CC students build the library in Minecraft!

Colorado College students, sent home at Spring Break to help stop the spread of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), are recreating the whole campus virtually in Minecraft! Yes! They are! And Tutt Library is already built!

Eliza Merrall, Katie Wang, Arity Sherwood, Patrick McGinnis, and Daniel Turevski are the freaking AWESOME ARTIST-GENIUSES who started up the project:

They soon learned that incoming first year students, members of the class of 2024, had a similar idea:

The Merrall et. al. version of Tutt Library is amazingly detailed and accurate. Here’s the south entrance, with the statue of Chas, in real life:

and in Minecraft:

Even the interiors are detailed and accurate. At least one librarian — we’re not saying who — has made sure his office has correct signage.

Thank you, CC minecrafters, for brightening up all of our quarantines and making us miss each other even more than before!

 

ADDITION, April 6: two draft images from the project:

 

(Papercut is the unfortunately-named print service the CC library uses)

 

a torch! and a bat!

reflection adds books to room

Sometimes it’s the littlest shenanigans, even unintended ones, that can brighten up your day. A whiteboard was recently installed in the area outside Colorado College Special Collections, and now, when I look up from my desk, I see the reflection of the books on bookshelves behind me in the glass in front of that whiteboard, making it appear as if you could reach into the whiteboard and pull out a book made of pale fog.

 

loud eating in Tutt Library

The best thing about this shenanigan, to me, isn’t that it takes place at my own library (I’m in charge of Special Collections at Colorado College). No, the best thing about it is that my new library director, JoAnn Jacoby, sent this link to the whole library staff saying it had gotten almost 4 million hits on youtube, whereas this other video — of JoAnn talking about libraries — has gotten — well — somewhat fewer (99 as of this moment).

ISBN shenanigan

As Curator of Colorado College Special Collections, I recently ordered a copy of Woody Leslie’s book Understanding Molecular Typography. There appeared to be a snag in the cataloging, and the following email conversation ensued:

Cataloger Amy: Hello, Jon (and Jessy),  If this link is behaving as it was for me just now, then you will see the image, with a link, to a Dr. Seuss book to the right of the title I just cataloged, “Understanding Molecular Typography.” Hmmmmmmm…….. 

Systems Specialist Jon: That bib record contains the ISBN for the Dr. Seuss title so it’s pulling the Dr. Seuss book cover image… Correcting or removing that ISBN should fix the problem. I also noticed that a subject heading of Humor is shown on that bib-is that correct?

Amy: I figured it had to do with the ISBN. The ISBN in the record is indeed the ISBN on the title page, so, I’m not sure how one might handle that. About humor, yes, that is correct, despite the rawther serious-sounding title.

Jon: Interesting-so it’s a humor book and they put the ISBN for a Dr. Seuss book on the title page? That’s kinda funny. WorldCat seems to have the same problem: http://www.worldcat.org/title/understanding-molecular-typography/oclc/920580763 –as do the catalogs of all of the other libraries WorldCat shows as holding this title… This is now actually hilarious.

Curator Jessy: Wow. This is fantastic actually! I wonder if they did it on purpose. Maybe I’ll try to contact the author or publisher and see.

Amy: I’d love to know what he says. It’s kind of like a library shenanigan. I mean, why “On Beyond Zebra”?? This is a first, for me.

Jessy: Dear Woody Leslie, As you can see from the email chain, your book is causing some confusion and hilarity at the Colorado College library. We think you did it on purpose. Are we right?

Artist Woody Leslie: Hi Jessy, This really made my day! Thanks for contacting me. Yes, I intentionally appropriated that ISBN number. Understanding Molecular Typography is a fictional textbook by a fictional author about a fictional science — the science of molecular typography, which is based on the premise that all letters are in fact molecules, composed of atomic shape units known as typtoms. One of the ideas of the book is the concept of genetically modified, or invented letters. I used that ISBN number as a tribute to Dr. Seuss’ book On Beyond Zebra, because it’s all about invented letters. I didn’t account for library cataloging of ISBNs when I used it, figuring it would mostly be ignored. I too have noticed the World Cat auto picture selecting based on the ISBN. Glad you were able to sort it all out. There’s more about the book and project here.

I’ve got a golden ticket…

…I’ve got a golden twinkle in my eye…

Colorado College’s Tutt Library is currently undergoing a major renovation, and most of our books are off-site until the fall of 2017. During this school year, as we retrieve and drop off materials multiple times a day, we are placing golden tickets into random books:

And thus, I have this song in my head almost all the time now.

architectural model shenanigans

Tutt Library at Colorado College is undergoing a major renovation right now (in fact, I’m listening to the sounds of slams and crashes as I type this). Workmen cleaned out our sub-basement and found an old architectural model of our building, probably made in 1980 when the South addition was built.

As soon as we installed the model in our display case, my colleague Sarah Bogard began taking close-up photographs. I think these are lovely, and strangely poetic.

We found ourselves placing the little people in various arrangements and playing with the model like a dollhouse. Other colleagues stopped by to see what we were doing and got involved. Someone said this set-up looked like the whomping willow in the Harry Potter books:

An hour or so later, a small Pegasus appeared.

What will happen next?

 

Addendum, May 26, 2016:

Addenda, May 31, 2016:

library romance

Your hardworking blogstress learned recently of a romantic library shenanigan at Tutt Library, Colorado College in the spring of 1988. Two students, hearing that a friend planned “an evening of study and courtship” at the library that evening, procured tuxedos, an ice bucket, champagne, and glasses; with white linen napkins over over one arm, they served the couple forthwith. According to my source, “there was some followup from then Librarian and classicist John Sheridan, who felt the need to be severe.”

library exorcism

I have it on good authority that an exorcism was performed in Tutt Library at Colorado College. My sources tell me that at a Fly Day / May Day / May Festival celebration ca. 1970, Jim Trissel, a member of the CC Art faculty, banged upon a drum and led “a small army” of revelers through all three floors of Tutt Library, chanting “Out, demons, out!”

I’ve been unable to find any documentary proof of this event, but it may have happened in 1969, when the Fly Day celebrations on campus were of epic proportions, including, according to Owen Cramer (Classics faculty then and now), a 400-foot-long, 12-foot-high plastic tube put up on the campus quad. Students and others could walk or sit in the tube; and at one point, says Cramer, “a saxophone player produced a very pleasing sound inside.” Other elements of Fly Day included “the execution with sledgehammers of a musical score projected onto an old car installed in the ice rink.”

Or the exorcism might have happened in 1971. This reference in the May 14 , 1971 Catalyst serves as oblique proof that something exciting happened in the library around that time: “To George Fagin, for his new library policies, is presented the Police State Award.”

 

moral support during finals

Here at Tutt Library, Colorado College, we’re giving students back some of their leftover energy from the first part of the school year, when they arrived full of enthusiasm and excitement for their studies. Thanks, Jonathan Caws-Elwitt, for the idea!

Other libraries provide similar moral support during finals:

Kellie Meehlhause uploaded this photo to the ALA Think Tank Facebook page, and others followed up.

book menorah

Hanukkah began this past Sunday, and here at Colorado College we are celebrating with a menorah made out of bound volumes. (I’ve previously posted about Christmas trees made in similar ways.)