Jessy Randall's Blog, page 21

drawing shenanigan

Now and then, students at the Colorado College library get inspired to draw on the whiteboards that are in various locations in the building. We’re at the end of a block right now, a good time for creative shenanigans. (But then, is there ever a bad time for creative shenanigans?) My colleague Pam Willock found this drawing on the whiteboard on her door today. Thanks, whoever drew this, for giving us all a good feeling this morning. (Here’s a similar shenanigan from last year at another library.)

400 robotic books form a honeycomb sculpture

To celebrate 400 years of the Bristol Central Library, animatronics company Rusty Squid (with artists, engineers, and designers) built this amazing moving, creaking honeycomb hive sculpture out of four hundred hardback books. Andrew Cox, a librarian at the BCL, says: “We embrace the digital but we all still love books and the book hive is a wonderful blend of art and engineering, reminding us of the intrinsic beauty and love affair we have with books as tangible items.” Watch the video for the full effect. Thanks, Alicia Bailey of Abecedarian Gallery!

Wiry Limbs, Paper Backs — Terry Border

Terry Border (“humorist, photographer, earthling”) takes old paperback books and turns them into anthropomorphic representations of the stories in the books. This is more of a book shenanigan than a library shenanigan, but you know we don’t stand on ceremony here at Library Shenanigans. I particularly enjoyed seeing the very paperback editions I read, the ones that seem right, for several books — it was like seeing old friends. Are there books you prefer to read in particular editions? I’ve heard that as soon as you have two editions of the same title in your house, you are not just a reader but a collector. By that definition I think most readers are probably collectors.

Thanks, io9!

no Nazgul in the library, please

Library unknown. Thanks, George Takei!

Emily Lloyd’s Cards Against Librarianship

Emily Lloyd’s Shelf Check blog comic is a constant source of excellent library shenanigans. Her latest: “sneak previews” of a fill-in-the-blanks game called Cards Against Librarianship. Is the game imaginary? I don’t know. Probably. But she had me at LeVar Burton being stuffed into the book drop, and now I have the Reading Rainbow theme song stuck in my head. (Have you heard Jimmy Fallon’s Doors version?) Here are the Cards Against Librarianship previews one, two, and three.

U of Maryland library holiday video

“The Carol of Final Exams” from the University of Maryland library. Sometimes it’s okay to cry in public. Thanks, CC library Facebook page!

grumpy cat meme goes analog

This drawing appeared anonymously in December 2013 on the whiteboard at Portland State University Library. Is this proof that the digital world is not going to replace the analog world, but rather exist alongside, intertwined? I think yes.

Thanks, Joan Petit!

flying a drone around the NYPL

If I’d been in charge of this oddly beautiful shenanigan, I would have started at 2:02 and then circled around to the beginning after we see the drone. Thanks, Dina Wood!

lost ancient art of librarian miniaturization

BoingBoing’s no-text post showing this image is titled “Fragmentary evidence of the lost ancient art of librarian miniaturization,” which counts as a shenanigan, I think.

The image is all over the internet, sometimes with a citation to the Archives of Prague Castle. It’s even got lolz versions in Czech.

I used Google’s nifty image search mechanism to discover that — as far as I can tell — this image first appeared on the internet on April 22, 2013, at Lost and Found in Prague. The photographer is M. Peterka and the date is unknown or anyway not given.

library slides

The Paris Review gives us this incredible view of the enormous slide used to move books from one building to another at Columbia University in 1934. (A similar slide was used at Colorado College in the great book move of 1962.) Click the image to see other, less enormous, more fun library slides. Thanks, Brooklyn Blowback!