I See Dead People's Books (wiki) is an impromptu project by LibraryThing members to catalog the libraries of famous dead people, from Tupac Shakur to Ernest Hemingway to John Adams. Many more in the works, anyone is able to create a dead library with all the attendant features of LT.
posted on Mar 14, 2008 - View this thread

Brilliant bookshelves by color. What's that? You can't find The Scarlet Letter? Did you look under lipstick red?
posted on Mar 4, 2008 - View this thread

Strap in, shut up and hold on. We're going back. No one under 30 will really get it...
posted on Nov 7, 2007 - View this thread

You got your Rube Goldberg machine in my department store catalogue. (Or the other way around, I'm not sure.)
posted on Nov 5, 2007 - View this thread

Wishbook Web. Christmas catalogs scanned in their entirety from the 1944 Wards Catalog (152 pages) to the 1985 Sears Catalog (648 pages!). The site looks like it was built circa '97, but the scans are quite interesting. via - Similar posts to this one: 1, 2.
posted on Aug 27, 2007 - View this thread

The Prelinger Library is a small privately owned "public library" in San Francisco with the unique philosophy that browsing library stacks can reveal new knowledge, if the books are arranged for browsing. This is counter to most public libraries who rely on computer terminal searching, databases and the Dewey Decimal system to atomize books and subjects, with stack browsing a sort of random after effect, and in some places--like the Library of Congress--normally not even allowed. Now a (real) public library in Arizona has joined the revolution and claims to be the first public library in the nation to drop the Dewey Decimal system. Instead, books will be shelved by topic, similar to the way bookstores arrange books. The demise of the century-old Dewey Decimal system is overdue, county librarians say: "People think of books by subject. Very few people say, 'Oh, I know Dewey by heart.' "
posted on Jun 10, 2007 - View this thread

Long un-updated, but still chalk full of anarchist theory, The Spunk Library (catalog indexes on upper right). Of possible interest to metafilter users: Maybe a "group" discussion dominated by two or three people ISN'T.
posted on Feb 11, 2007 - View this thread

The Zobo! Spanish-American Chess Men! Where can you find these amazing products, including Sanitary Belt Pads the Toilet Mask, or a handy goat harness, at amazing, rockbottom prices? The Sears, Roebuck Catalog, of course. Everything you could need for the modern American family! They did houses (1, 2) even. Starting in 1888 and mostly selling watches, this venerable institution of consumerism spent its first 10 years rapidly growing and adding products, lasting for over 100 years before finally folding in 1993. The catalog still stands as a detailed historical document of what the average American would buy to get through life. They make a fun collector's item, too (1902 available on CD-ROM as well). [ This post inspired by the 1902 Sears, Roebuck Catalog blog. ]
posted on May 26, 2006 - View this thread

The Office of Human Radiation Experiments , established in March 1994, leads the Department of Energy's efforts to tell the agency's Cold War story of radiation research using human subjects. We have undertaken an intensive effort to identify and catalog relevant historical documents from DOE's 3.2 million cubic feet of records scattered across the country. Internet access to these resources is a key part of making DOE more open and responsive to the American public.
posted on Feb 16, 2006 - View this thread

LibraryThing. Like Flickr for your books.
posted on Sep 14, 2005 - View this thread

Zinc Panic is an archive of Japanese robot culture, documenting everything from the '50s to the present. From cataloging the genera of characters on shows such as Giant Robo and robography of people like Tezuka Osamu, to the latest robo news. See also Rocket Punch Go! [Via Engadget]
posted on Oct 21, 2004 - View this thread

Panopticon Lavoisier
posted on Jul 30, 2004 - View this thread

Farewell, Whole Earth magazine? A lament at worldchanging.com: "... spawn of the amazing Whole Earth Catalogs, source of the WELL, first to mention in print the Gaia Hypothesis, the Internet, Virtual Reality, the Singularity and Burning Man (or at least so the legend goes), the place where folks like Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly and Howard Rheingold found their voices, and where a whole generation of young commune-kid geeks like myself learned to dream weird... " [via Smart Mobs]
posted on Jan 31, 2004 - View this thread

Critics call Abercrombie & Fitch catalog soft porn. I can't comment on the catalog itself, since I haven't seen it; I just had to laugh out loud though when I read this sentence: "Boycott organizers contend the company... is wooing younger customers and using sex to popularize its image." Oh, the horror! Also striking was A&F's spin on it, calling it " the Norman Rockwell of 2001." Clearly, a divide in perceptions. Can anyone who has seen the offensive/inoffensive material in question explain why it is/isn't any different from the marketing practices of, oh, say, everyone else?
posted on Jun 22, 2001 - View this thread