incunabula joke

Joke news from 1939. At left, Glasgow Herald,  June 15, 1939, page 10.

Similarly, the Library Association Record (London), Series 4, Volume 6, 1939, page 338:

“Then, too I should hope he had at least a nodding acquaintance with the technical jargon, or language if you prefer the term, of librarians and booksellers, so that if told that some incunabula had been found in one of the cupboards, he would not, as did one chairman, order the library to be closed and request the Medical Officer to have it immediately disinfected.”

Thank you, Daniel Traister, for bringing this shenanigan to my attention on Facebook with an image from an unknown publication:

And thank you, Jay Dillon, for providing the versions with citations.

Traister’s Facebook friends then proceeded to yuck it up:

Peter Donaldson: Little things fit for a cradle? I can see lots of health issues!

Jack Lynch: That can give you a bad case of rubrication.

Merrily Taylor: Well, if the darned things proliferate, you find yourself with all these Rare Book Librarians to mind them, and you know how demanding THEY are!

Jay Dillon: What *other* incunable jokes are there? (My own modest contribution to the subsubgenre, some years ago, was to suggest that incunabulists might be called ‘fifteenyboppers’.

Camilo Marquez: I had some grilled with olive oil, oregano and crumbled feta at my favorite Mediterranean spot.

 

 

live-in library workers

For almost a century, some New York City libraries had live-in caretakers. Here’s a highlight from the 6SQFT article: when the Thornberry family looked after the New York Society Library and lived in it, young Rose Mary Thornberry got to host sleepovers there! Aw man. I wish I coulda gone to one of those.

Somebody sent this shenanigan to me a while back and it got lost in the mire that is my online life. Thanks, Suzie DeGrasse, for bringing it back to my attention!

for mature audiences only

I wish I knew more about this clever shenanigan. It’s clearly a “little free library” kind of library and appears to be located in a forest. Anybody know anything more?

Make America Read Again!

Cleveland librarian John Harris is providing books outside of the Republican National Convention this week.

Thanks, Lynne Thomas!

Addendum from later the same day: here’s an image Janis Winn sent to the ALA Think Tank Facebook page, saying “Prepare to see a lot of this one, my library friends.” Thanks, Dina Wood !

Indonesian upcycled library building

The Taman Bima Microlibrary in Bandung, Indonesia was built using upcycled plastic ice cream containers, possibly LuVe Litee brand, though I’m not sure. Thanks, Terry Kennedy!

Pokémon Go in libraries

 

I’m not playing this [see below] and I don’t really understand how it works except that I hear Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End has a similar kind of game in it it.

Apparently, Pokémon Go players are finding creatures and other stuff in libraries all over the United States. I wonder if I could lure one into my office? I will find out.

Pokémon GO: What Do Librarians Need To Know? (School Library Journal)

‘Pokémon Go’ sends swarms of players to bookstores and libraries. But will they remember the books? (Los Angeles Times)

Everything Librarians Need To Know About Pokemon Go! (Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Shelves)

Why Pokemon Go and The Library is a perfect partnership (ALSC blog)

Local library goes viral thanks to Pokemon plans (The Island Packet)

Addendum, July 21: Change “I’m not playing this” to “I wish I could play this but my phone doesn’t have a gyroscope. My kids are playing it and so is practically everybody I know.”

A colleague was able to capture two creatures in the Special Collections area:

 

librarian bad-assery

 

 

 

 

 

 

I ordered Joshua Hammer’s book for my library when I first read a review of it, months ago. Today a friend suggested the story of these “bad-ass” librarians as a shenanigan, and I have to agree.  Smuggling controversial manuscripts to safety is the kind of dangerous and non-goofy shenanigan librarians were kinda born to do.

Thanks, Daniel M. Shapiro!

Welcome to the Toilet

Sarah Katherine Stengle snapped this photograph and put it on Facebook with the note “The sign on the door of the WC at the Art Museum in Jyväskylä Finland. The bathroom contained a library: loved it.”

Thanks, Emily Lloyd!

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:

towel-related literature

I love when libraries put together oddball mini-exhibitions on obscure topics. (I guess that’s no surprise coming from the person who brought you mini-exhibitions on 19th Century Beards, Different Kinds of Paperclips, and Composition Books.) The Cambridge University Library currently has a display of their towel-related holdings in honor of Towel Day, May 25, celebrating Douglas Adams and his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. Possibly my favorite sentence in the article: “The bibliography of towels is, in fact, remarkably limited.” Thanks, Lynne M. Thomas!