#library collections

[hclib]

Kitchen Interiors, Bad Roommates, 1930s Costume, and Levitation: Highlights from the Minneapolis Central Library Picture File

A range of cabinets on the 3rd floor of the Minneapolis Central Library hold the library’s Picture File, a collection of 600,000 images—in both color and black and white—sourced from books and magazines between 1895 and 2001. The collection provides a visual history of American culture in the twentieth century, tracking changing trends in fashion, interior design, and advertisement, as well as subjects in the news, reproductions of paintings and photography, and portraits of notable people. Many of these images were never digitized: you won’t find them in a Google image search.

Throughout the years, the Picture File has been a resource for local artists, History Day project students, theater set designers, zine authors, Halloween costume brainstormers, advertising creatives, and others looking for visual inspiration. The library’s annual report of 1943 even noted with pride that librarians from St. Paul Public Library had borrowed material for a children’s exhibit: “the reason for this—the St. Paul Art Department has no such collection of pictures.”

The files, indexed by subject, often reveal surprises. Librarians used the headings to play with meaning and stimulate the visual imagination, asking the question: what is a picture about? The way you read an image can change its focus and draw out new and unseen elements and contexts. The juxtaposition of images in a folder creates new connections: for example, “Everyday Life” groups mid-century advertisements for household appliances next to images of dogs and nuclear families next to the uncanny photography of Diane Arbus and conceptual works by Marina Abramović.

The Picture File contains images rich in local history as well. Clippings from historical Twin Cities publications and non-local photographic prints from the Minneapolis Times photo morgue, complete with original airbrushing, can be found throughout the collection. While most images in the collection can be checked out, folders with Minneapolis-related subject headings have been transferred to Special Collections for safekeeping. And local photos from the newspaper morgue can be found in the Hennepin County Library Digital Collections.

Above images from the Picture File at Minneapolis Central Library:

1. Interiors: Kitchens before 1960 2. Roommates, Bad 3. Costume: 20th Century, 1935-1939 4. Levitation

This post was written by Mark V. from the Art, Music, and Literature department. An exhibit on the Picture File will be on display in the atrium of Minneapolis Central Library for the month of April.

[mountainnamemama]

Cute library displays | East Nashville Public Library, Nashville, Tennessee, United States

[wikipediapictures]

Bookbinding

[gracehosborn]

I absolutely LOVE that The Papers of Alexander Hamilton editors cited where the original manuscripts were at the time of publishing their series however I hate the fact that since the creation of Founders Online just over a decade ago these citations haven’t been updated accordingly since they were first written in the 1960s, because in the half-century since some stuff has clearly moved around as evidenced by the last hour I have spent checking a number of archives and utterly abusing their search engines to locate the manuscript of a letter The PAH editors stated to originally be in one archive, yet coming to the discovery that:

Said archive evidently no longer has the manuscript, (nor do those few others I checked for good measure) but I could be wrong and it’s just staring me in the face hidden somewhere

The manuscript is either lost

Or it has been moved to God-Knows-Where

I just wanted to look at one paragraph 😭

[archivyrep]

Is the Buddwick Public Library an archival repository? [Part 2]

continued from part 1

Steven and Connie come to the realization that Buddy founded the public library

There is no doubt that Connie is right to say that Buddy "really did leave a mark on this town." I am reminded of how, after some debate, the U.S. Congress purchased books from Thomas Jefferson to replace the books destroyed when the British burned the Capitol in September 1814. This formed the foundation of the new Library of Congress collection, which grew over the years. Jefferson's books didn't last very long though. A fire in later December 1851 destroyed "nearly two thirds" of the over 6,000 volumes which Congress had purchased from him! In the case of Buddy, he seems to have gifted his books rather than making a government entity buy the books from him.

Reprinted from my Wading Through the Cultural Stacks WordPress blog. Originally published on Aug. 12, 2022.

As viewers, we don't know, from a 11-minute episode, the status of Buddy's books in the library itself. One could speculate they are, like in some libraries, in a special collections. On the other hand, the crux of the episode is Steven finding a rare book, literally a journal written by Buddy himself, stashed under an ordinary library shelf, clearly misfiled. This begs the question of whether Buddy's books are within the library's general collection or if they are in a special area, a sort of mini-archives. That is something that fans would have to figure out by themselves, even possibly writing fan fictions about it if they were so inclined to do so. I may even write a story about it in the future.

