Thanksgiving Day Raphael Tuck & Sons, 1907 Did you know that over 2400 items related to Thanksgiving reside at the DPLA? From Thanksgiving menu's from hotels and restaurants across this great land to Thanksgiving postcards to images of the fortunate and less fortunate taking part in Thanksgiving day festivities. Here's just a taste of Thanksgiving at the Digital Public Library of America. Enjoy and and have a Happy Thanksgiving! Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, 1932 Photograph by Alexander Alland Japanese Internment Camp - Gila River Relocation Center, Rivers, Arizona. One of the floats in the Thanksgiving day Harvest Festival, 11/26/1942 Annual Presentation...
The Ferguson Public Library as an epicenter of healing
Ferguson is a mess. The schools are closed, part of the town is smoldering, people are angry and justice got away. But the Ferguson Public Library remains open! Since that fateful August day when a trigger-happy police officer forever altered the fate of the town the Ferguson Public Library has been open and has played a significant role in helping the community get back on its feet. From an ABC News story that aired on August 20, 2014 Ferguson Library Becomes Refuge for Adults and Children Amid Strife: Amid all of the strife engulfing Ferguson, Missouri, this month, there is one spot in...
Beauty and the Botanicals
The LuEsther T. Mertz Library of The New York Botanical Garden houses one of the greatest collections of botanical and horticultural works on the planet. Eight centuries of rare books, stunning botanical artworks, illustrated manuscripts, medieval herbals, exquisite garden prints and flower books, nursery catalogs, explorers’ notebooks, and more are contained within. First printed illustration of Anthrium gladifolium. Colored lithograph based on W. Liepoldt, 1879 American Bog Plants. Aquatint with additional hand coloring by Thomas Sutherland from Robert Thornton's Temple of Flora, 1807 To commemorate the treasures contained in the library an exhibition Flora Illustrata is underway featuring more than 50 books and objects...
German university unveils what may be the world’s oldest Qur’an
With about 95% certainty the team at the Coranica Project, part of the University of Tübingen, have placed a manuscript of the Qu'ran to between 649-675 AD. Using carbon-14 dating on select samples of the manuscript parchment researchers conclude that the manuscript, which is written in Kufic script, one of the oldest forms of Arabic writing, originated between 20-40 years after the death of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad making it one of the earliest known copies. The Coranica project, is a collaboration between the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres Paris and the Berlin-Brandenburgischen Academy of the Sciences and Humanities. It is sponsored by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and...
Change has come to the library: Four architects imagine the Obama presidential library
Sketch by Richard Dattner of a potential Obama Presidential Library. As President Barack Obama's tenure winds down and we mourn the lack of promised change that was to come to America perhaps it is time to look ahead to the future presidential library to be built in his honor. Enter the folks at Guardian US Opinion. They asked four award-winning, firm-founding architects "to sketch and describe their unofficial visions for a possible Obama Presidential Library. Their ideas expand our perceptions of what a library can be – indeed, what a building can be. Maybe even what the Obama presidency could’ve...