The Premiere Issue Of Gourmet Magazine, January 1941. When publisher Conde Nast sliced Gourmet Magazine from its line-up in October 2009, foodies nationwide mourned the passing of a culinary standby. The cooking bible had been published for nearly 70 years, providing inspiration to professional chefs, amateur cooks, and readers who didn't know Escoffier from Le Creuset, but took a pornographic delight in superbly styled, sensual shots of sinfully rich repasts. But at least one librarian saw the magazine's starvation as a chance to pluck a prize plum.A Selection Of Sinful Sweets Gourmet Style.Marvin J. Taylor, director of New York University's...
Archive Exhibit Exposes Espionage
Original European Union Poster For: Prague Through The Lens Of the Secret Police.Imagine that every move in your ordinary, everyday life, was secretly photographed. Your seemingly innocuous activities, strolling through a park, munching on an apple, waiting for the subway, were considered so dangerous they were captured forever by the secret police. Sounds far fetched, doesn't it? But a traveling exhibit from the newly created Security Services Archive in the Czech Republic capital of Prague reveals that from 1968 to 1989 this was exactly what citizens in that city endured.The exhibit, Prague Through The Lens Of The Secret Police, is...
Jazz Star Hines Shines At Berkeley Library
1929 Poster By Dennis LorenEarl "Fatha" Hines, a giant of American popular music, and a man instrumental in the careers of Louis Armstrong, Art Tatum, Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughn, Nat King Cole, and more, will continue to promote the art of jazz for generations to come thanks to a magnificent endowment to the University of California-Berkeley. The bulk of Mr. Hines' estate, including personal papers, musical compositions and charts, memorabilia, and a bequest of nearly $300,000, has been given to the Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library as the cornerstone of a new Archive of African American Music.A brilliant keyboard virtuoso,...
Negative Art: Not At This Library
Artist Douglas Gordon.(Image courtesy of The London Times.)What is art? When confronted by that tricky question often the best answer the average person can come up with echoes Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's famous statement about pornography: "I don't know what it is, but I know it when I see it." Library administrators at The University of Edinburgh in Scotland see it this way: if it isn't uplifting, positive, and celebratory, it isn't art.To add a final flourish to the December 2009 unveiling of the remodeled ground floor of its main library, the University commissioned a work of art. The...
What’s In A Name? Library Database Reveals Hidden Histories.
An Advertisement For A 1769 Slave Auction.Imagine you're an amateur genealogist. You want to learn more about the history of your family. Where do you start? By tracing legal records bearing your family name, of course. But what if in the legal census, the age, race, and gender of your ancestors was recorded but never their names. What if your family members were considered not people but property?This is the dilemma facing not only genealogists but historians when they wish to find out more about the estimated 12 million men, women, and children who came to the United States not...