click to enlargeMozy is company that provides online backup and storage solutions. In a recent blog post, Physical Storage vs. Digital Storage, they provided an astounding visual depiction of the advance of technology as it relates to the storage of information.Above is section from the graphic relating to books. Using the Library of Congress as a jumping off point, Moxy claims that they can now store the equivalent of 1000 LOC's without breaking a sweat.That is 32 billion books and 650,000 miles of bookshelves. Enough bookshelves to go from Jerusalem to Beijing 147 times! Now, that's a Great Wall.Essentially, the...
The Skating Librarian
Meet MegaBeth a 53-year-old librarian by day and roller derby player by night.Here is Beth Hollis in action in the CNN piece 'Tiny librarian on wheels'Embedded video from CNN VideoPreviously on Book Patrol:Roller Derby Hits the Books
Book Store Provides Speed-Shrink Psychotherapy
Wednesday nights in lower Manhattan’s SoHo district have gotten a little saner. The Housing Works Bookshop Café, which donates 100% of its profits to Housing Works, Inc., a social enterprise, is offering psychotherapy to its customers and neighborhood denizens in three-minute doses for those whose therapists are on vacation or who require a quick jolt of personal problem advice.You’d think that three minutes wouldn’t allow enough time for introductions much less delving into the dark recesses. But Jonathan Fast, one of the eight psychiatrists and psychologists who staff these Wednesday nights and who is also a professor at Yeshiva University,...
Why Libraries Rock (Hint: They Don’t)
*This entry is part of a "Blogathon" to benefit the flood damaged Louisville, KY Free Public Library. See the link below to donate to this effort.The main title of this piece was chosen by the organizer of the blogathon. The subtitle is mine--all mine. You'll forgive me if I don't wax poetic on the mandated title and theme. The idea that libraries "rock" or are "awesome" or even (another variant suggested by said organizer) "kick a**" reminds me of the lame, costly, and inevitably unsuccessful marketing campaigns that public library P.R. departments love to launch in a vain attempt to...
The Art of Vintage Booksellers’ Labels
Those stamp-sized bookseller labels often found on the rear paste down end paper of old and rare books are often as artistically interesting as the books' dust jackets; high karat precious gems of graphic design in small settings.Howard Prouty, of ReadInk Books, has been collecting vintage booksellers' labels for many years and has put together quite a lovely assemblage on the ReadInk Books website, where he writes:"I think the pleasure I take from these little things has something to do with a certain dimensionality they add to the mostly-unknown story of a particular book's previous life. To buy a book...