Because I love both the writing of Henry David Thoreau and the art of N.C. Wyeth, I was delighted to find an old copy of Thoreau’s Men of Concord (1936), with pictures by Wyeth, a book filled with fascinating people, giving me glimpses into the lives of men and women I was never otherwise going [...]
Archive for the ‘Libraries’ Category
Thoreau and Ranganathan
Posted in Libraries, Literature on August 15, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Books to You
Posted in Libraries, Literature, Photography on August 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Is this not the most wondrous of bookmobiles? From the website of the Tompkins County Public Library, long may they serve and prosper.
As the Mood
Posted in Libraries, Literature on December 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“There were books enough; very few French books; but then any one who’s worth anything reads just what he likes, as the mood takes him, with extravagant enthusiasm.”
– Virginia Woolf in Jacob’s Room (1923)
Wild Books
Posted in Libraries, Literature on November 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“Books are everywhere; and always the same sense of adventure fills us. Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack. Besides, in this random miscellaneous company we may rub against some complete stranger who [...]
Gold
Posted in Libraries, Literature on November 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“You find the books you touch precious, without stopping to think it is you who have turned them into gold by touching them.”
– Marcel Proust, in a comment to a friend
May I See Your Library Card?
Posted in Libraries, Literature, Photography on October 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
In May of 1933, the Nazi party in Germany decreed that all literature must fall into line with Nazi principles, and that existing books that were not appropriate would be purged from the libraries and the culture of the nation. Book burnings took place all over Germany; books by Jewish authors, of course, were destroyed, [...]
The National Library, Sarajevo
Posted in Libraries on October 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
From April 5, 1992 to February 29, 1996, the people of Sarajevo were under artillery fire by Serb forces in the mountains that circled the city. From 200 gun emplacements, they shelled the city; within the city, Serb snipers shot at civilians. Of the 12,000 who died during this time, 80% were unarmed men, women [...]
Philosophy of Reference Service
Posted in Libraries, Literature on October 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“Reference service is the dynamic act of animating and dowering with the life energy of the reference librarian the knowledge and information lying curled in cold point in documents for the use of readers. The reference librarian brings about the mating of the fermenting mind of a reader with the thought frozen in documents. This [...]
An Oath of Librarianship
Posted in Libraries, Literature on October 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“I pledge myself never to let little rules obscure large service. I pledge myself always to abhor the one great sin, that of hiding the light and closing the mind. I promise to remember the punishment of Pharaoh at the Red Sea and of all others who have stopped their ears and shut their eyes [...]
Books
Posted in Commentary, Libraries, Literature on April 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
“Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change, windows on the world and lighthouses erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of treasures of the mind. Books are [...]
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