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.”
Smith and The West End \\ Jack Carter and The Armory from Kim Newmoney on Vimeo.
Partly filmed in one of the libraries of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I wonder if they got permission? Either way, seems like a shenanigan. It’s a pretty catchy song, too, and I enjoyed the deliberately-half-assed lip-synching. Thanks, Robert Stoesen!
In the vein of The Credible Hulk and Feminist Ryan Gosling, we now have Research Wahlberg. Thanks, Joan Petit!
Sunny Purdin sent me this link and said “I like to be subtle with my protests.” Thanks, Sunny!
Tunnel books have been made and sold since the mid-18th century in Europe. The earliest one in CC Special Collections, History of the Thames Tunnel (1861), was sold to tourists in England, as was our next-earliest, The Picture-Post Coronation Peep-Show Book (1953).
Our copy of the Thames Tunnel book is quite worn, suggesting that many people looked through its eye-holes over the years before it came to the library.
Our Coronation book, on the other hand, was purchased in kit form and never put together. Luckily, the Journal of Wild Culture offers a photo essay showing what the book looks like from various angles.
Our other tunnel books are artists’ books made in the last two decades. Edward H. Hutchins’s Arizona Wildlife (1999) is made from picture postcards.
Jill Timm’s Falling Leaves (2006).
Laura Russell’s Nocturne (2004) shows a fanciful version of the neon signs on Colfax Avenue in Denver and is a favorite among CC students.
Kyoko Matsunaga’s Aoyama Airport (2013).
For a good overview of tunnel books, see Jean-Charles Trebbi’s The Art of Pop-Up: The Magical World of Three-Dimensional Books (Promo Press, 2012), available at many libraries.
Architects tell us that Tutt Library’s concrete columns are “good bones,” but we are often irked by how they blockade our interior spaces. This week, someone (student? staff? possibly a group effort?) decided to treat one of the columns to a rather impressive yarn bombing.
Also, hello new subscribers! A recent post brought many new subscribers to the blog. Anyone is welcome to let me know about shenanigans in libraries and bookstores: jessyrandall @ yahoo . com (without the spaces).