Since 2001 The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has picked one city each year as the World Book Capital City.UNESCO works with three major branches of the global book industry, the International Publishers Association (IPA), the International Booksellers Federation (IBF) and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), to determine the winners.This year the winner is Beirut, Lebanon.UNESCO has already chosen the World Book Capital for 2010. The winner is Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.Here is an excerpt from a letter from Zoran Jankovic, the mayor of Ljubljana, that accompanied the city's winning submission:In pursuing...
Skype Storytime
Photograph by Cheryl Gerber for The New York TimesThis intriguing image accompanied Jennifer Conlin's piece, "Living Apart for the Paycheck," in last Sunday's New York Times. Though the article focuses on how the sour economy is literally splitting families up so they can make ends meet it introduces some potential book-related applications for the Skype technology which allows users transmit their voice and image over the Internet.The image shows Gautam Ghosh, an assistant professor at the University of Pennyslvania, reading to his kids who, along his wife, are living in New Zealand. That's a 9,000 mile gap and a 16...
Nuns Reading
Group of nuns sailing aboard the SS Manhattan in 1940. Photograph by Thomas D. McavoyThe 5th installment in Book Patrol's new series Life of Google, featuring images from the vast archives of Life magazine that now appear on Google.Nun using card catalogue in the New York Public Library, 1944. Photograph by Alfred EisenstaedtNuns waiting in line in polling station in Milan, Italy. 1948. Photograph by Yale JoelA nun reading the diary of Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton. Emmitsburg, MD. 1959. Photograph by Hank WalkerNuns reading about Pope Pius XII's death in Rome. 1958. Photograph by Mark Kauffman
The Guinness Book of World Records for Books and Libraries
Ever wonder which library has the most expensive budget or what the names of the first three books to contain photographs are?or what about:-The name of the first book to have page numbers-The title of the largest and smallest and most expensive books ever published-or the tallest bookstore and library buildings in the worldWell, wonder no more. The second of edition of Library World Records by Godfrey Oswald has just been published by McFarland. This updated and expanded edition contains more than 380 entries providing answers to hundreds of new questions about libraries, periodicals, books, and reference databases.Here's the table...
Book JENGA®
Check out this little video tour of a bookshop in Salem, MA that two young women happened upon.It appears the shop adheres to the JENGA® approach to book display.Thanks to The Bookshop Blog for the lead