Library World Records just came out on McFarland a few months back. Great idea… in need of a new URL. The author has also compiled a “best music hits chosen by a librarian” page. And, of course, he’s collecting stats for a second edition.
Category: books
Daniel Boorstin memorial turns into “book lovefest”
I have been reading The Most Beautiful Libraries in the World which has a lovely foreword by James Billington, current Librarian of Congress. His predecessor, Daniel Boorstin, died recently at the age of 87. A memorial service was held yesterday at the Library of Congress.
“If Boorstin is remembered for nothing else, he will always be known as the one who opened up the Library of Congress to the people. Until he came along, the library existed pretty much to serve Congress. Boorstin saw the world’s largest repository of knowledge as “a multimedia encyclopedia” and insisted that the bounty be shared with everyone.” [see sidebar if you need a login. thanks dsdlc]
six easy steps to cataloging your home book collection
Want to catalog your home book collection? Kendall Clark shows you how in six easy steps, more or less. Part of his Hacking the Library series which is all well worth a read. [catalogablog]
book collection for intellectual superheores
Walter Benjamin on book collecting
O bliss of the collector, bliss of the man of leisure! Of no one has less been expected, and no one has had a greater sense of well-being than the man who has been able to carry on his disreputable existence in the mask of Spitzweg,’s “Bookworm.” For inside him there are spirits, or at least little genii, which have seen to it that for a collector – and I mean a real collector, a collector as he ought to be – ownership is the most intimate relationship that one can have to objects. Not that they come alive in him; it is he who lives in them. So I have erected one of his dwellings, with books as the building stones, before you, and now he is going to disappear inside, as is only fitting. [thanks dj]
world book [and copyright] day
Most web sites seem to call today World Book Day but UNESCO is calling it World Book and Copyright Day [“celebrating the protection of intellectual property through copyright.”]. Maybe it’s because the International Publishers Association is a big partner? In the UK and Ireland, World Book Day was last month. Does anyone know why there is a date discrepancy?