The first page of the Polish Yidel, July 1884Calling all Yiddish speaking people...Two archives, one at Cornell University, the other at University of Warwick in the UK, have teamed up to digitize more than 1,500 pages from journals and newspapers originally written for working-class Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.Much of the original material has never been translated into English and with the number of Yiddish speakers in the world in significant decline the project was opened up to the public: relying on individuals’ to help translate the publications, which include The Polish “Yidel” and “Hashulamith” newspapers and “The Ladies’ Garment Worker,”...
Simpler Times
Perfect.Simpler Times by Jacob Andrews
The Future is Here: A Book-Scanning Robot
Featuring the latest in robotics and 3D technology the BFS-Auto is a lightning fast, hi-definition scanner that just might change the playing field. Developed at the noted Ishikawa Oku Laboratory at the University of Tokyo the BFS-Auto digitally scans books at an amazing rate of 250 pages a minute without modifying the book by cutting !Let's repeat: it scans 250 pages a minute in hi-definition without damaging the book. No more hands in the picture, no more fuzzy pages and no more destruction. In fact the scanner has the ability to "restore a captured image which is distorted because of page curling to a...
God’s Word Saves WWI Soldier
North-east France, 1917. German infantryman Kurt Geiler was sleeping as he usually did with his bible underneath his head when the bomb hit.Though a 4cm piece of shrapnel beat up the bible Geiler was unharmed and was one of the few who survived.The bible has become a ‘family anti-war memorial’ and is still in the possession of Geiler family more at Retronaut: Life-saving Bible from WWI h/t Reading Copy
The Return of Mother Nature: The Miniature World of Lori Nix
Circulation Desk, 2012Lori Nix things big and works small. Her project "The City", which began in 2005, seeks to recreate in miniature everyday urban spaces in a post apocalyptic world. The people are gone and what remains are these deteriorating spaces and their ever-changing relationship with the natural world. Nix says:I have imagined a city of our future, where something either natural or as the result of mankind, has emptied the city of it's human inhabitants. Art museums, Broadway theaters, laundromats and bars no longer function. The walls are deteriorating, the ceilings are falling in, the structures barely stand, yet Mother Nature is slowly...