When it first surfaced in 2005, it was hailed as
'the most important Galileo find in more than a century'. Then, in June 2012,
news broke on the Ex Libris mailing list that the unique 'proof copy' of Galileo's
Sidereus Nuncius containing his original drawings of the Moon was in fact
a highly sophisticated forgery. The full story is still unclear, but the finger of suspicion points at
Marino Massimo de Caro, who in his brief reign as director of the
Girolamini Library in Naples removed
thousands of rare books in what has been described as a
'premeditated, organised and brutal' sacking of the library. Meanwhile, experts are still marvelling at the quality of the forgery:
"We’ve seen missing pages replaced in facsimile, but no one dreamed that an entire book could be forged, something that is now more easily possible because of modern technology."
posted by verstegan
on Apr 4, 2013 -
12 comments
Dale Askey is a
librarian. He
blogs. In August 2010, Dale was a tenured associate professor at Kansas State University, where librarians are granted faculty status. There, Dale
blogged about the quality, and prices, of publications from Edwin Mellen Press. Edwin Mellen Press
has served McMaster University (Dale's current employer) and himself with a three million dollar lawsuit, alleging libel and claiming aggravated and exemplary damages.
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posted by Wordshore
on Feb 9, 2013 -
60 comments
"New Englanders learn quickly to dismiss the chowder where tomato ruins its gorgeous broth, where references to New York tarnish its name...However, few know how such distinctions came about in the first place, what processes were involved that resulted in one person's disgust of another's beloved creation, and why, to this day, do we stand by such convictions?" The
New England Chowder Compendium, from the
McIntosh Cookery Collection at the UMass Amherst library.
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posted by Miko
on Dec 4, 2012 -
92 comments
Ehrich Weisz may not have had much formal education, but he grew up to be Harry Houdini, self-educated stunt performer, escape artist, and owner of "one of the largest libraries in the world on psychic phenomena, Spiritualism, magic, witchcraft, demonology, evil spirits, etc., some of the material going back as far as 1489."
Houdini bequeathed much of his collection to the Library of Congress, which received 3,988 volumes from his collection in 1927, including a number of magic books inscribed or annotated by well-known magicians.
Archive.org has more of the Harry Houdini Collection online. He also put a great deal of research into his tricks, as seen in
his letter to Dr. W. J. McConnell, a physiologist at the U.S. Bureau of Mines, written up after Houdini's
watery grave stunt in 1926.
posted by filthy light thief
on Dec 3, 2012 -
5 comments
The author Samuel Langhorne Clemens, a
popular MetaFilter topic, was
born 177 years ago today (November 30th 1835)
in Missouri. The printer, riverboat pilot,
game designer, journalist, lecturer,
technology investor, gold miner, publisher and
patent holder wrote
short stories, essays, novels and non-fiction under the
pen name Mark Twain. This included
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (recently
adapted into a musical), one of the top five
challenged books of the 1990s, published in 1884-85 to a
mixed reception and with an
ending that still causes debate.
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posted by Wordshore
on Nov 30, 2012 -
42 comments
No one expected the force of the tempest that hit the New York Public Library in late 2011—not its new president, Anthony Marx, and maybe not even the literary lions up in arms over plans for an ambitious, $300 million renovation. Will the “palace of culture” on Fifth Avenue become a glorified Starbucks, as some fear? Interviewing all sides, Paul Goldberger walks the controversy back to its flash point: the nature of the library’s 21st-century mission and the values at the center of the Norman Foster–designed project. -
Paul Goldberger, Firestorm on Fifth Avenue
posted by beisny
on Nov 17, 2012 -
23 comments
What really concerns librarians;
what do they discuss when they self-organise and decide for themselves? After the
inaugural UK event, the
second UK Librarycamp, with around 200 attendees, was recently held; reflections by
Frank Norman, Carolin Schneider
[1] [2],
Sarah Wolfenden,
Amy Faye Finnegan,
Shambrarian Knights,
Michelle,
Jennifer Yellin,
Jenni Hughes,
Bookshelf Guardian,
Amy Cross-Menzies and
Simon Barron, and by one of the
organisers.
