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Pages: illumination

This looks amazing:

One hundred exquisite medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts, dating from the 10th through the 16th centuries and ranging from miniature portable Bibles to oversized Gospel books, make up a new exhibition at The New York Public Library. The Splendor of the Word: Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts at The New York Public Library, on view from October 21, 2005 through February 12, 2006, is the first full-scale exhibition to highlight the incredible breadth of the Library's collection of Western European illuminated manuscripts, among the largest in North America.

At the Humanities research library, at 42nd and 5th (the one with the lions), through February. [Links: NYTimes; NYPL]

Books are bad, says Alabama lawmaker

Gay book ban goal of state lawmaker [via Bookslut blog]

MONTGOMERY - An Alabama lawmaker who sought to ban gay marriages now wants to ban novels with gay characters from public libraries, including university libraries. [Emphasis added.]

A bill by Rep. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale, would prohibit the use of public funds for "the purchase of textbooks or library materials that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle." Allen said he filed the bill to protect children from the "homosexual agenda."

...

The bill also would ban materials that recognize or promote a lifestyle or actions prohibited by the sodomy and sexual misconduct laws of Alabama. Allen said that meant books with heterosexual couples committing those acts likely would be banned, too.

From Alabama's statutes regarding sexual misconduct:

A person commits the crime of sexual misconduct if...[h]e or she engages in deviate sexual intercourse with another person under circumstances other than those covered by sections 13A-6-63 and 13A-6-64. Consent is no defense to a prosecution under this subdivision. [Emphasis added; source.]

Deviate sexual intercourse: "Any act of sexual gratification between persons not married to each other involving the sex organs of one person and the mouth or anus of another." [source]

But forget the focus on specific sex acts. I bring that up only to show that Allen would also ban books featuring or even implying sexual relations between unmarried heterosexuals. What's important is how broadly this law might be applied. Would Allen's law prevent Alabama's public universities from offering books discussing the sexuality of Alexander the Great? Would it prevent college teachers from distributing syllabi in which "deviant" conduct is mentioned? (From the article: "His bill also would prohibit a teacher from handing out materials or bringing in a classroom speaker who suggested homosexuality was OK, he said.") Searching the University of Alabama website turns up a broad set of courses in Human Sexuality, but if "handing out materials" is banned, how can an instructor create a syllabus or place articles on reserve in the university's library? Also, how would such a law affect medical education? Oops! I'm sorry. AIDS and other STDs are now officially off the curriculum. I can't imagine this will pass. The universities will lobby hard against it. Even interpreted narrowly, it will interfere with the ability of the state's colleges from educating its citizens. Moreover, Alabama's universities will become less competitive at attracting out-of-state students. Good work, Mr. Allen. You've demonstrated a tremendous disrespect for Alabama's entire system of education.

Interweb spreds ingorance quickerly

An Alaskan librarian claims that the Web allows ignorance to spread "farther and faster than ever before." To prove his own point, he misspells the names of columnists Dan Gillmor and Dave Barry, and miscites the name of Gillmor's new treatise. Oops.

The Newtonian Moment

A new exhibition on the work and influence of Sir Isaac Newton opens today at the New York Public Library. The exhibition, which features manuscripts, drawings, rare books, and scientific instruments, runs through February 5. The Times sent science writer John Noble Wilford to review the exhibition: The Man Who Grasped the Heavens' Gravitas

Saving Peanuts

Here's something cool from a while back: Adam Kempa blogs about Nicholson Baker's connection to the recent Fantagraphics reprints of the Peanuts comic strip. Baker made recent headlines with his new novel Checkpoint, in which two men discuss an assassination attempt against presidential fuckchimp George W. Bush. But in 2001, Baker released Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper [excerpt and review at NYTimes.com], which documents the destruction of newspaper and magazine archives. Baker discovered that the only existing copies of hundreds of periodicals were being discarded in favor of microfilm. Baker formed a foundation to rescue these print archives from destruction, and he donated the archives to Duke University. This is where Fantagraphics comes in. Co-founder Kim Thompson, posting on the Fantagraphics message board, writes that the company was able to find most of the really rare strips from the first two years of Peanuts in the Duke archives. So if not for Baker's work, many strips from the early years of Peanuts would now be lost.

