Category Archives: Materials

Day Nine of the CMLE Summer Fun Library Tour!

The sharing of knowledge is our mission, but sometimes can be..kind of icky.

Houghton Library contains countless curiosities. Perhaps the most disturbing example is Arsène Houssaye’s Des destinées de l’ame (FC8.H8177.879dc), bound in human skin.

In the mid-1880s, Houssaye (1815-1896) presented his recent book, a meditation on the soul and life after death, to his friend Dr. Ludovic Bouland (1839-1932), a noted medical doctor and prominent bibliophile. Bouland bound the book with skin from the unclaimed body of a female mental patient who had died of a stroke.”

While books bound in human skin are now objects of fascination and revulsion, the practice was once somewhat common. Termed anthropodermic bibliopegy, the binding of books in human skin has occurred at least since the 16th century. The confessions of criminals were occasionally bound in the skin of the convicted, or an individual might request to be memorialized for family or lovers in the form of a book.

Although this is the only known example of an anthropodermic book in Houghton’s collection, Harvard libraries hold one other example: the Countway Library’s Center for the History of Medicine holds a French translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Lyon, 1597) which may have an anthropodermic binding.”

 

Libraries are amazing places. Sometimes you find things that are fascinating, sometimes they are kinda gross. Information is always important to have and to share; this is just another example of the huge breadth of ideas, materials, and services that exist in the library profession!

State relents on rights fee to print WWI soldiers’ pictures

Every girl pulling for victory, WWI poster, 1918From Telegram.com:

WORCESTER – An effort by local historians to put faces to the names on the city’s World War I memorial recently encountered an expensive hurdle in an unexpected place – the Massachusetts State Library.

The issue, concerning usage fees for images in the State Library’s collection, appeared on its way to being resolved this week, ending what had been, for the historians, a potentially costly predicament.

More than 60 photos of Worcester veterans who gave their lives in the “War to End All Wars” are in the State Library’s digitized archive of World War I photos. Some are likely the only images of these men in uniform.

Continue reading State relents on rights fee to print WWI soldiers’ pictures

American Library Association Urges Schools Not To Remove ‘13 Reasons Why’

13-reasons-why-5888f5cfd8122

“The popularity of the series might really save lives and so might more reading and talking about the issue.”

Free Is Good: Open educational resources are free digital materials

Open Access PLoS

From Edutopia,  By Bethany Rayl

Open educational resources (OER) are found in the public domain and can be used for free for teaching, learning, research, and other educational purposes. These materials can be retained, reused, revised, remixed, and redistributed. These “5R permissions” of OER allow you to not only access the materials and resources free of charge, but also to make them even better. Sounds good, right? But what’s really out there, and why should you use these resources?

There are several examples of OER available, including image and audio resources, books in the public domain, video and audio lectures, interactive simulations, game-based learning programs, lesson plans, textbooks, online course curricula, professional learning programs, and online learning platforms. Continue reading Free Is Good: Open educational resources are free digital materials