You’ve Come a Long Way, Linnaeus
For those interested in science, taxonomy, and web-based encyclopedias, the new Encyclopedia of Life made its official debut Wednesday, with the homepage stating that ”This is the very beginning of our exciting journey to document all species of life on Earth.”
The EOL has prepared 25 exemplar pages which “show the kind of rich environment, with extensive information, to which all the species pages will eventually grow.” The exemplars are wide-ranging, and two of my favorite backyard denizens appear in the list: the Green Anole and the Black-and-Yellow Argiope.
According to the FAQ, the Encyclopedia holds the possibility for exciting uses beyond academics:
“Members of the public will be able to use EOL in many different ways. In the near future, anyone will be able to personalize information on the EOL website for their own interests and uses. For example, one could create a field guide for a family vacation or for a day hike to a new location, which could then be downloaded to a personal digital assistant for easy access and information retrieval. It could be used to keep a catalogue of all the plants that might be found in one’s neighborhood.”
Slashdot reports that at the debut the site received so many hits that it went down before they even linked to it, so it looks like it’ll be a pretty popular undertaking and will hopefully get lots of support and input from the public.
Currently, the Encyclopedia is asking for volunteer curators, (you need to be associated with an academic or scientific institution) and promises to begin accepting reader submissions by the middle of this year. Content expectations are projected to be met in three to five years. In the meantime, you can donate.
Filed under biology, encyclopedias, environment, internet, libraries, natural history, science, taxonomy | Comment (0)Personal Libraries
PhiloBiblos has written a post summarizing the (hilarious) current debate on how to order and display a personal library. Thanks for providing all those links in one place and enabling my laziness!
Do I feel guilty about unread books? Occasionally, though the books usually aren’t on my shelves but floating around in my head or scrawled on the battered, stapled, ink-stained legal-pad pages that live in my messenger bag and serve as my current “To Read” list. I’m way too obsessive to use something like LibraryThing to organize my reading. If I ever got started with it I’d definitely feel the need to record every single book I had ever read. Because I’m a weirdo who can’t take it when things around me aren’t complete and in perfect order. Just thinking of all the books I couldn’t remember but urgently needed to record would make me a crazy person.
But as far as unread books go I try to remind myself that I’ll never have time to read everything I want, and that’s ok. As long as I just keep rolling the boulder.
Instead, what really makes me feel guilty aren’t the unread books but the library I haven’t got, unlike all the lovely ones being discussed in the above referenced posts. I’ve bought hardly any books within the last two or three years because it’s difficult to justify the expense, especially when I can use the library instead. I’ve also moved around a lot lately, between dorms and apartments and internationally. I reached the point last summer when all those books I’d hoarded began to seem more like a burden than a useful library. I didn’t even have self space for half of them. So I sorted out two bookcases worth of my favorites to keep, and the rest were farewelled in six trips to the used bookstore. The few valuable books I own went into a safety deposit box because I don’t have a safe place for them at home; knowing they’re sitting around while I’m away for long stretches makes me nervous.
So, I don’t really have a library anymore, or just a very tiny one. I’m a bad bibliophile! Sort of shuffling my feet and looking away while everyone discourses at length about the organization of their vast treasure troves. My time will come, I hope. One day I’ll settle down into my own apartment with a normal life and a dog and a lot of empty shelves to begin filling up.
Oh, and as far as the decorative possibilities of books, I’ll just refer to Mr. Bernard Black.
Filed under book lists, books, libraries, organization, reading | Comment (0)Stupid Exchange Rate
When I was originally accepted to graduate school last year my plan was to attend part-time and work part-time to limit the loan I would have to borrow. I also decided to take a year’s deferment for personal and financial reasons and have spent the last nine months saving pennies and studying in my free time. Unfortunately, several months after I made this decision the UK changed its visa rules to stipulate that overseas students must be enrolled full-time. So there goes my brilliant plan.
Lately I’ve spent more time than I care to acknowledge looking at expenses and sorting out various budgets. At the moment I’m seriously considering undergraduate university housing, i.e., sharing a bathroom with a hall full of 19-year-olds. And I’ve heard a rumor that the water in the showers only flows if you’re holding the tap down. As a non-coffee-drinker, I really treasure my morning shower and I need it to be high quality. I know it’s a waste of water, but I normally make an effort to be environmentally friendly and nice showers are one of my few indulgences.
The other option is private housing with roommates and all the joys inherent to that undertaking, plus transportation expenses and having to get up earlier to travel to school.
But no matter what, I’m looking at a lot of money, and getting scary numbers spit back at me from college loan repayment calculators. The two options after I finish the masters degree are 1. get a book-related job or 2. continue for a PhD. I haven’t decided between them, but either way I’m pretty sure I’ll be broke.
With some sacrifices, I think I can work out a budget that will keep my loans affordable, but in the face of bleak numbers it’s sometimes hard to remember why I want to do this. Really, though, the only thing scarier than taking out massive loans to become a professional book nerd is not becoming one at all.
Filed under budgeting, school, student loans, study abroad | Comments (3)Thanks and Fonts
A big thanks to Jeremy at PhiloBiblos, one of my favoite blogs, for posting about bookn3rd and adding a link on his blogroll! What a nice welcome.
This morning I was directed by the SHARP list-serv to the blog of Gary Hustwhit, the director of the great documentary Helvetica. One of his recent posts discusses the typeface used by the Obama presidential campaign (Gotham) and includes a video clip on its origin which was filmed during the production of Helvetica. He also mentions thoughts on the similarities between the characters of the typeface and of the Obama campaign.
Looking through Gary’s previous posts, I came across a link to Why Don’t Book Publishers Use Helvetica? on the Guardian Book Blog. What follows is an interesting discussion of serif versus sans serif fonts. Personally, I prefer the serifs when reading books. I’ve been conditioned to feel that I’m reading a memo or computer manual when I see sans serif typefaces. And I do believe that serifs ease reading over long passages. Helvetica is great for logos and large signs, but I don’t think it would work well as the small, close text of a novel.
Filed under fonts, politics, typefaces, typography | Comments (6)Sidereus Nuncius
I watched the lunar eclipse last night, standing in the yard with a pair of old birding binoculars. The sky clouded over completely just after the full eclipse, but I was able to see the first half of it pretty well. A telescope would have been better, but through the binoculars you can see well enough to get a nice sense of the Moon’s three dimensionality. I’ll have to remind myself to go out with the binoculars again on a clear night.
In the meantime, the Moon in antiquarian books:
- The University of Vienna offers a download of a 1515 Italian edition of Ptolemy’s treatise on astronomical mathematics, the Almagest, (The Great Book) which has two chapters on the movements of the moon and eclipses.
- An image from the Almagest hosted by the University of Minnesota:
- The Linda Hall Library has created Face of the Moon, a detailed online exhibit featuring scientific Moon images from the Renaissance through the 1970s.
- The CalTech Institute Archives has a large digital collection, including some of Galileo’s Moon images from the Sidereus Nuncius (the Sidereal Messenger) of 1610. This was first scientific work based on observations made using a telescope. Besides the Moon it includes studies of the stars and the moons of Jupiter.
- A Time Magazine article on watercolor sketches in a printer’s proof of Sidereus Nuncius which may be in Galileo’s own hand.
- Moon map by Johannes Helvius, 1647, from the digital collection of the U.S. Naval Observatory Library, which has made available a number of fantastic astronomical images:
