75% of librarians wish they could drive a pickle car? Thanks, Marianne Aldrich!
This posting for a North Pole Librarian is totally legitimate and not a shenanigan at all. It just seems like one. Thanks, Joan Petit!
Special Collections has been receiving a number of unusual and wonderful books from the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, which donated its library to Colorado College last year. Special Collections Cataloger Amy Brooks draws our attention to one of these recent acquisitions, several 1932 issues of The USSR in Construction, a monthly magazine. You can read all about it here and see images here.
According to Alexandre Antique Prints, Maps & Books, Toronto, Canada, 2015, “…the real beauty of these magazines was not in ideology but in artistic design. [Alexander] Rodchenko and [Maxim] Gorki were avant-garde specialists and their methods of printing and layout are legendary. The magazine has lived on to become a fascinating example of Soviet propaganda; Stalin’s attempt to show the world that his rebuild was sustainable.”
