Archive for October, 2009
Library Humor
October 30th, 2009Library humor which is generated by librarians is one of those aspects of our library profession that shows that we are not only human but that we are a fun bunch of people. There have been several posts on the Library History Buff Blog that indicate that we can poke fun at ourselves, and indeed have been doing so for many decades. In addition to The Old Librarian’s Almanack, the posts include Charles Lummis and the Bibliosmiles, William Fitch Smyth's Little Lyrics for Librarians, and Sam Walter Foss's Song of the Library Staff.
I came across a fun little book recently entitled Library Levity by Nina Napier (Dogwood Press, 1946). In the forward to this book Margaret J. Clay writes: "... reading this little book makes all the " musts" and all the importances including yours and mine seem faintly ridiculous. In a word it is a corrective, renewing our sense of proportion and doing so in the happiest way by laughing with us instead of at us." That's the value of library humor in a nutshell.
new reviews in cyberculture studies (november 2009)
October 30th, 2009
Ambivalence Towards Convergence: Digitalisation and Media Change
Editors: Tanja Storsul, Dagny Stuedahl
Publisher: Nordicom, 2007
Review 1: Fiona Martin
Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage
Author: Axel Bruns
Publisher: Peter Lang, 2008
Review 1: Verena Laschinger
Review 2: Alan Razee
Review 3: Erin Stark
Author Response: Axel Bruns
Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times
Editor: Megan Boler
Publisher: MIT Press, 2008
Review 1: J. Patrick Biddix
Review 2: Mary K. Bryson
Author Response: Megan Boler
Displacing Place: Mobile Communication in the Twenty-First Century
Editor: Sharon Kleinman
Publisher: Peter Lang, 2007
Review 1: Kevin Douglas Kuswa
Review 2: Katheryn Wright
Author Response: Sharon Kleinman
Literatures in the Digital Era: Theory and Praxis
Editors: Amelia Sanz, Dolores Romero
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007
Review 1: Sara Humphreys
Making Digital Cultures: Access, Interactivity and Authenticity
Author: Martin Hand
Publisher: Ashgate, 2008
Review 1: Jen Ross
Author Response: Martin Hand
Making Silicon Valley: Innovation and the Growth of High Tech, 1930-1970
Author: Christophe Lécuyer
Publisher: MIT Press, 2005
Review 1: Judith Otto
Moving Cultures: Mobile Communications in Everyday Life
Authors: André H. Caron, Letizia Caronia
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2007
Review 1: Erin Jonasson
Author Response: Letizia Caronia and André H. Caron
New Tech, New Ties: How Mobile Communication Is Reshaping Social Cohesion
Author: Rich Ling
Publisher: MIT Press, 2008
Review 1: Kathrin Kissau
enjoy. there's one more month's worth where that came from.
Can scary be scholarly? You decide!
October 29th, 2009Jane Austen with zombies.
Photos by Rob Guillen
Frankenstein’s monster living on in the twenty-first century.
Abraham Lincoln, vampire hunter?
And then there are the classics: Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the legendary Golem of the Prague ghetto, the heroic tale of Beowulf and Grendel.
So-called “genre literature” is often the subject of debate in the academy. Mysteries, romance, science fiction, children’s books – all are sometimes stigmatized though often studied by literary snobs and scholars. The emerging genre or sub-genre of “monster lit” is no exception. Some may sniff but there are college courses and lots of erudite criticism of books that feature monsters.
Whatever your take on the question, monster books and movies are definitely a lot of fun! So check out the Library’s collection, featured this month in the lobby.
Here’s a list of some of the books and DVDs we’ve gathered.
I can hardly wait for Little Women with werewolves!

Vlad the Impaler

Carnegie Library Lists by State
October 28th, 2009
Destruction of the Libraries of Louvain
October 28th, 2009
The Library of the Catholic University of Louvain or Leuven in Belgium was destroyed in both World War I and World War II. The most notorious of the two destructions occurred in 1914 during World War I. A new library designed by Architect Whitney Warren was dedicated in 1928. The new building featured a tall spire and a carillon of 48 bells. The stamp to the left depicts the rebuilt Library of the University of Louvain. It was issued on Dec. 1, 1928. It is a semi-postal with the additional funding going for anti-tuberculosis work. (Scott Catalogue # B83). In 1940 when Germany overran Belgium, the Library of the University of Louvain was again destroyed. The collection had been rebuilt to include almost 700,000 volumes. Phillip A. Metzger has written a good overview of the history of the library including its destruction in 1914 and its rebuilding in 1928. The library was rebuilt after World War II in accordance with the earlier Warren Whitney design. There are also postage stamps which depict the first Library of Louvain and the Library that was rebuilt after World War II. More information about the stamps can be found here. There is a Wikipedia article which includes information about the library's more recent history.