Boston Copley Public Library. Boston, MA.Travel writers and adventurers Michelle Enemark and Dylan Thuras have assembled a gorgeous gallery of photographs depicting the world's most magnificent libraries on their website, Curious Expeditions. The pictures are from a wide variety of sources, including reader contributions, and selections show that glorious groves of books are in full bloom worldwide. The gallery, Librophiliac Love Letter, proclaims: "Row after row, shelf after shelf, there is nothing more magical than a beautiful old library."Book Patrol has added a few quotations to enhance your viewing pleasure. Some lyrics to accompany what Goethe called the "frozen music"...
Dutch Treat: Library’s Documents Reveal City’s Scandalous Secrets
Pieter Schenk. View of New Amsterdam, ca. 1702.(New York Public Library Digital Archive.)History records it was a city founded by sober, God fearing church-goers seeking religious freedom. A colony ruled by conservatives who thought gambling, the theater, sex outside of marriage, colorful clothing, and even celebrating Christmas were immoral. But what if it was all a whitewash? An attempt to hide the secret history of the earliest settlers: pirates, prostitutes, smugglers, adventurers, and fortune seekers. Free thinkers for whom even the most liberal city in Europe wasn't liberal enough? That's the truth being revealed about the city of Manhattan by...
Archive’s Inflammatory Christmas Tree Ignites Controversy
One Of The Tate's Typically Atypical Christmas Trees"Shelving Unit Tree" Created By Richard Wilson, 1998. (All Photos Courtesy Of The Tate Library And Archive.)Every year since 1988 the Tate Archive and Library in London has commissioned an important contemporary artist to decorate a Christmas Tree for display in its grand rotunda. The avant-garde artists' outlandish takes on the traditional symbol of yuletide gaiety have frequently caused consternation, but this year's tree has sparked a scandal like never before."Blue Neon Light Tree," Created By Catherine Yass, 2000.Before revealing the source of this year's unprecedented uproar, a brief peek at the precedent...
St. Nick’s Newsboys Shine In Library’s Photos
One Of Detroit's Finest Plays St. Nick For Motown's Newsboys, 1931.(All Photos Courtesy of Walter P. Reuther Library's Virtual Motor City Collection, Wayne State University.)Wayne State University's Walter P. Reuther Library has got the scoop on a holiday story straight out of "The Dead End Kids." Motor City angels with dirty faces--former newsboys-- make good but can't forget the old neighborhood. Every Christmas they go back to the same mean street corners where they once shouted "Extra! Extra!" and raise enough cash to stuff the empty stockings of every Detroit kiddie full of gifts. Sounds like something straight of a...
Library’s 50’s Photos Flourish At The Frick
Danny Gaido Cries In His Crib( All Photos: Esther Bubley, 1951)The Pittsburgh Photographic Library was founded to 1950 with a single mission: to document urban renewal in the Steel City. But its founding director, Roy Stryker, a Columbia University economist with a background in public relations, was also a photographer with an eye for undiscovered talent. This led to the hiring of photojournalists who could produce something more than business booster shots. A current exhibit at The Frick Art & Historical Center shows just how much more a great photographer can bring to the most ordinary assignment.Parents Visit Child In...