The BooksellerBookseller, Bookseller, why do you weep?Because I must sell my books far too cheap.Bookseller, Bookseller, why do you grin?Because an old lady is just coming in.Bookseller, Bookseller, why all this joy?Because she requires a nice book for a boy.Bookseller, Bookseller, why do you cough?Ahem! Well, the discount forgot to come off.Bookseller, Bookseller, why are you gay?Beause it's my best of business to-day.Bookseller, Bookseller, why are you mad?Because the half-sovereign I changed her is bad.from Jack of All Trades a children's book first published in London in 1900. Text by JJ Bell. Illustrations by C Robinson.Courtesy of BibliOdyssey who features...
Big Box Heaven: An abandoned Wal-Mart becomes a Library
What's a town to do when Wal-Mart just picks up an leaves?How about turning the space into a library!This is exactly what the town of McAllen, Texas did, transforming 124,500 square feet (think 2 1/2 football fields) into the largest single-story library in the US.With the help of Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle, Ltd. the space was brought back to life. Gone are the guns and bargains; they have been replaced with books and computers.The International Interior Design Association just selected the Library as the winner of their 2012 Library Interior Design Competition.In the first month since the library opened new...
A bookmark on the loose
Much Better Now from Salon Alpin Check out the wild adventures of this bookmark in the award-winning short video, Much Better Now by Salon Alpine.
Read it or lose it! A Disappearing Anthology
“Books are very patient objects. We buy them, and then they wait for us to read them. Days, months, even years. That’s OK for books, but not for new authors. If people don’t read their first books. They’ll never make it to a second.”Here's the problem:Physical books are not the only ones that are in danger these days. New Latin American authors are threatened as well. In the last 20 years the book sales from new Latin-American writers have decreased by a total of 37%. These new authors, unlike the established and famous ones, suffer every second that their books...
Cooking up the future in the ‘Library Test Kitchen’
The Neo-Carrel“What if you thought seriously about the library as a laboratory, as a place where people do things, where they make things?”says Jeffrey Schnapp. The class is called "The Library Test Kitchen." It is taught by Schnapp and offered through the Graduate School of Design (GSD) at Harvard University. During the class "ideas flew like cream pies at a food fight" and before the semester was out some of the ideas were developed into student projects. Pictured above is the Neo-Carrel, a "study chair with a raised platform in front that doubles as a laptop stand and a comfortable...