omgomg i want one
Lovely concept. But I think it would only hold the books that I’ve already started.
This looks so cool, but I don’t think that I would use it/them everywhere. As a functional art piece, sure, but not coating my house/apartment.
Book Sculptures
Landscapes carved and painted into old books by Canadian artist Guy Laramee.
I. Just. Wow.
Such wonderful art.
Library of Miniature Books Has Its Own Story
Inside an ornate wooden box, under a clear protective cover, something minuscule glinted gold. Mr. Albert handed me a magnifying glass. The glint was a book with two covers and about 30 pages between them. It was less than a millimeter across, perhaps the size of a large grain of sand.
“It’s called ‘The Chameleon,’” he said.
“What’s it about?” I asked in awe.
Mr. Albert shrugged, surprised I’d asked. “I don’t know.”
» via The New York Times (Subscription may be required for some content)
This is nicely inspiring.
Axis of Awesome – Rage of Thrones
Explicit, but still…
I read the fucking books!
Also gold:
The Lord of the RIngs, the books were probably.. better!! ??
But I think the books were better.
The San Francisco Public Library in Its Own Words by Wendy Macnaughton
Always reblog.
This really boils down what libraries are about. Inter-LIbrary Loan will bring you your book in from Australia if they have to. No really.
“What is particularly crucial to understand is that books were not dragged kicking and screaming into each new area of capitalism. Books not only are part and parcel of consumer capitalism, they virtually began it.”
In an essay for the Virginia Quarterly Review, former head of Soft Skull Press Richard Nash explores the business of literature. (via libraryjournal)
Read this if you are at all curious about how the modern book/publishing complex came to be.
okay, that couldn’t be cooler. bravo to the creative team on that one.
This is one of those things that you just can’t get with an ebook.
(Source: jpdanks)
“Public libraries circulated 2.46 billion materials in FY 2010, the highest circulation in 10 years, representing a continued increasing trend. Circulation of children’s materials has increased by 28.3 percent in the last 10 years and comprises over one-third of all materials circulated in public libraries.”
“The data that describes books comes from many, many places: warehouses, publishers, librarians, book jobbers, consumers. Each of those constituencies uses that data for completely different reasons. But it all converges on the open Web, and can look very, very messy.
In an effort to create some alignment in all this chaos, Google, Bing, Yahoo and Yandex have gathered together to create Schema.org, an effort to establish some linked data best practices for the open Web.
”
Glad I saw this. Reconciling data sources and their own in-house customizations back to open or other internal standards is hard work.
Laura Dawson, R.R. Bowker’s product manager of identifiers, in her guest post on the metadata that makes collection development hell.
Read it if you want a crystal-clear understanding of why it’s so hard to find what you want to find online, be it Amazon or a library vendor catalog. Yesterday at her Tools of Change panel, Dawson made a point of mentioning Schema.org. I don’t quite get it yet, but I am trying.
(via cloudunbound)
This Vintage-Looking Vending Machine Dispenses Rare Books For Just $2
A Toronto bookstore has come up with a creative way to add value to old, discount books that otherwise may clutter its storage: an antique-seeming “book dispenser” that randomly spits out old books for $2 a pop.
The Biblio-Mat combines the charm of a gumball machine with the surprise element of a raffle. The machine jumps to life once money’s inserted. With a bit of overt drama—cranking and whirring and ringing that invoke old machinery—the dispenser then releases a used title from its stock, dropping it into a slot for a happy reader to walk away with.
» via Fast Company
