Inspiration Point"Nothing quite prepares you for the culture shock of Jay Walker's library" is how Steven Levy begins his piece for Wired on this amazing library. Though Walker has opened his library in the past to select schools, executives, politicians, and scholars this is the first time he has invited a member of the press to have a look.Walker, the founder of Priceline.com and Walker Digital, is an inventor and entrepreneur who has been twice been named by the editors of TIME magazine as one of the 50 most influential business leaders in the digital age. Business Week selected him...
Emory University Unleashes The Danowski Poetry Collection
Emory University kicked off National Poetry Month with a bang. They had three Pulitzer Prize winning poets (Mark Strand, W.D. Snodgrass and Richard Wilbur) headlining a conference titled “A Fine Excess: A Three-Day Celebration of Poetry.” It was during this event that Emory took the wraps off what some say is the most important collection of English-language poetry in the world. It was the first public display of the fruits of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library which they acquired in 2004. The 75,000 rare books, posters, periodicals and recordings that make up the collection is "a nearly complete record of...
Fore! Amazing Golf Collection Lands at the University of British Columbia
Meat-packing magnet Sam Martz has given his 4,700+ collection of golf books to UBC.It is the greatest collection ever assembled on the sport that will be kept intact and available for public perusal. Martz believes he has put together the third-largest collection of golf books in North America, behind the collection of the United States Golf Association and one that is in private hands.The University of Chicago houses the collection of Arthur W. Schultz which is made up of 1,600 books but according to Ralph Stanton, head of rare books and special collections for UBC, "doesn't come close to the...
Thomas Jefferson’s Books Arrive at LibraryThing
The library of Thomas Jefferson, which is the library that made up the backbone of the early Library Congress, has arrived at LibraryThing.Using E. Milicent Sowerby's five-volume bibliography as their guide a group of sixteen catalogers took four months to enter nearly 4,900 titles and 187 of Jefferson's reviews.Now all the bells and whistles of LibraryThing are available for one of the greatest libraries ever assembled in this country; all those clouds and stats are now in play.Tim Spalding the founder and guiding light of LibraryThing frames the significance of this best when he says "On LibraryThing it's not just...
The $750 Library Card
It looks like that's about how much it will cost to be a member of the London Library.The library, founded in 1841,was the brainchild of Thomas Carlyle who wanted (and needed) an alternative to the Reading Room at the British Museum. "The true university of these days is a collection of books,' said Carlyle.He asked his friends to help and they did:John Stuart Mill chose the books on political economy,William Gladstone picked the ecclesiastical history.Thackeray kept the books.George Eliot became a member, andDickens hung out at the library while researching A Tale of Two Cities.It is now the largest private...