Margo Rabb’s New York Times essay on book theft is surprising beyond the irony of The Bible being the most often stolen work. Independent booksellers still have voracious shoplifters. And here I thought their primary worries were Amazon, Inc. and digitization!
Rare Book Trading Cards
What? Like baseball? I guess it is ingenious. Another thing to collect, certainly cheaper than that first edition you were hoping to obtain. Book Patrol: A Haven for Book Culture is the source of this wonder and the rare book store who sell’s the cards, Between the Covers, is a hoot of a website too. Enjoy!
Moby Dick in Pictures
Books are inspiring creative people everywhere in unusual ways. Matt Kish has a project going that is major and interesting. One Drawing for Every Page of Moby Dick is his blog but his website is better for viewing the drawings.
Here’s page one: 
Will he make it to all 656 pages?
Boston Public Library Exhibit
We have been passing out promotional material on this event for the past couple of months and now the time is here. The Raven in the Frog Pond exhibit opens this week at BPL and Boston College hosts the Great Poe Debate on Thursday night. The panel consists of Poe aficionados from Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston. Maybe Christina should represent Providence?
The British Library Database of Bookbindings
Here’s a site for our special collections fans. The British Library is building a huge database of images of bookbindings and I have linked directly to the gallery for you to see some beautiful things. There is a bit of whimsy in the arrangement of the gallery, the books pop up randomly from various centuries and countries, all you need do is hit reselect. Each image can be enlarged to see the details of the design. Nicely done. (All of the images are copyrighted so I’ll end with a freebee from Google images).
Everyone is distracted!
Christina sent me this article by Michelle Slatalla from the New York Times style section, with a note saying she thinks many people can relate to this… and I agree. See what you think.
Steampunk, 19th Century Inspired
Time Magazine has an article this week titled Steampunk, reclaiming tech for the masses. Now what I found interesting is this subculture, expressed for many years in fantasy and science fiction novels, doesn’t hate technology, they just want it in a relatable, solid form (think leather, brass, steam, that sort of thing). Wikipedia has a good entry on the topic. I think we could have more computers in the Athenaeum if they looked like this: 
Neo-Victoriana and Wayward Adornment
That is what the little online store called Fable and Fury calls it’s inventory of laser cut stainless steel designed necklaces. They are offering two of the Athenaeum’s favorite themes:
350th Anniversary of the Royal Society
2010 will be a big year for the Royal Society of London. The world’s oldest science academy will celebrate 350 years of existence. Part of the festivites includes a digital collection of 60 science articles published between 1650 and 2010. Presented in timeline fashion it is called Trailblazing. How far we have come! Here is the press release on the project.
