Meet Deborah Alma the Emergency Poet and mastermind of "the world’s first and only mobile poetic first aid service." Dressed in white coat and stethoscope, Emergency Poet travels the UK in her 1970’s ambulance, accompanied by Nurse Verse or The Poemedic. Her domain - literary and music festivals, libraries, schools, pubs, weddings and conferences… "anywhere where poetic help may be urgently required…" Emergency Poet offers consultations inside her ambulance and prescribes poems as cures. In the waiting room under an attached awning Nurse Verse dispenses poemcetamols and other poetic pills and treatments from the Cold Comfort Pharmacy. Perhaps the folks at Wave...
Unbinding the Book: A New Era of Book Creation
Kate Morrell Unbinding the Book is a collaboration between the independent publishing platform Blurb and the visual arts studio Jotta. The challenge: push the boundaries of how books can be experienced, by evoking the storytelling properties of print and the way in which images evoke a narrative, whilst bringing to life the materiality, form and physicality that make books so alluring and different from their digital counterparts. [vimeo width="640" height="300"]http://vimeo.com/106487007[/vimeo] Nine artists and designers were commissioned to get to work creating a "book". Here is a sampling of some of the great stuff that has materialized so far: -Exploring the temporality and tactility...
Which Banned Book Are You?
In June 2014, the Columbus State Library was one of seven organizations awarded a national grant sponsored by the Freedom to Read Foundation and the Judith F. Krug Memorial fund to help celebrate Banned Books Week. Among the many cool things they have created and developed for the week is this nifty quiz. Now let's play! [playbuzz-item url="http://www.playbuzz.com/columbusstatelibrary10/which-banned-book-are-you"]
Keeping track for the National Archives and Records Adminsitration
What a better way to celebrate the announcement that almost 150,000 items from our Government Printing Office (GPO) are now "discoverable" at the Digital Public Library of America then by jumping in to find some treasures. Here's a selection of posters from the late 1980's - early1990's issued by the National Archives and Records Administration to get you creating, organizing and preserving. Enjoy!
The Novel That Writes Itself is finished
Allen Ruppersberg began The Novel That Writes Itself in 1978. The plan was to create a "fictionalized autobiography where he would talk of his adventures as a young artist." The main characters were slated to be the artist’s friends including Ed Ruscha, his gallery owner, Rosamund Felsen, and the collectors Elyse and Stanley Grinstein. Amazingly, Ruppersberg exhibited a Kickstarter mentality 35+ years before crowdsourcing became the rage by offering the Grinstein's places in the story for 300 dollars. He also offered the opportunity to become a supporting character for 100 dollars or to be an extra in the book for 50 dollars. A decade later,...