Fedorov, Nikolai Fedorovich&[The Internet Encyclopedia...
Rated • 0 reviews • collecting, history, philosophy, books, libraries • utm.edu
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b-bear/libraries
Last seen: 5 months ago
b-bear is a 29 year old guy from Mountain Air, VIC, Australia
Drink your Bliss; for every Thing that Lives is Holy.
~William Blake
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Mon auberge était ŕ la Grande Ourse.
My inn was under the sign of the Great Bear. ~Rimbaud
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![Fedorov, Nikolai Fedorovich&[The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]](http://cdn.stumble-upon.com/mthumb/95/31486095.jpg)
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http://www.worlddigitallibrary.org/project/english/index....
Reviewed • 13 reviews • arts, books, libraries • worlddigitallibrary.org
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The European Library Treasures Web Exhibition
Rated • 1 review • arts, books, libraries • theeuropeanlibrary.org
Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal - a proof copy, from here. This is from the French National Library, via The European Library Treasures Web Exhibition. What is your favorite treasure? Have a look at this treasure of an exhibition - I found it at this site, sent to me by fabulous F.
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Hidden Garden - Library on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Rated • 1 review • books, libraries, wood • flickr.com
A public garden's xylotheque.
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Henk Puts - Von Schlumbachs Xylotheque
Rated • 1 review • fine arts, libraries, wood • henkputs.nl
A xylotheque is a wood collection. The word is derived from the Greek: xylon for "wood" and "theque" for library or "repository".
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Urban Fiction Makes Its Way From Streets to Libraries -...
Rated • 1 review • literature, books, libraries, life • nytimes.com
Diesdre delights asked me for my response to this New York Times feature piece on libraries and street literature.
Before I do, let me preface my response with a streak of self-consciousness - the kind that all too often makes b-bear a self-consuming monster of a site. Sometimes I come off as something of an elitist. Sure, this may have something to do with the fact that I enjoy reading books that were published before I was born, and that I am more thoroughly versed in the English and Western European literature of the years 1750 to 1850 than in any other literary period or culture. And, terribly and dangerously, the books that appear in the stores today so rarely pique my interest.
Nonetheless, I want to say - I am not an elitist. And if you don't believe me, I will hurt all you motherfuckers!
As to street literature, what can I say? If it encourages people to read, to become literate, then it is great! And there really is nothing I have to say against it or for it.
But I should point out that my interest in the years 1750 to 1850 is largely in the now so-called 'classics' that were once trash, street literature, or vulgar novels that cursed through the circulating libraries. The circulating libraries in the eighteenth century were for popular literature and were frowned on by the kind of respectable person who didn't want their children to read such dangerous 'trash' but probably read it in secret anyway.
This feature on street literature in New York libraries did catch my attention, and I was reminded so much, in the peculiar deja vu experience that is history, of what happened in the eighteenth century.
"I don't care what they read - I only care that they read."
As long as people join the republic of letters, who cares what they read?
"This is about documenting history, or, I should say, collective memory."
Yes, if you can justify your writing as historical archive for popular memory, go ahead.
"If you want sex, dirt and murder, read Shakespeare! We have the Cliffs Notes!"
Yes, Shakespeare was filthy. And this is the soil in which the garden of fiction grows. Resist the new filth and hold on to the tasteless flowers of the past at your own peril. You'll have nothing left to eat.
"It actually helps you to understand what's going on around you," she said, "instead of walking around blind."
Yes, if street literature can help us see and understand the world, then it is of immense value. The only thing to be wary of is to advocate a pop literature that is ideologically corrupt. One must read to see what values literature teaches you - and for this one has to read all kinds of literature. Also, peddling sex and violence could reach its limits and pander merely to capitalist markets.
There is a difference between a popular literature - truly an expression of the desires of the many who walk the streets to see - and an elite's popular literature, a literature written by parasitic snobs who think that only the most pandering forms of sex and violence will appease a mass market.
The librarian's role, as the gatekeeper in the channel of literature, is to create a social space in which emancipation can occur. Gates should be opened, and some closed shut. Rather than censoring or classifying or preserving the classics from the filth and flies, rather than closing down, whether that be first restricting what people read or excluding their desire to read something that will change their lives, I would see the librarian's role in fostering possibilities.
Librarians need to pander to the eyes of others, but they need to out-pander states and free-markets and their channel-controlling agents. So if street literature can help facilitate the opening of eyes and the creation of potential and power for change, then it provides - not simply because of its immediate content - books with which to dream up the future.
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Books, Shelves and Libraries
Rated • 1 review • books, libraries • fulltable.com
Having first read so many books that he became a sign, a sign wondering through a world that did not recognize him, he has now, despite himself and without his knowledge, become a book that contains his truth, that records exactly all that he has done and said and seen and thought, and that at last makes him recognizable, so closely does he resemble all those signs whose ineffaceable imprint he has left behind him.
Foucault, The Order of Things
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http://www.fulltable.com/VTS/b/BOOKS/coll/39.jpg
Rated • 0 reviews • books, libraries • fulltable.com
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The academic library: a post-modern Lazarus?
Rated • 0 reviews • books, theory, libraries • alia.org.au
