In wiki format: http://mywiki.ws/The_Most_Unusual_Books_of_the_World. update: there was a gross image on the top of that page for a while which is the way of wikis sometimes. Someone alerted me to it (and here via comments) and said I should remove my link. Instead, I went in and cleaned up the wiki which has better long-term and wide-reaching results. Sorry folks, especially if this was your first goatse (safe link, I swear it!).[slowreading]
Tag: books
Libraries Shun Deals to Place Books on Web, really?
Quick quiz: when you read a headline like the one in the New York Times today Libraries Shun Deals to Place Books on Web do you think that the libraries involved are
a) sticking up for free access to information
b) prohibiting free access to information
Now read the article and tell me if you feel the same way. The article was also published in the International Herald Tribune with the title Research libraries close their books to Google and Microsoft which was where I read it at FreeGovInfo yesterday.
holiday shopping, early
I have had a lot of people send me links to excellent things that I think other librarians might want. However, since I’m such a stuffy anti-capitalist, I sometimes shy away from “you might want to buy this” posts. Then my inbox fills up and I get into competitive Inbox Zero mode and I realize that one of the things that I like about my readers is that they’re not all like me and so this is why I am posting these.
- Excellent library love t-shirt from Gluekit’s new PartofIt project (launching any day now) which designs neat looking stuff to help raise funds for non-profits.
- Threadless “check out” double entendre t-shirt for your favorite bibliophile
- If you read the BibliOdyssey blog (and you should) you might be pleased to know that there is a companion book full of delightful images from ancient texts. I had the pleasure of meeting PK when I was in Australia and I had no idea something like this was in the works. However, I got a copy last week and while I’m still poring through the frontmatter, the restof it is the real deal. Nice book and the blog post about it has more information on the convoluted process of getting a blog into print with associated rights-haggling etc.
- Lastly, I was cleaning up my house up north and came across a few copies of Revolting Librarians Redux still in their “prepared for mailing” state. If you want one, KR and I are e-baying them off with the proceeds to go to the EFF (or another deserving charity if you’re so inclined). KR and I are pretty geographically dispersed, so signed copies might be a non-option, but ask us and we’ll do what we can. Want a copy? Click here.
Feel free to add other “perfect for the librarian who has everything” links below.
(mostly) fully clothed women reading
Lezende Vrouwen in de Kunst (women reading, in artworks). The site is in Dutch but you can just click across the century links up top. From the always excellent BibliOdyssey.
Pre-Shelf Life of Library Materials
What happens to your library book before it gets to the shelves? This Flickr photoset can walk you through it. I learned bunches of things. Thanks to the Hatcher Library at the University of Michigan and Alexis for putting it all together.