This poster won the 2006 Margo (Maroon and Gold) Award from the University of Minnesota's Communicators Forum.Christopher James was the project lead/copywriter and Mark Fox was the graphic designer.Happy Halloween!
The Black Hole at the Library of Congress
Jefferson Building Stacks, Deck 15A recent survey at the LOC found that over 10% of the collection has been misplaced and was unable to be retrieved when requested. Where these items are nobody knows.A little over 10% might not seem like a substantial attrition rate but when you consider that the Library of Congress holds more than 130 million items then things get a little scary.That's over 13 million items! For a little perspective the entire Seattle Public Library collection (including books, audio books, CDs, DVDs, books in large type, and magazines and newspapers) is 2 million items.Part of the...
A Step Closer to a World Digital Library
"Libraries are inherently islands of freedom and antidotes to fanaticism" - James H. Billington, Librarian of CongressThe prototype for the World Digital Library was unveiled yesterday to a group of reporters in Paris.The Library, expected to launch in 2008, is an online initiative created by the U.S. Library of Congress, the U.N. cultural body UNESCO and 5 international partner libraries; Egypt's Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the National Library of Egypt, the National Library of Brazil, the National Library of Russia and the Russian State Library"The international digital library will be free and multilingual, with contributions from around the world, including rare books,...
Dalai Lama Day
The Tibetan Sutra of the Perfection of Wisdom in 100,000 Verses(Tibetan Collection, Asian Division)The Dalai Lama received the The Congressional Gold Medal today. The award is our nation’s highest civilian honor and was given to the Dalai Lama in recognition of his advocacy for religious harmony, nonviolence and human rights throughout the world.The Dalai Lama also met with President Bush though you won't see any pictures of this event because the Chinese are pissed off and the Bush administration agreed not to release any pictures of the meeting. The Bush Administration also chose not to release a formal statement on...
Haunted Libraries
We're still a long way from Halloween but Halloween season is certainly in full swing.George Eberhart at the Britannica blog has his second installment (covering Florida-Maryland) of his "fairly comprehensive list of allegedly haunted libraries, or at least ones where patrons, staff, or local folklorists have associated with paranormal happenings."Some highlights:At the Cairo Public Library in Illinois there is the ghost named Toby who "reportedly hangs out in the special collections room on the second floor of this 1884 building."In the old Cedar Rapids Public Library (which now the Cedar Rapids Art Museum) in Iowa "an apparent case of “crisis...