So all this rare book reading and an impending trip to Yale has gotten me on a rare book kick of my own. First, Yale’s Beineke has not only a lovely library but an impressive online photonegative database.
Author: jessamyn
voynich ms – what the hell?!
The Beineke holds the Voynich Manuscript, an illustrated mystery manuscript, written in no known text, which has remained undeciphered since it came to the attention of modern scholars early last century. It is “either an ingenious hoax or an unbreakable cipher“. More links here, more images here.
grossman’s article on voynich
And, to bring it full circle, Grossman wrote an article about the Voynich MS for Lingua Franca which, incidentally is out of business and all its old URLs point to the Chronicle of Higher Ed.
accessibility basics for librarians
ALA’s OITP is doing an email tutorial on accessibility basics for librarians. Free to ALA members. Does the page the announcement is on validate? Um, no. Is it accessible? Um, no. Is accessibility unattainable? No. Incidentally, librarian.net needs help as well, I’m not saying I’m occupying the moral high ground here. [technobib]
acronym tag, use it
Speaking of accessibility, this is an aside to all you code jockeys. Mouseover OITP in the previous post. On most, if not all, current browsers, the full title for the acronym will show up as a tooltip, even in my aggregator. This can help make our sometimes inane sounding acronym soup more accessible to people who are not as familiar with the profession, and aids in Google’s indexing of your page. Use the acronym tag. Easy code:
<acronym title="Office for Information Technology Policy">OITP</acronym>