Posts filed under ‘art’
Montana libraries get looms!
Three libraries in the ImagineIF library system in Montana are now offering patrons the opportunity to try weaving on a loom. As Helen Carter Bergner put it on Facebook, “libraries are getting 3D printers … why not looms?” I agree! If we’re going to offer maker spaces and technologies, let’s offer all kinds!
Lena Dunham student film at the Oberlin library
Lena Dunham’s student film “Pressure,” filmed in the Oberlin library when she was 19 (so, about 2005). I don’t know if she got permission to film in the library. I’m guessing not.
What Every Teen-Ager Should Know: Girls Who Don’t Read Are Skanks
Professional Literature for Librarians, fake pulp-style book covers for titles such as Circ Girls Are Easy and I Left the Disaster Plan on My Desk. Not sure who created this gorgeous set of images. Thanks, Jonathan Caws-Elwitt!
coded messages in library books
Someone has been leaving coded messages inside books at the Weldon Library at Western University in Ontario, Canada. As of March 24, 2014, 18 notes have been found. Professor Mike Moffatt has images of all the notes at his blog, and a reward is offered to anyone who can crack the code.
Get to it, mystery decoders!
Thanks, BoingBoing.
Behold the Diction-Fairy!
I reserve the right to claim any and all reference book shenanigans as library shenanigans. (As with so many images on the open web, the original source for this is unknown.) Thanks, BoingBoing!
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!
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.
UPDATE January 21, 2014: the game is real, and you can download your decks here. I want to play!
a floating zine library?
Is it “an experimental public art project” or a floating library of artists’ books and zines? Both, apparently, and maybe more. Planned for August 2013 at Cedar Lake in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As of today it appears that the design and contents of the library are still up in the air, with this warning:
PLEASE NOTE that by submitting your materials for access on the Floating Library you acknowledge that any of these things may happen to your printed matter:
-extensive water damage
-stepped on at the bottom of a canoe
-sand between the pages
-borrowed and never returned
-returned but tattered after being enjoyed by many people.
Thanks, Emily Lloyd!
Library Shenanigans 