Vonnegut loves the librarian

"[T]he America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

--Kurt Vonnegut, I Love You, Madame Librarian

Archaeologists discover Alexandria

BBC News reports that a team of archaeologists believe they have uncovered the ancient Library of Alexandria. [via Boing Boing]

Library archives chart LES history

Annual reports from the Seward Park library, a 95-year-old branch on East Broadway, chart the many changes in the Lower East Side since the branch's opening. The branch has just reopened after a two-year renovation.

CIPA, filtering, and public libraries

Via librarian.net, this First Monday article discusses libraries policies related to filtering Internet content. I've read only the first few pages so far, but it seems to cover the issues thoroughly and well.

Subway exhibit at NYPL

Another NYPL exhibit of note features William Barclay Parsons, the first chief engineer of the subway system. In collaboration with the New York Transit Museum, the Science, Industry and Business Library presents Parson's correspondence with subway-financier August Belmont, photos of subway construction, early subway tickets, and other reports on the early system. Note also the related programs, especially the lecture on tunnelling. [via nycsubway.org]

LibraryLookup

Jon Udell offers a nifty web tool. Install one of his bookmarklets for your local public library. If you're browsing a book site, say at Amazon.com or All Consuming, you can click the bookmarklet and a window will pop-up displaying the book's availability at your local library. Note that not only U.S. libraries are supported. [via muxway]

Subtle censorship

Kids' books face censorship over gay characters

Martha Freeman got the bad news at lunch from her publisher and literary agent. Although "The Trouble With Babies" had received good reviews, the sales of her children's book about a young San Francisco girl were poor compared with the first title in her series, and the paperback rights would not be sold.

The reason: A brief passage...about two gay fathers and their adopted son apparently had discouraged many librarians across the United States from buying the title....

Freeman's publisher now wants her to write a third book in the series, but that leaves her with a question: Fight the censorship and retain the gay characters, or leave them out in the hopes of selling more books? [via ArtsJournal]

Future of the book

Today I read two articles discussing books and electronic publishing: Gary Wolf's piece for Wired about Amazon's Search Inside the Book feature, and Umberto Eco's lecture at Alexandria. I see some interesting parallels between the pieces, but I want to reread both before I can comment on them.

CIA World Factbook, 2003 edition

BeSpacific reports that the 2003 edition of the CIA World Factbook is now available. Whenever I edit a country-specific project (like my current book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding North Korea), I always find the CIA Factbook to be a valuable reference. It's also fun just for browsing.

BeSpacific quotes the press release:

This reference work provides a snapshot, as of 1 January 2003, of wide-ranging, hard-to-locate information about the background, geography, people, government, economy, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. The nine primary information categories and 134 subcategories for most entities include geographic coordinates, Gross Domestic Product, number of telephones, natural resources, legal systems, political parties, illicit drugs, mortality rates, and more. Included among the 268 geographic listings is one for the "World," which incorporates data and other information summarized where possible from the other 267 listings.

[via beSpacific]

New York Public Library: Hat in hand

NY libraries putting out donation boxes in an attempt to offset deep budget cuts. [librarian.net]

New book alert

Library: An Unquiet History, by Matthew Battles. [publisher's synopsis and excerpt; Newsday review; Amazon link]

Supreme Court upholds library filtering

High court OK's Internet filters for public libraries. The decision adds latitude for shielding kids from porn, but curbs free speech. [Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories]

Brooklyn Daily Eagle available online at BPL website

The Brooklyn Public Library has made available the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1840-1902), in a fully searchable format. The feature, currently in beta testing, brings up full scans of each issue. Clicking a story or ad brings an enlarged view. This should be a great resource for historians and genealogists (the obituaries are also searchable), plus it's just damn cool to be able to dive into the borough's history in such a high-tech and intuitive way. [via Boing Boing Blog]

Peeps are down with the library, yo

peeps at the library! [via librarian.net]

Librarian aids war on terror

In Washington Whispers: Bookworms, pack rats--nation's secret warriors, the newsweekly U.S. News & World Report reports how the Librarian of Congress, James Billington, has aided the government in tracking down al Qaeda. It's a short piece, but it's interesting.
U.S. News, by the way, has implemented an RSS feed, meaning that I can now easily blog news items from the mag. Hats off to Jenny Levine for pointing it out.

