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, Ovid, Seneca, Horace and Julius Caesar. It was the perfect gift for a reader on the go and must of been a hit for within...
For Your Listening Pleasure: New Technology Rescues Poets from Old Vinyl
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 recordings are simply to beat-up to listen to. That is, until now. The folks at WBUR, Boston's NPR station, take us behind the scenes and...
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...
A visual tour of Halloween in America during the first half of the 20th century
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 offered an opportunity to shed the daily trials and tribulations and have some fun. Enjoy! A little boy examines a Halloween display of two jack o'lanterns and...
Seattle Public Library launches the Pike Place Market Digital Collection
"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...