George R.R. Martin, whose “A Song of Ice and Fire” book series is the basis for the hit HBO show Game of Thrones, has donated a rare first edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1937) to Texas A & M University. Martin, whose archive is housed at Texas A&M, became enamored with the University and especially with the Cushing Memorial Library and Archives’ Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Collection during the 1970s while visiting for the AggieCon science fiction conventions. The cause for celebration? It is the five millionth volume acquired by the university! It will take it's place alongside a first edition...
VHS Tapes = Cultural Artifacts: Yale acquires collection of 2700 VHS tapes
From the late 1970s through much of the 1980s VHS, which stands for Video Home System, tapes were all the rage. They were the dominant form of home video entertainment and in many ways revolutionized the movie industry. It created the ability to watch movies in the home while also creating the opportunity to produce low budget films for the format. The technology is now beyond obsolete but that doesn't mean there still isn't value to be had. Yale University, the first institution to actively collect in this area, recently announced the acquisition of a collection of 2,700 VHS tapes. Mind you, this is not a collection...
What Darwin Saw: Sketchbooks from the voyage of the HMS Beagle added to Cambridge Digital Library
Charles Darwin considered it to be one of the most formative journeys of his life. His diary and scientific journal of his time aboard the HMS Beagle, now best known as The Voyage of the Beagle, was a bestseller. It was also on this voyage that the first seeds of his masterwork, Origin of Species, were planted. Now thanks to Cambridge University the entire sketchbooks of Conrad Martens, a shipmate of Darwin's on the HMS Beagle, are available online. Martens made the drawings between the summer of 1833 and the early months of 1835. They "vividly bring to life one of the most famous...
Happy New Calendar! A Sampling of Calendars at the DPLA
Now that we have our new calendar in place to help track the year ahead let's have a look back at some of the thousands of calendars available for your perusal at the Digital Public Library of America, DPLA. Derived from the Latin word kalendae, which was the name of the first day of every month, there are as many varieties of calendars as there are days of the month. From a 12th century Book of Hours to a 16th century perpetual calendar to a Native American calendar on buckskin to a handwritten calendar by Lee Harvey Oswald there is no shortage of creative...
And a happy new year…Holiday Cards by Poets
Postcard by Alice Notley. Photograph: Courtesy of Raymond Danowski Poetry Library, MARBL, Emory University As the 2104 holiday season wraps up let's finish the year with a look at how some of our most beloved poets shared the holiday love. Winter Wedding: Holiday Cards by Poets currently on view at Poet's House features over 40 works by poets who included creative correspondence as a component of their offerings. "Holiday cards, valentines, birthday greetings, rare booklets, and more from some of the last century’s most beloved poets, including Langston Hughes, Alice Notley, Ted Berrigan, Seamus Heaney, and Sylvia Plath. Ranging...