Clearly, the Buddwick Public Library is a location for storage, but it is unclear how many items in the collections are kept for "safety or preservation," as the Wikitionary definition of the word "repository" states. We can guess there is a section for rare books and although the journal may have fallen off a cart accidentally, it almost seems it was deliberately put under that shelf for Steven to find or even to hide it from prying eyes. What if an earlier Steven hid the journal under there so that future Steven would find it? I wouldn't put that outside the realm of possibility. All theories, even bad ones, are possible here.

In the end, the Buddwick Public Library is a functioning public library, but it is not known how much effort is put into preserving information on a long-term basis, including books written by Buddwick. We do know that after the book was found, however, we know it became part of the library collection, implying that the library may have begun efforts to save rare books or at least organize them properly. If that is the case, then the Buddwick Public Library would be a repository in some sense, even if it isn't a typical archival repository.

© 2022 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

[thespookylibrarian]

Futures says it would be easy for adversaries to call out librarians for attempts to censor content even if the books on Hoopla's digital shelves that contain disinformation that has been historically and medically debunked. “The conversation around this should be nuanced,” Halperin said. “It’s not just a simple question about censorship. And the conversation about speech has been so poisoned by the book banning from the right, which means that we can’t have a nuanced conversation about what [materials] are appropriate for libraries to collect, what are appropriate collection development policies, what is appropriate for communities and what is useful for communities."

Ebook Services Are Bringing Unhinged Conspiracy Books into Public Libraries by Claire Woodcock (Vice)

[statelibraryqueensland]

One of the many oddities held in the State Library of Queensland’s collections: a piece of the fuselage of the Red Baron’s downed airplane.

OM79-17/44 Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen Fuselage Fragment ca. 1918, John Oxley library, State library of Queensland.

Source

[literarydesire]

Places in which peace reigns

[inthedarktrees]

“Please take me. I am a good kitty. My name is Tiger. I don’t eat much either. Thank you.”

Los Angeles Examiner, March 14, 1952

[othmeralia]

Emocromometro (Marucelli model) with needle and booklet with instructions and absorbent paper

Circa 1907

Used for counting blood cells, this particular hemocytometer was manufactured in Italy. Black case that opens by pressing in bronze button to reveal bright blue satin interior lining. Inside, the bottom half of the case holds a paper hemoglobin color chart secured to a white plastic mount; the top half of the case holds a needle housed in a metal tube and a small green booklet which includes instructions (in Italian) for use of the hemocytometer as well as perforated strips of absorbent paper. Needle and booklet are secured in place by bright blue strips of fabric [silk?] which reads "ISCHIROL/ANEMIA/NEVRASTENIA [neurasthenia]" in gold [transfer foil?].

Citation: Science History Institute. Emocromometro (Marucelli Model) with Needle and Booklet with Instructions and Absorbent Paper. Photograph, 2018. Science History Institute. Philadelphia.

[hclib]

July is International Zine Month

Hennepin County Library supports local independent publishers, including zine-makers!

Zines are printed publications often with a handmade, DIY feel that are self-published in limited quantities and are not driven by commercial profit. We collect zines by and for our communities to encourage creativity and discovery at the library.

The library’s zine collection is current and local and seeks out new voices, with a primary focus on zines produced in or about Minnesota. The collection covers a wide range of topics, including activism, anarchism, feminism, gender identity and expression, and mental health.

Browse the titles online in the library catalog or browse and borrow dozens of zines at these libraries:

Minneapolis Central

East Lake

Hosmer

Special Collections (non-circulating)

Have a zine you'd like to be considered for the collection? Contact us!

[ilostmygh0st]

There's nothing more intimate than reading someone's personal book collection .

