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July 13, 2024

LIghthouse Traveling Library

LHLibrarybox1

From the Michigan Lighthouse Conservancy website:

Lighthouses were often times located in remote areas, and as such had no access to city services such as libraries, opera houses, entertainment, etc. enjoyed by most people who lived in a town or city.

Light keeping was a lonely profession, in most cases supplies were brought by lighthouse tender ships.

One of the items the tender supplied was a library box (above and below) on each visit.

Library boxes were filled with books and switched from station to station to supply different reading materials to the resident families.

LHLibrarybox2

In 1876, portable libraries were first introduced in the Light-House Establishment and furnished to all light vessels and inaccessible offshore light stations, with a selection of reading materials.

These libraries were contained in a portable wooden case, each with a printed listing of the contents posted inside the door.

Proper arrangements were made for the exchange of these libraries at intervals, and for revision of the contents as books became obsolete in accordance with suggestions obtained from public library authorities.

The books were carefully selected from books of a good standard appropriate to the families who would use them.

While largely fiction, other classes of literature were included in reasonable proportions including technical books when requested.

The books and periodicals contained in the libraries remained the property of the Light House Establishment and each was marked in the front with the official Light-House Establishment bookplate (below).

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The beautiful 3" x 4-½" bookplate label bears wonderful images of an iron pile lighthouse, Minot’s Ledge Light, and a lightship, and bears the words "The Property of the Light House Establishment."

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July 13, 2024 at 04:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Are.na — 'Tumblr meets Wikipedia'

Are.na_-_Groups

From the website:

Are.na is:

  1. online software for saving and organizing the content that is important to you

  2. a toolkit for assembling new worlds from the scraps of the old

Students, hobbyists and what we call connected knowledge collectors have been the core of our community for nearly 13 years.

Wrote Celine Nguyen:

A few years ago, I came across a particularly evocative description of the website Are.na.

I'll describe Are.na in the plainest possible fashion first: it's a website where you can privately or collaboratively save images, text, PDFs, website links, and more into "channels."

It's kind of like Pinterest for artists, researchers, and academics.

This is a useful description, but not a beautiful one.

The beautiful description was written by the librarian Karly Wildenhaus, who described it as "Research as leisure activity."

Zzz

Try it here.

Fair warning: There goes the day.

July 13, 2024 at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ring with Sugar Cube — Meret Oppenheim

Meret-Oppenheim-zonder-titel-ontwerp-1936-1937-uitvoering-2003.-Collectie-Design-Museum-Den-Bosch-2048x2048

Designed by the legendary Swiss artist in 1936/1937, executed in 2003.

It can be seen at the Collection Design Museum Den Bosch in Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands.

July 13, 2024 at 08:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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