tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62184253076461863092024-03-05T03:01:08.419-05:00Pontifex Libris"The librarian must be the librarian militant before he can be the librarian triumphant."
-Melvil DeweyJoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.comBlogger127125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-66157053202021709842015-01-26T19:36:00.000-05:002015-01-26T19:36:38.651-05:00Knowledge & Imagination
Via
"Collecting facts is important. Knowledge is important. But if you don't have an imagination to use the knowledge, civilization is nowhere."
-Ray Bradbury
JoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-7883545509843081792015-01-26T18:59:00.002-05:002015-01-27T18:20:45.057-05:00Dominicans Saving Libraries in Iraq
From NPR:
"There have been Dominican monks in the city of Mosul since about 1750. They amassed a library of thousands of ancient manuscripts and say they brought the printing press to Iraq in the early 1800s...As an Islamist insurgency roiled Mosul in 2008, monks smuggled their library out, bit by bit...'The father or mother try to save the first thing--the children,' [Fr. Michaeel] says. 'JoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-67889079579840476322015-01-19T21:23:00.004-05:002015-01-19T21:25:05.683-05:00Worth A Thousand Words: The Calling of Samuel
"Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening." (1 Sam 3:10)
From The Crusader Bible, fol. 20v (13th c.), The Morgan Library & Museum
I had a chance to see this manuscript in person over Christmas vacation. It is stunning. Just imagine a graphic novel, then transport it to the Middle Ages. Check out the rest here.
Where have I been the past few months? Well, mostly over JoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-4633955509009271872014-08-11T20:55:00.000-04:002014-08-11T20:55:06.793-04:00God as Watermark
"God writes his name on the soul of every man. Reason and conscience are the God within us in the natural order. The Fathers of the early Church were wont to speak of the wisdom of Plato and Aristotle as the unconscious Christ within us. Men are like so many books issuing from the Divine press, and if nothing else be written on them, at least the name of the Author is indissolubly JoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-80429470592850027772014-07-26T20:52:00.000-04:002014-07-26T20:52:13.471-04:00Worth a Thousand Words: Spiral Staircase, Netherlands
In the library of Dutch Parliament.
JoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-58350191021220172912014-07-14T20:55:00.000-04:002014-07-14T20:55:03.248-04:00The Virtue of Unread Books
"...the array of books in our home is intended for ongoing, well-rounded usefulness. They're there to show us what's possible, not venerate what's already been. Even the history books, which are expressly about what has already been, are there to light an inquisitive fuse and point us forward into new exploits."
-Scott James
Although we didn't have a terribly sophisticated home JoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-34914842966239808272014-07-07T21:20:00.000-04:002014-07-07T21:20:31.316-04:00Bibliotheca: The Bible Re-imagined on the PageCourtesy of Julie, I heard about this remarkable Kickstarter project today. Adam Lewis Greene, an intrepid book designer, has set out to produce an edition of the bible free from all the numbers and footnotes, fresh and pure like any other story in print. I've seen many neat Kickstarter campaigns before, but this is the first that I've felt compelled to directly be a part of. Bibliotheca looks JoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-41950903411140188172014-03-25T19:40:00.002-04:002014-03-25T19:40:38.922-04:00The Gilmore ChallengeI can't say I entirely agree with all of Rory's tastes, but it's hard not to be delighted that Australian writer Patrick Lenton has compiled a comprehensive list of every book mentioned in the series run of Gilmore Girls. Over seven seasons, the total is over 300. That averages to about 49 books per year, or roughly one per week. Life of Johnson certainly isn't helping me keep pace! JoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-72934843022153754022014-03-17T16:29:00.001-04:002014-03-17T16:29:26.759-04:00Worth A Thousand Words: Writing & Collages
Via
JoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-62215110569070001792014-03-17T16:27:00.000-04:002014-03-17T16:27:14.617-04:00'A Pound of Flesh, Or An Eye for An Eye': At the Crossroads of Empathy and Forgiveness
Hard times in the Chateu D'If
As I go through the routines of my dad-to-day, it's hard not to notice that so much of the world seems constantly in the throes of 'getting what is owed to them.' Hardly a day goes by without something I read or real events pressing onward with the seemingly universal desire revenge or some kind of material justice. This most recently struck at me deeply severalJoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-32672676179914722282014-03-17T15:51:00.001-04:002014-03-17T16:27:28.016-04:00Bookish Art
Catherine Alexandre, The books are in search of readers
JoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-66422749604227280882014-03-16T21:31:00.002-04:002014-03-16T21:31:38.058-04:00Worth More Than a Thousand Words: Project Yosemite
Yosemite HD II from Project Yosemite on VimeoJoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-89578448490164478552014-03-16T11:54:00.001-04:002014-03-16T11:54:05.412-04:00Worth A Thousand Words: Barred Owl
Via
JoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-80521702657951561742014-02-28T21:53:00.000-05:002014-02-28T21:53:24.428-05:00Worth a Thousand Words: London Bookstore After Air Raid, 1940
Via
JoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-85093234789341084502014-02-26T22:12:00.001-05:002014-02-26T22:12:35.074-05:00Librarian Problems...
