Vintage library supplies
From Smithsonian magazine: “Vintage Supplies that Kept Libraries Running.”
Library humor
Today’s Dustin: I wonder how many other readers will seek out a list of Dewey Decimal classes to get the joke.
A National Emergency Library
The Internet Archive has suspended waitlists for all books in its collection to create a National Emergency Library.
Sluggo in the library
He feels he’s not smart enough.
“Books saved my life”
One of the better moments from The Public (dir. Emilio Estevez, 2018).
NYPL top ten
King of the hill, top of the heap: Ezra Jack Keats’s The Snowy Day (1962).
A catalog saved
The Washington Post reports on an all-volunteer effort to save the contents of the card catalog at the University of Virginia’s Alderman Library.
Library fight
The Washington Post reports on the battle over “Little Free Library” — the battle, that is, over the name, a legal trademark.
Borrowing privileges
College libraries, then and now.
Patience, Fortitude, and feet
Patience and Fortitude are back. And the happy foot/sad foot sign has a home.
Orange train cart
In the New York Public Library.
University libraries and their books
“University libraries around the world are seeing precipitous declines in the use of the books on their shelves”: Dan Cohen, Vice Provost for Information Collaboration at Northeastern University, writing in The Atlantic.
Weeding
An exceptionally good episode of the podcast 99% Invisible: “Weeding Is Fundamental,” on library deaccessioning gone wrong.
Library history
Ariel Aberg-Riger offers a short illustrated history of the American public library.
Librarians at work
Solving problems and answering questions.
“One of the last places”
“It's one of the last places you can go that you don't have to buy or believe in anything to come in. You can just come, and we'll help you, no matter what your question is”: from a This American Life episode about libraries.
Found: a Roman library
In Cologne, Germany.
Beautiful libraries
From the BBC, some of the world’s most beautiful libraries.
“What would I have done without the library?”
Sixth-grade, and Beverly Cleary (then Bunn) has moved from fairy tales to the Myths and Legends shelves of the Rose City Branch Library.
“Deaccessioning”
“Worse than a travesty, it’s a tragedy”: Bryan Garner writes about the trend of “deaccessioning” books from university libraries.
“Varied and impenetrable”
A passage from W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz.
Library slip (1934–1992)
A long time.
The Card Catalog
An illustrated history of the card catalog, from cuneiform days onward.
Thanks to the library
Dating a piano and looking up “dord.”
Pogie the porcupine
From the Animal Lending Library.
Animal Lending Library
The Animal Lending Library was a service of the California Junior Museum, which allowed children seven and older to borrow hamsters, porcupines, rabbits, rats, skunks, and squirrels.
Library savings
“You just saved $47.00 by using your library. You have saved $47.00 since April 14, 2017.”
“Library hand”
Penmanship for librarians writing out catalogue cards.
Preventing discards
A tale of librarians seeking to prevent discards.
Long overdue
A copy of Gone with the Wind has been returned to the library, fifty-seven years late.