Ohhhhhh …. look at these many dance performances incorporating books and/or libraries. At least two of the dances took place in the glass-walled stacks of a rare book library! The final video on the list reminds me of playing you-can’t-touch-the-floor and using books from a multi-volume set as stepping stones. Thanks, Dina Wood.
Cool waterproof futuristic mini-library in Nolita in NYC from Stereotank. Part of the Little Free Library project. We’ve seen other examples here at Library Shenanigans, but this one is my new favorite. Thanks, BoingBoing!
The Northlake Public Library in Northlake, Illinois is hoping to raise money to purchase a nine-foot statue of the Hulk to promote its collection of graphic novels and comics. The perks for donating are pretty awesome, including, for just $20: “A librarian…will dress up as a comic character and take a picture of him/herself in random places in Northlake holding up a speech bubble. You send us what you want said in the speech bubble.” I wonder if the Incredible Hulk would get along with the Credible Hulk.
Thanks, Tom Mukite and ALA Think Tank on Facebook!
Pegasus Librarian Iris Jastram at Carlton College provides us with an excellent overview of copyright basics … with Pac-Man. Thanks, Marianne Aldrich!
Erica Carlson Nicol posted this sign to the ALA Think Tank on Facebook. It’s from the Neill Public Library in Pullman, Washington. Thanks, Marianne Aldrich!
Lego recently introduced a librarian minifigure holding a copy of Oranges and Peaches, which is a bit of an inside joke for librarians (though really, in the age of Google, are there any truly inside jokes any more?).
Oranges and Peaches (a misunderstood Origin of Species) is an imaginary book made real; full story here. (The tale almost certainly originated in the 1995 movie Party Girl; a reference to it appeared in a scholarly article the following year.)
The description of the Lego librarian leaves something to be desired: it contains references to overdue books and shushing, not most librarians’ idea of the important part of our work. But of course, the librarian minifig has already been repurposed: Kristin Bell has made a Lego Viking librarian (something we all need in our minifig collection). I might also like to see mash-ups with the Warrior Woman or Medusa, but maybe not the Street Harassment Construction Worker.
Thanks, Joan Petit!
” ‘Now I must go and search for food and moisture,’ continued Luddom, moments before being devoured by a swarm of ravenous bats.”
Thanks, Amy Augusen!
Anybody know where this takes place? Or who made it? Or anything?
Thanks, Carol Dickerson!
Addendum May 3: Carol tells me it’s the Trinity University Library in San Antonio, Texas.
The American Library Association celebrated National Library Week this year with a book spine poetry contest. They’ve created a Flickr set of all the entries. Congratulations to the winner, elizabeth-3! Thanks, Emily Lloyd; I wouldn’t have known about this if not for you.
Okay, so this isn’t precisely a library shenanigan, but it’s close enough, I think — people tend to elide museums and libraries.
On May 10, 1922, Colorado College students removed taxidermied animals from the college museum in Palmer Hall and placed them all over campus. This shenanigan was apparently in protest of then-president of the college, Clyde Duniway, whose policies were unpopular with students: he limited the times when men could visit women’s dormitories; strictly enforced chapel attendance; and fired a football coach for using profanity on the field. 350 students (about half the total enrollment) signed a petition complaining about Duniway, to no avail. The animals prank was one of several that spring: students also released hydrogen sulfide in one classroom building and somehow got a live cow up to the second floor of another.
In January of 1929, CC students again placed the museum animals around campus, this time to protest the firing of the editor of the student newspaper.
Source: J. Juan Reid, Colorado College: The First Century (1979), chapter V, “Controversy and Student Unrest.”