International flavor comes to America: Early Ethnic cookbooks February 9, 2020 – Posted in: Bookselling / Collecting, Content, Exhibits, Special Collections

Chinese-Japanese Cook Book by Sara Bosse and Onoto Watanna [pseud.], Chicago, Rand McNally [c1914]. First Edition The folks at Rare Books Digest have put together an informative list of first appearances of various ethnic cookbooks in America. From the 1828 first American publication of a French cookbook to the first Greek cookbook that, amazingly enough, wasn’t published in this country until 1942! Here’s a sampling. El cocinero español by Encarnación Pinedo. San Francisco, 1898. This…

Continue reading...

Significant LBGT collection goes to the University of London February 7, 2020 – Posted in: Banned / Censored / Destroyed, bookshops, Content

Jonathan Cutbill, the co-founder of Gay’s The Word bookshop in London’s Bloomsbury neighborhood who died last year, has left his collection of 30,000 LBGT+ items to the University of London. The collection, which has items dating back to 1760, will arrive having already been completely cataloged and cross referenced by Cutbill. Cutbill has been at the forefront of the LGBT struggle for justice for years. In 1984 his shop was raided by customs officers and…

Continue reading...

The Cost of Reading in Prison: In West Virginia it’s 5 cents a minute February 5, 2020 – Posted in: Banned / Censored / Destroyed, Books and Technology, Content, Reading / Literacy

It is hard to fathom how they got here but the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation is charging inmates to read! As part of their contract with a private company inmates are provided “free” tablets in which they can access Project Gutenberg, an emporium of free, public domain texts. Sounds great right? Well, seems like free ain’t free. From the Appalachian Prison Book Project: The per-minute charge will bring in far more profit…

Continue reading...

An app for Chaucer with an assist from Monty Python’s Terry Jones February 4, 2020 – Posted in: Books and Technology, Content, Libraries

An international team led by the University of Saskatchewan’s Peter Robinson has created the first web and mobile phone app of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. It features an audio performance of the General Prologue along with the digitized version of the original manuscript. While listening to the reading you can access supporting content such as a translation in modern English, commentary, notes and vocabulary explaining Middle English words used by Chaucer. “We have become convinced,…

In the Stacks: Fire at the Library February 3, 2020 – Posted in: Content, In the Stacks, Libraries, public libraries

Street lined with fire engines during Los Angeles Central Library fire It was the largest library fire in the history of the United States. 400,000 books were destroyed and over 700,000 were damaged by water or smoke. It took firefighters over seven hours to put out the fire with little flare ups continuing for several days. The epic blaze was the basis of Susan Orlean’s 2018 bestselling and New York Times Notable Book of the…

« First
Previous
1
2
3
4
5
...
79
Next
Last »