When your friends mistake John Dewey and Melvil Dewey for the same person:
No, the Dewey Decimal System is not part of some pragmatist philosophical conspiracy. It's actually pretty great.
JoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-55505233827104019412014-02-26T22:10:00.000-05:002014-02-26T22:10:32.807-05:00Monuments Men: Fact and Fiction
When I first heard that Robert Edsel's Monuments Men was being made into a feature film, I was excited. The stories he captured about Allied efforts to save art, historic buildings, libraries, and archives in the wake of WWII are harrowing, remarkable, and inspiring, and make for perfect movie fodder. Plus, who doesn't like a feel-good museum story? The A-list casting made me skepticalJoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-89051063345499619882014-02-21T18:12:00.000-05:002014-02-21T18:12:26.870-05:00Immediate Book Meme
(DarwinCatholic started it, Happy Catholic passed it on, so...what the heck?)
1. What book are you reading now?
James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson
2. What book did you just finish?
Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman. I don't usually mind long books, but man, even good psychology can be a drag. I triumphantly finished the audio today after pushing through it on my drives &JoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-67304205842087953372014-02-02T19:52:00.000-05:002014-02-02T19:52:32.070-05:00Before Goundhog Day: Candlemas
"That's all very beautiful, you might be saying to yourself, but how can my heart - stony as it is, be illuminated by the light of the Holy Spirit? Let's take the candles we have received today as an example. How does a candle produce its light? By being consumed. The fire consumes the wax. The fire of love consumes our very substance - sacrificial love. I mean, radical self-giving, death toJoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-19104912853408032772014-01-25T16:26:00.000-05:002014-01-25T16:27:18.692-05:00Battle of the Books
Illustration from Jonathan Swift's 'Battle of the Books' (from 'A Tale of a Tub'), 1704.
In my leisurely stroll through Matthew Battles' Library: An Unquiet History, I've just finished the chapter on Swift's fanciful story of the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns-emblematic of the 17th-18th century public debate over whether modern learning had superseded classical tradition. JoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-38278909995090557752014-01-22T19:05:00.002-05:002014-01-22T19:05:36.981-05:00The Best Kind of Intellectual Wallpaper
via BookLikes
Certainly something I wish everyone who doesn't keep books in their house would understand.
JoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-11265552478634303412014-01-21T09:22:00.001-05:002014-01-21T09:28:39.235-05:00January Culture Roundup: Iconography & ShakespeareHere in the Nation's capital we're lucky to have such a plethora of arts & culture locally. While it can be argued that DC isn't exactly the foremost location for theatre and music, the museums and traveling gems we have are wonderful-with regularity. The icons exhibit currently hosted at the National Gallery of Art is a prime example. It also features books, jewelry, mosaics, ceramics, JoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-20019166584261280802014-01-21T08:11:00.001-05:002014-01-21T08:11:07.925-05:00Latvians Form Human Book Chain to Transfer Books to New LibraryOver the weekend in Riga, Latvia, over 15,000 people gathered to form a human chain stretching more than a mile across the Daugava River to transfer books from the current national library to the new building set to open in August. The event was reminiscent of 1989 Baltic Way, when 2 million people formed a human chain across Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
And it looks like they all JoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-6714477084655956052013-12-31T19:41:00.001-05:002013-12-31T19:41:23.000-05:00The 500 Club
After spending some time in grad school immersed in library ROI (return-on-investment) research, I decided to start a little personal tabulation. Just how much does the library save me in a year? Since I moved in February, I began comparing my library borrowing record with Amazon prices, and kept a running total. In less than a calendar year, I've borrowed over $500 worth of library materialsJoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-18438386839661830132013-11-30T22:29:00.001-05:002013-11-30T22:29:15.919-05:00Advent Tidings: Annunciation
The Annunciation and Two Saints [St. Ansanus & St. Maxima/Margaret], Simone Martini (1333)
cf. Lk 1:26-38
For more about this remarkable painting, check out this quick video from Khan Academy. With each passing season, I am always progressively amazed and delighted with some previously undiscovered-by-me piece of sacred art.
If you're looking to work through the Jesse JoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6218425307646186309.post-34332008854451669102013-11-30T21:46:00.000-05:002013-11-30T21:46:37.859-05:00Worth a Thousand Words: Libraries of the World
Merton College Library, Oxford
CNN now has up a lovely collection of photographs of libraries throughout the world. It is always interesting to see the wide variations in style and architecture of library buildings, especially those that were constructed as works of art in themselves (I personally can never concentrate on research in the more ornate spaces). Like churches, the great JoAnnahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01904747145698764494noreply@blogger.com0