"We believe handmade, homegrown and face-to-face are still the best ways of doing things." It was an August day in 1907 when "crowds of shoppers seeking fresh produce and bargains descended...The first farmer sold out of produce within minutes. Within a week, 70 wagons were gathering daily to sell along the newly named Pike Place, a wooden roadway that connected First St. to Western Ave." The Pike Place Market rests just under the Space Needle when it comes to Seattle's prominent landmarks. It is both a tourist mecca and community hub. In all, the Pike Place Market Historic District comprises 9 acres. It is...
In the Stacks of the Folger Shakespeare Library
Frontispiece. The works of Mr. William Shakespear in six volumes, 1709 Back in August the Folger Shakespeare Library unsealed their almost 80,000 digital image archive! An absolute treasure-trove of material related to Shakespeare, the collection contains books, theater memorabilia, manuscripts, art, and more for your online perusal. Through the Digital Image Collection, you can: Compare 19th-century productions of Shakespeare with today's through historic photographs and promptbooks Look at letters written by Queen Elizabeth I Examine rare paintings in "up close and personal" detail Read diary entries from over 200 years ago and much more I trust this won't be the last time...
Mining newspapers for poetry
What to do you get when you partner up a digital humanities projects librarian with an associate professor of computer science and engineering? Answer: Something good. At the University of Nebraska Elizabeth Lorang, research assistant professor and digital humanities projects librarian in the University Libraries has teamed with Leen-Kiat Soh, associate professor of the computer science and engineering, and a couple of students students to develop software to recognize poetry from digitized newspapers. “Millions of poems were published in newspapers. Looking at them will shift the way we understand poetry in the United States.” says Lorang. Similar to text-mining applications, where specific words and...
The challenge is on: How might we leverage libraries as a platform to build more knowledgeable communities?
The Good Food and Bookmobile This project will take a traditional bookmobile and add kitchen components to bring core community services to people in rural areas, building community, increasing community capacity, and ensuring access for all. The mission of the Knight Foundation is simple: To support "transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. We believe that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged." One way they do this is to pose a challenge to the community at large, sift through the responses and then fund the winners. The latest challenge is: How might...
Transforming Moscow’s Libraries; All 448 of them!
Dostoyevsky Library Interior Before and After Renovation. Image © Frans Parthesius A beautiful thing is happening to the public libraries of Moscow. Armed with extensive research on the benefits of a vibrant public library system a group comprised of the architectural firm SVESMI, lead by Sverdlov, urban designer Paola Viganò, and the Muscovite bookseller Boris Kupriyanov got the ear of Moscow’s Culture Minister. In a nutshell: the number of libraries per capita in Moscow rivals other European cultural capitals yet, prior to the inception of this project, were unpopular and disproportionately underpopulated public places. The vast majority of them remain dense with unfulfilled potential...