Jessamyn on PATRIOT Act

Uber-cool librarian Jessamyn West discusses USA Patriot, its effects on libraries, and why you should care:

You should care about the PATRIOT Act if you frequent libraries or bookstores, use pay phones, use an Internet service provider, go to school, go to the doctor, use credit cards or banks, have a lawyer, leave the country, go to jail, belong to an activist organization, read alternative publications [like this one] or know anyone who is contemplating any of the above activities, or maybe if you’re just a fan of freedom or the Bill of Rights. Why? Because the assumptions you may be making about your privacy, and your right to it, may be all wrong. Your rights to do all of these things, or do them free of surveillance and/or harassment, have changed in the past two years.

[Slingshot, via BoingBoing; see more Jessamyn at Jessamyn.com and librarian.net]

Salon.com licenses to libraries

Jenny Levine reports:

Last year I said I thought Salon should look into licensing content to libraries, and now they're finally doing something about it. Adrienne Crew, their Content Licensing Manager, sent me the following:

"Thought you'd like to know that Salon's Premium Institutional Subscription program for libraries is finally up and running.... Currently we are offering a one year subscription in the $300-400 range and feeds all access to the articles on the site via an IP authentication system or a single password."

More details as I get them.

[The Shifted Librarian]

Berkeley PL Protects Patrons' Privacy

"Jackie told us that Travis Air Force Base phoned soon after 9/11, asking for records related to the possible use of a Berkeley Public computer to attempt to hack into their system. The call was refered to her, the director. When she told them a subpoena was needed they pointed out that their need for this information was critical. She said that she wanted to help them as much as she could and that a subpoena was required. She also told them how little information they have about their users. They did not come back with the subpoena.

At Berkely Public, they 'erase the servers' every night and shred the paper signup sheets. Circulation records are deleted as soon as material is checked in. (No time lag as we have)" [Retrofitted Librarian by way of The Shifted Librarian]

NYPL: Image Gate

Image Gate is pretty damn cool. I especially like the photos showing the construction of the Holland Tunnel. The pictures aren't all NYC-specific, though. There are collections of cigarette cards, portraits of Native Americans, and maps of the mid-Atlantic region, among other collections. From the Image Gate Web site:

Image Gate is The New York Public Library's first full working version of its new digital image database. Image Gate provides free and open access to thousands of The New York Public Library's digitized images, taken from the Research Libraries' collections. At its inception, the Image Gate database contains approximately 80,000 images spanning a wide range of subjects. This number will grow as The Library digitizes more images; this phased rollout will end in 2004, when the site will include more than 600,000 images. Image Gate demonstrates the rich potential for discovery in The Library's vast international collections of prints, drawings, photographs, illuminated manuscripts, rare books, maps, popular graphics and printed ephemera.

Cleveland turns to eBooks

Cleveland library to launch eBook system. The new eBook collection, believed to be the first of its kind in a public library, will let people download publications onto their PCs and PDAs. [CNET News.com]

Redesigns, libraries, etc.

So, the site redesign and update are almost done. I need to cull dead links, tidy up the resume, and make sure all's smooth, but it should be up very soon. Perhaps surprisingly soon. Meanwhile. Saturday was a nice New York day for the Dietsch. I went on a tour, finally, of the NYPL in midtown. The big one with the lions, y'know. Anyway, with all the time I'd spent there, editing and stuff, it was nice to finally have a look around at the place. See things I didn't take the time to look at when I was making it my place of employment, y'know. I hung around after the tour and saw the NYC Eats exhibit, up on the third floor. Cool stuff. Lots of paper ephemera like menus and napkins from restaurants, diners, street vendors, and other food purveyors from New York's history. All of this is in the Library's collection. People don't think of libraries collecting menus and photographs and postcards, but you'd be amazed. I then headed down the Bowery, to CBGB's 313 Gallery, next door to the famous rock venue. 313 had a showing of Illegal Art. The idea is to represent artists who use corporate icons, slogans, or familiar characters in ways of which their owners might not approve. So Disney-character porno cartoons, for example, or Kieron Dwyer's riff on the Starbucks logo. If you read this blog--yeah, both of you--you can understand why this would attract me. Creative expression depends entirely on allowing people to take ideas and concepts from other sources, filtering those ideas through their own mindware, and creating something new. This ties in perfectly with the IP and copyright and cyberlaw stuff I've been following. I could go on, but I've been drinking, and I'm not sure I'd make much sense. Also, I'm not sure either of you want to hear it.