The World’s First Mobile Library; A ‘Jacobean Kindle’ December 11, 2014 – Posted in: book arts, bookbinding, Content, mobile libraries, product design, Special Collections

The year was 1617. William Hakewill MP commissioned it to give as a gift to a friend. And it just might be the first mobile library. The Jacobean miniature travelling library consisted of 50 gold-tooled vellum-bound miniature books contained in a wooden case that resembled a large folio. Inside there were three shelves for the books. The inside cover was an illuminated table of contents. The subject matter covered history, poetry, theology and philosophy and included works by Cicero, Virgil,…

For Your Listening Pleasure: New Technology Rescues Poets from Old Vinyl December 8, 2014 – Posted in: Books and Technology, Content, Special Collections

The Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard University just might be the closest thing we have to a poetry heaven on earth. Yes, there is the extensive collection of 20th and 21st century English-language poetry books and “an encyclopedic array of poetry journals and literary magazines” but the crown jewel of the collection is their collection of sound recordings, “one of the largest poetry-specific sound archives in the world”. And, as you can imagine, many of the older vinyl…

German university unveils what may be the world’s oldest Qur’an November 23, 2014 – Posted in: Books and Technology, Content, Libraries, Special Collections

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…

A visual tour of Halloween in America during the first half of the 20th century October 28, 2014 – Posted in: Content, In the Stacks, Photography, Special Collections

Children dressed up in costumes for Halloween. from the Daily Reflector (Greenville, N.C.), 1950’s What better way to wrap up American Archives month then with a Halloween stroll through the Digital Public Library of America. From turn of the century Hallow’een postcards through photos from the 1950’s we get a taste of Halloween in America during the first half of the 20th century. From the small town to the segregated South to the Japanese American internment camps of WWII Halloween…

Seattle Public Library launches the Pike Place Market Digital Collection October 21, 2014 – Posted in: In the Stacks, Libraries, public libraries, Special Collections

“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…