[learnelle]

On Sunday I got a copy of the Silent Patient from Shakespeare & Co. Despite it being incredibly touristic I actually really love coming here! People rarely spend a lot of time upstairs, so it’s always so nice to use the reading spaces to go through a quick poetry book or to do some journaling :-)

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

*tries to organize my thoughts*

*remembers i'm not in school and therefore beholden to neither heaven nor hell nor any man's grading system*

*joyously shredding & tossing all my carefully arranged 3x5 mental notecards into the air like so much beige confetti. raising my arms in victory, cheering raucously until i accidentally inhale bits of homemade confetti*

(*coughing up itty bits of paper like a cat evicting a hairball with a firm understanding of tenants' rights*) wait wat happens next

[historyhermann]

Steven, Connie, and the library yard sale adventure in two "Steven Universe" comics

In some searching on the Steven Universe fandom site, I came across some comics which mentioned libraries. I was surprised because I thought previously that libraries were only mentioned in that one episode ("Buddy's Book") and the comic I previously covered on this blog, Issue #36. Intrigued, I began to read these comics and see what it was all about!

On December 17, 2014, Issue 5 of the Steven Universe comics series, this series lasting from 2014 to 2015, was released. In the first story in this issue, Connie laments that Beach City doesn't have a library anymore, to which he says this isn't the case because of "that slug thing" and they don't as a result. The slug apparently ate all the books and Connie is dispirited, wanting to start their own library, so she proposes having a yard sale to sell things from the garage Steven's dad Greg has, to raise money for it. Now, I have to stop there, because this is contradicted by the fact that Buddy Buddwick Library is in Beach City according to the fandom page for it. But maybe they didn't get the memo because the episode wasn't in production and the "Buddy's Book" episode didn't air until August 18, 2016? It's definitely a possibility, but its an annoying contradiction to say the least.

Following this, Connie and Steven go through Greg's old garage, looking for stuff to sell, but Greg is attached to his old stuff. Connie brings the old stuff to the Crystal Temple and Amethyst tells them that they'll get in a lot of trouble if Pearl sees the mess, and she leaves instead of helping them create fliers for the yard sale. Pearl comes in and sees it and totally flips out, as would be expected. So she resolves to clean it all up for them. It turns out she put all the junk inside her pearl and is exhausted as a result. She starts sneezing out objects of all kinds. So, Steven and Garnet go inside Pearl's pearl to find out what is wrong and causing her to be this sick, finding storage of many items, from here to there, while Amethyst and Connie remain outside.

This story continues in Issue 6, published on January 12, 2015. Steven and Garnet try to find out the source of Pearl's sickness, with Garnet saving Steven from danger multiple times. They find out that an old book with a Gem on the cover is causing problems, and it even hisses at her. She fights this monster, which makes itself out of books. Meanwhile, Pearl keeps shooting objects out of her pearl, causing Amethyst and Connie to be terrified of it, telling her to watch where she is aiming. By working together, Garnet and Steven are able to grab the old book, but Garnet loses Steven's grasp, so Steven is still inside the pearl, with Garnet thrown outside. He reads the last story of the book, and he is able to get out, with Pearl bubbling the book. Connie then jokes that they will now, thanks to all of the objects coming out of Pearl's pearl, to have enough books for their library:

Connie teases Steven about getting books out of Pearl's pearl

So, all in all, it was a nice story. Issues 5 and 6 were included in Steven Universe Vol. 2, a paperback book that was released on March 12, 2016. However, I am a little bummed out because I thought that there would be more focus on the library, when it really was just a plot device and an actual library was not shown. It reminds me an episode of Mira, Royal Detective however. In the episode "Mystery At The Sweet Sale," Mira and other participate in a bake sale to raise money for the mobile library, so they can buy more materials, with more sweets they sell, more ability to fill empty shelves of the library. Ultimately, with the help of Dimple and Chotu, all the sweets sell out, and now the library can buy more books! Since no one wins the sale, everyone gets to enjoy kulfi, with Mira saying parties are always better with friends. I'd further say that the episode I just mentioned was much more about libraries than these two comic issues.

While saying all of that, I still found them enjoyable enough to read, especially with the interactions between the Crystal Gems, Steven, Connie, and even Greg, in the few scenes he was in. I did also see a stark difference between the drawing styles of these comics and the ones I reviewed in an earlier post, as those were much more refined than these. I didn't dislike the style of this comic, but I liked the cleaner, more smooth style of those comics than these. That's all for this week!

© 2021 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

Reprinted from Pop Culture Library Review and Wayback Machine