Raised on a diet of broken biscuits
I use this place as a trivial kind of commonplace book, to collect things which interest/edify/amuse or attract me, along with some journalish musings.
The library had a stack of cute, self-advertising postcards and I picked one up a couple of weeks ago. I like using it as a bookmark. I love them all, but my favourites are:
Poetry is either language lit up by life or life lit up by language
Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance
Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words
(via bookshelves)
(I’m sitting at the reference desk when a lady walks in with a beautiful bouquet in one hand, a bag full of freshly-baked loaves of bread in the other, and a ferocious scowl on her face. She comes to the desk and slams down the flowers.)
Lady: *growls* “Flowers for librarians!”
(She slams down the bread, then growls again.)
Lady: “Bread for librarians!”
(She then puts both hands on the desk and leans forward.)
Lady: *snarling* “Now find me a book!”
Thomas Bodley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Happy 465th birthday, Sir Thomas!
serena korda projects- library of secrets
The Library of Secrets is a mobile library conceived from the love of keeping and finding things amongst the pages of books. The Library of Secrets invites you to leave your thoughts, wisdoms and secrets amongst the pages of one or more of the 400 books in its collection. Peruse the shelves for your favourite 19th or 20th century classic or maybe just rummage through the books to find other peoples secrets.
The most beautiful and original mobile library.
The way that books used to be printed, the reader would have to cut open each page with a paper knife before it could be read, every page a tiny gift from the writer.
We still have some books with uncut pages in the library where I work. We have to cut them for the reader and it is really fiddly to do without damaging the book. And it’s a bit sad that in the 100+ years we have had some of these books, no one has been interested enough in the contents to cut them before now.
For decades generations of Cambridge undergraduates have fantasised about a secret stash of Victorian pornography in the university’s library tower.
[…]
For all that is contained within “this magnificent erection”, as Neville Chamberlain is said to have described the 1934 tower, are distinctly restrained guides on the finer points of Victorian romantic etiquette.According to the university’s authorities, the 17 floors of the 157ft-high tower contain nothing more racy than books with titles such as The Lover’s Guide to Courtship (Illustrated).
Ray Bradbury (via mrgan)
This is apt. I had a lecture yesterday by Frank Webster about the (possibly bleak) future of public libraries. The lecturer used similar testimonials from Richard Hoggart and John Banville to illustrate the role which the public library has historically played in helping people to educate themselves outside of formal academia. As someone who has been in formal education for 18 of the last 26 years, I am in total awe of what people have achieved through self-motivated and self-directed study, and I am so glad that the library was there to fulfil that need.
