” ‘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!
Dick Cheney Vice Presidential Library
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Small plush squids say “RAWR”
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.
Where have the unicorns gone?
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.
museum shenanigans of the 1920s
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.”
libraries rock
Emily Lloyd, librarian and poet (and all around nice person), made this rockin’ gif. It won’t start rockin’ until you click it. Thanks, Emily!
art from library cards
The Library Card Project at the American Craft Council has yielded some lovely things, but I had to take down the image I linked to them because they don’t allow re-posting of images. They do allow me to link, so I’ve linked from their name.
This isn’t the first time artists have used library materials, of course — Giselle Restrepo has worked with library check-out cards (see image at left), and Alice Walsh uses library cards in her book work, to name just a couple of other practitioners. Thanks, Kathleen Kirk!
Ripon College After Dark: Danger in the Library
Scary AND hilarious video and event at Lane Library, Ripon College, Ripon, Wisconsin. I wonder if we should do this at Tutt Library. Thanks, David Graham!
Two new 16th century books
In the spring of 2013, Special Collections purchased two 16th century German books: Johann Schradin’s Expostulation (Augsburg, 1546) and David Chytraeus’s Historia der Augspurgischen Confession (Rostock, 1576).
According to Blackwell Books in London (the dealer who sold us these books), the Expostulation is a poem about Ariovistus, Arminius, Barbarossa, and Georg von Frundsberg visiting the author in a dream. Perhaps of interest to book studies folks, two of its pages didn’t print properly and someone added the missing text in manuscript. This image shows the manuscript text on the verso of leaf 9.
The Chytraeus has a contemporary pigskin binding with working clasps. A history of the Augsburg Confession, the text was translated into many languages and frequently reprinted after it first appeared in 1576. Our copy has marginalia from at least one previous owner and a rebacked spine.
Skokie Public Library superhuman energy attacks
The Skokie Public Library in Skokie, Illinois is currently using this image as its cover photo on Facebook. The image is part of the superhuman energy attacks photo trend. Thanks, Steve Lawson!
card catalog cards for gay marriage!
If you’re on Facebook, you may see a lot of red squares with equal signs on ’em today. As you probably know, they symbolize support of gay marriage. Of course, several variations have appeared, including one with matzah crackers and a Mark Rothko version. Emily Lloyd has created two library card versions. Thanks, Emily Lloyd and Kathleen Kirk!