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posted by Wordshore
on Nov 1, 2012 -
10 comments
The universe (which others call The Twitter) is composed of
every word in the English language;
Shakespeare's folios, line-by-line-by-line; the
Exegesis of Philip K. Dick, exploded;
Constantine XI, in 140 character chunks;
Sun Tzu's Art of War, in its entirety; the chapter headings
of JG Ballard, in abundance; and definitive
discographies of Every. Artist. Ever...
All this,
I repeat, is true, but one hundred forty characters of inalterable
wwwtext cannot correspond to any language, no matter how dialectical or rudimentary it may be.
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posted by 0bvious
on Oct 27, 2012 -
14 comments
On the day he turned thirty-eight,
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne retired from public life to the tower of the
Château de Montaigne, there to spend the next ten years composing an
assay of his life's experience. That his mind might thrive, he turned the tower into a
"Solitarium" and its top floor into a sumptuous
library, lining its round walls with some 1,500
books. Even the roof beams were made to bear his thoughts: on them he inscribed 46 quotations,
here collected and translated.
posted by Iridic
on Oct 11, 2012 -
22 comments
"Although best-known for its restoration of feature films, UCLA Film & Television Archive has been preserving animated films for more than three decades, with over one hundred titles to its credit. The short subjects, trailers, and promotional films presented here provide a representative sampling of that work. They have been preserved from best-surviving and sole-surviving 35mm nitrate and 16mm prints, showcasing many forms of animation spanning the entire silent film era."
The UCLA Preserved Silent Animation project, one of over 80
collections made available through the UCLA Digital Library Program.
posted by cog_nate
on Aug 30, 2012 -
4 comments
Your change, with thanks — Among the refinements of middle-class Victorian shopping was the giving of change not directly from hand to hand but in paper packets. The envelope, known as a ‘change packet,’ measured some 60 mm (2 ½ in) square and was printed with the legend ‘The change, with thanks’, often in a decorative roundel or other device.
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posted by netbros
on Aug 8, 2012 -
14 comments
"
Despite the challenges it faces, the
Digital Public Library of America has an enthusiastic corps of volunteers and some generous contributors. It seems likely that by this time next year, it will have reached its first milestone and begun operating a metadata exchange of some sort. But what happens after that? Will the library be able to extend the scope of its collection beyond the early years of the last century? Will it be able to offer services that spark the interest of the public? If the DPLA is nothing more than plumbing, the project will have failed to live up to its grand name and its even grander promise."
posted by davidjmcgee
on Jun 7, 2012 -
10 comments
New Scientist - Every issue from its launch in November 1956 through to December 1989. Well, confusingly, one issue with a cover date of November 1952 but with contents from 1959.
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posted by unliteral
on May 10, 2012 -
31 comments
Harvard’s annual cost for journals from these providers now approaches $3.75M. In 2010, the comparable amount accounted for more than 20% of all periodical subscription costs and just under 10% of all collection costs for everything the Library acquires. Some journals cost as much as $40,000 per year, others in the tens of thousands. Prices for online content from two providers have increased by about 145% over the past six years, which far exceeds not only the consumer price index, but also the higher education and the library price indices. These journals therefore claim an ever-increasing share of our overall collection budget. Even though scholarly output continues to grow and publishing can be expensive, profit margins of 35% and more suggest that the prices we must pay do not solely result from an increasing supply of new articles.
Harvard's Faculty Advisory Council asks Harvard's faculty to change how they publish.
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posted by Toekneesan
on Apr 24, 2012 -
80 comments
John Cage Unbound, A Living Archive is a multimedia exhibition created by the New York Public Library documenting their collection of
videos, original notes and
manuscripts of contemporary American composer and music theorist
John Cage (1912-1992). "Cage believed that, following his detailed directions, anyone could make music from any kind of instrument" so the NYPL is asking visitors how they would bring his music to life, by submitting videos of their own interpretations of Cage’s work for possible inclusion in the archive. For more extensive collections of John Cage resources, see:
WNYC: A John Cage Web Reliquary and Josh Rosen's
fan page.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Apr 17, 2012 -
21 comments
The Library: [SLYT] A film by Sergey Stefanovich. A journey through Duncan Fallowell's library which has spilled over into every available space and become an art installation in its own right. With the writer talking.
posted by Fizz
on Dec 20, 2011 -
8 comments
