'Darwin's entire works go online' by Ian Sample, The Guardian, 19 October 2006.

"The bestselling novelist Susan Hill yesterday accused senior managers of public libraries of abandoning their commitment to books and manoeuvring to turn library buildings into social centres." ('Writer rues library changes' by John Ezard. The Guardian, 11 September 2006).

'British Library acquires 'outstanding' Coleridge family archive' by Richard Lea, Guardian Unlimited, 21 August 2006.

'Coleridge's descendants sell papers that reveal family's views on a maverick poet', by Louise Jury, The Independent, 21 August 2006.

Thinking of joining the English Speaking Union, after seeing Dartmouth House and the impressive Page Memorial Library.

'Pressed for time' by Jim Gilchrist. The Scotsman, 12 May 2006.
"ON 4 APRIL, 1508, ... The Complaint of the Black Knight or The Mayng or Disport of Chaucer was the first book known to have been printed in Scotland.

The quincentenary of that first publication from a Scottish press is almost two years away, but on the 30th of this month, at the National Library of Scotland, a rolling programme of celebratory events for 2008 will be announced ..."

Boop Reads a Folk Tale (Cute Overload)

The Beatrix Potter Collections (V&A).

The Illustrators Project: Helen Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) (University of Pittsburgh).

Peter Rabbit and Friends

What Women Want is the latest exhibition at the Women's Library. Exhibits are arranged to cover the areas of pleaseure, home life, work, security, independence and equality.

Monsterous Fish: a most strange and true report of a monsterous fish, who appeared in the forme of a woman, from her waste upwards on the National Library of Wales website.

Bestiary in Medieval Illumination is just one of the virtual exhibitions on the website of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France. Some of the pages have been translated into English.

Travels into several remote nations of the World by Lemuel Gulliver is Glasgow University's book of the month.

Looking around for pictures of Saint Paul, I came across this beautiful online edition of the Nuremberg Chronicle at the Morse Library, Beloit College.

The British Library has released an image of the original "obituary," of the Ashes from the Sporting Times, 2 September 1882, "In affectionate remembrance of English Cricket, which died at the Oval, on 29th August 1882, deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances. R.I.P. N.B - The body will be cremated and the ashes taken back to Australia." This marked the first time England had been defeated at home.

Revolting Librarians: cult underground collection from 1972.

"A public library in Holland has been swamped with queries after unveiling plans to "lend out" living people, including homosexuals, drug addicts, asylum seekers, gipsies and the physically handicapped.

The volunteers will be borrowed by users of the library, in Almelo, who can take them to a cafeteria, and ask them any questions they like for up to an hour, in a scheme designed to break down barriers and combat prejudice.

Under the scheme, photographs and short biographies of the volunteers will appear in the library, and on its website. Library users who wish to take a person out can apply for an appointment. Mr Krol said he had not cleared the scheme with his municipal bosses." ('Library that lets you take out people who are left on the shelf' by David Rennie. The Daily Telegraph, 25 August 2005).

"The second Holyrood Poetry Link scheme aims to celebrate the vibrancy of contemporary Scottish poetry, whilst providing an opportunity for Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) to demonstrate their support for the arts.

Poets and MSPs met to explore issues of mutual interest and agree a theme or themes on which the poet would write." (Introduction to the project). The poems are on the Scottish Poetry Library website.

Study in green, yellow, red and blue was one of a range of Phil Shaw pieces on the Art Movement stand at the AAF.

The V&A Access to Images site provides access to over 25,000 images of objects in the V&A Collections.

"Leonardo da Vinci was of the few great artists to leave a large quantity of writings; large and small notebooks, pocket books, and separate sheets. They were written in Leonardo's famous mirror-image script, with his left hand. All were left to Francesco Melzi, Leonardo's pupil, friend, and heir, who began the frustrating job of editing the jumble of notes with the aim of publishing them.

Melzi's first and only, project (c. 1550) was to compile a treatise on painting, the Trattato, which he never finished, and after Melzi died in 1570 Leonardo's original manuscripts were soon dispersed. Some given away, some stolen, some lost, some sold. Some were cut up for their drawings. Martin Kemp estimates that about three quarters of Leonardo's manuscripts are lost.

Melzi's unfinished manuscript for the Trattato found its way to the Urbino Library of Federigo da Montefeltro in 1472 ... After Federigo's death the contents of his library wound up in the Vatican Library under the name Codex Urbinas Latinus 1270, or simply the Codex Urbinas where it lay forgotten until 1817, when Guglielmo Manzi had it published."

This and more about Leonardo's work in the 'Leonardo' section of Geometry in Art & Architecture by Paul Calter.

Library Musical

Ex Libris Anonymous makes and sells blank journals, and is keen to point out that "EACH JOURNAL IS UNIQUE, as in one of a kind. they are all made from recycled book covers."

Is this a cool way to save books that would otherwise be pulped, or a cruel postmortem on much-loved but under-priced classics? I'm just not sure. Is anything fun wrong?