“I thought of my adventure as Off-Road or Extreme Reading,” Phyllis Rose writes
in “The Shelf: From LEQ to LES,” the
latest stunt book, in which she reads through a more or less random shelf of
library books. She compares her voyage
to Ernest Shackleton’s explorations in the Antarctic. “However, I like to sleep under a quilt with my head
on a goose down pillow,” she writes. “So
I would read my way into the unknown—into the pathless wastes, into thin air,
with no reviews, no best-seller lists, no college curricula, no National Book
Awards or Pulitzer Prizes, no ads, no publicity, not even word of mouth to
guide me.” Rose first gets the idea for “The Shelf” while browsing the stacks of the
New York Society Library. She is
not the first writer to set off on an armchair expedition. A. J. Jacobs, a
self-described “human guinea pig,” spent a year reading the encyclopedia for
“The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest
to Become the Smartest Person in the World” (2004). Ammon Shea read all of the Oxford English
Dictionary for his book “Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages” (2008). In “The Whole Five Feet” (2010), Christopher
Beha made his way through the Harvard Classics during a year in which he
suffered serious illness and had a death in the family. In “Howard’s End Is on the Landing” (2010),
Susan Hill limited herself to reading only the books that she already
owned. Such “extreme reading” requires
special personal traits: grit, stamina,
a penchant for self-improvement, and a dash of perversity. Christine Smallwood http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/09/ghosts-in-the-stacks
The New York Society Library (NYSL) is the oldest cultural
institution in New
York City. It was founded in
1754 by the New York Society as a subscription library. During the time when New York was the capital
of the United
States, it was the de
facto Library of Congress. Until the establishment of
the New York Public Library in 1895, it functioned as the city's
library as well. It has been patronized
by a wide variety of literary and political figures, such as George
Washington, Herman Melville. Willa Cather, Henry David Thoreau, John James Audubon
and Wendy
Wasserstein. Its special collections
include books from the libraries of John
Winthrop and Lorenzo
Da Ponte. Since 1937 the library has
been housed in the former John S. Rogers Mansion on Manhattan's Upper
East Side, the fourth location in its history. The library's collection of 300,000 volumes
includes audio recordings and periodicals as well as books on a broad range of
subjects. It is open for browsing and
research by the general public; only members may borrow or use the upper
floors. The library is a non-profit organization supported primarily by its membership
fees and endowment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Society_Library
Find
directions, address and hours of operation at http://www.nysoclib.org/
inire: Latin for to enter, begin Main forms: Ineo, Inire, Inii,
Initus
English words drawn from inire: initial, initiate, initiation
The penny-farthing,
also known as the high
wheel, high
wheeler or ordinary,
is a type of bicycle with a large front wheel and a much
smaller rear wheel. It was popular after
the boneshaker until the development of the safety bicycle in
the 1880s. It
was the first machine to be called a "bicycle". Although the name "penny-farthing"
is now the most common, it was probably not used until the machines were nearly
outdated; the first recorded print reference is from 1891 in Bicycling
News. It
comes from the British penny and farthing coins,
one much larger than the other, so that the side view resembles a penny leading
a farthing. For
most of their reign, they were simply known as "bicycles". In the late 1890s, the name
"ordinary" began to be used, to distinguish them from the emerging
safety bicycles, and
this term or hi-wheel (and
variants) is preferred by many modern enthusiasts. About 1870, English inventor James Starley, described as the father of the
bicycle industry, and others began producing bicycles based on the French
boneshaker but with front wheels of increasing size, because
larger front wheels, up to 1.5 m (60 in) in diameter, enabled higher
speeds on bicycles limited to direct drive.
In
1878, Albert Pope began manufacturing the Columbia bicycle outside
of Boston, starting their two-decade heyday in America. Although the trend was short-lived, the
penny-farthing became a symbol of the late Victorian era.
Its popularity also coincided with the birth of cycling as a sport. Eugène Meyer of Paris, France is now regarded
as the father of the High Bicycle by the International Cycling History
Conference in place of James Starley.
Meyer patented a wire-spoke tension wheel with
individually adjustable spokes in 1869. They were called "spider"
wheels in Britain when introduced there. Meyer produced a classic high bicycle
design until the 1880s. James Starley in Coventry added the tangent spokes and the mounting step to his famous
bicycle named "Ariel." He is
regarded as the father of the British cycling industry. Ball bearings, solid rubber tires and
hollow-section steel frames became standard, reducing weight and making the
ride much smoother.
See pictures at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny-farthing
The Trans-Canada Highway is the world's longest national
highway. The 8030 kilometer (4990 mile)
highway runs west and east through all ten provinces. The endpoints are Victoria, British Columbia
and St. John's, Newfoundland. The
highway does not cross the three northern territories of Canada. The highway
crosses cities, national parks, rivers, mountains, forests, and prairies. The construction of the Trans-Canada Highway
was approved in 1949 by an act of Canada's Parliament. Construction occurred in
the 1950s, and the highway opened in 1962, when John Diefenbaker was Canada's
Prime Minister. http://geography.about.com/od/canadamaps/a/Trans-Canada-Highway1.htm
Arbutus is
a genus of
at least 14 species of flowering
plants in the family Ericaceae,
native to warm temperate regions of the Mediterranean,
western Europe, and North America. The name
is borrowed from Latin,
where it referred to A. unedo.
North American members of the genus are called madrones, from the
Spanish name madroño (strawberry
tree) although this nomenclature is not used in Canada. The European species are also called
strawberry trees from the superficial resemblance of the fruit to a strawberry;
some species are sometimes referred to simply as "arbutus". In the United States, the name
"madrone" is used south of the Siskiyou Mountains of southern
Oregon/northern California and the name "madrona" is used north of
the Siskiyou Mountains according to the Sunset Western Garden Book. In British Columbia, the trees are simply
known by the name "arbutus" or "tick tree." All refer
to the same tree, Arbutus menziesii, native to the Pacific
Northwest and Northern California regions. It is Canada's only native broadleaved
evergreen tree. Some species in the genera Epigaea, Arctostaphylos and Gaultheria were formerly classified in Arbutus. As a result of its past classification, Epigaea repens (mayflower) has an alternative common
name of "trailing arbutus". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbutus
The 2014 Library Design Showcase, an annual
celebration of new and newly renovated libraries by Phil Morehart
The stories include: “Study villages” made up of 16 small study
rooms grouped along a main path are a highlight of the Main Library at the
University of Iowa renovation. A café,
larger group study rooms, open collaborative spaces, and additional quiet areas
complement the design--and at the Free library of Philadelphia Parkway Central branch,
the renovations included the construction of a demonstration kitchen to provide
culinary literacy classes to children, teens, families, and adults. The facility includes three ovens, a grill
top, 16 burners (four of which are on the demo island), a walk-in fridge,
seating for 36 at nine tables, three cameras that provide views of the prep
space and the burners with feeds to a big flatscreen TV, and an outdoor patio
with an new herb garden for class use. See over a dozen pictures and descriptions of
innovative architecture at http://www.americanlibrariesmagazine.org/article/2014-library-design-showcase
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1187
September 5, 2014 On this date in 1735, German composer Johann Christian Bach
was born. On this date in 1750, Scottish
poet Robert Fergusson was born.
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