That's a great question!

Libraries, higher education, print culture and more.

[toastgull]

Reblog and you’re guaranteed to be successful at whatever you do next!

[sonofthesummersun]

This is at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. This is a statue of Thomas Jefferson.

Those bricks behind him?

Each one has the name of an enslaved person that Thomas Jefferson owned.

[annearachne]

Also written behind him on the wall is the section of the Declaration of Independance which states all men are created equal.

[yesterdaysprint]

News-Journal, Mansfield, Ohio, May 6, 1929

[lastnightsreading]

N.K. Jemisin at @housingworksbookstore, 8/15/17

[mysimpsonsblogisgreaterthanyours]

[animatedtext]

[totalspiffage]

tfw you know your complaining is annoying everyone so you gotta decide if it’s worth it to vent a little

[markv5]

Безудержное летнее веселье…

[lexaproletariat-deactivated2018]

[iowawomensarchives]

Writer and artist, Kay Burford, was among the first three women to attend the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. She was also and avid feline-phile! In 1984, Burford wrote and illustrated a humorous “self help book for cats” entitled Follow Your Own Footsteps. 

Here’s a picture of two her feline friends, Fluffy-Boo and Beastie Cat. 

[lastnightsreading]

Jenny Zhang at Barnes and Noble UES, 8/8/17

[justseventeen]

August 1985. ‘The Serge is on!’

[aromanticgcallen]

Things I Should Be Doing

so many

Things I Am Not Currently Doing

any of that

[mechanicalcurator]

Image from ‘A Thousand Miles up the Nile … With … illustrations, etc’, 001040573

Author: EDWARDS, Amelia Blandford.

Volume: 02

Page: 187

Year: 1877

Place: London

Publisher:

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View all the images from this book

Following the link above will take you to the British Library’s integrated catalogue. You will be able to download a PDF of the book this image is taken from, as well as view the pages up close with the 'itemViewer’. Click on the 'related items’ to search for the electronic version of this work.

Open the page in the British Library’s itemViewer (page: 000187)

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[todaysdocument]

[todaysdocument]

Hedy Lamarr’s Secret Communication System, 8/11/1942

Patent Case File 2,292,387; Patent Case Files, 1836-1993; Records of the Patent and Trademark Office, Record Group 241; National Archives 

Did you know the screen legend Hedy Lamarr was also a patent holder?  Having fled Europe and an unhappy marriage to an Austrian munitions manufacturer, Lamarr relocated to the United States prior to the outbreak of World War II.  In collaboration with avant-garde composer George Antheil, the two used knowledge from their respective fields to patent a “secret communication system.”  Their invention was intended to guide a torpedo by remote control to an enemy target, utilizing a novel synchronized frequency-hopping radio signal to prevent any jamming or interference from the enemy.

Figure 7 above depicts the torpedo in action, controlled from a mother ship and spotter aircraft, adjusting course to account for the ocean current and the enemy ship’s evasive maneuvers.

Their innovative system was never adopted during the war, and neither would ever profit from their patent, but their ideas in frequency shifting would later prove instrumental in modern cellular and WiFi communications methods. Both Lamarr and Antheil were later inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.

[myzuer]

Mushroom

[valoricky]

Wow!

[mechanicalcurator]

Image from ’[Our own country. Descriptive, historical, pictorial.]’, 002732646

Author:

Volume: 01

Page: 241

Year: 1885

Place: London

Publisher: Cassell & Co.

View this image on Flickr

View all the images from this book

Following the link above will take you to the British Library’s integrated catalogue. You will be able to download a PDF of the book this image is taken from, as well as view the pages up close with the ‘itemViewer’. Click on the 'related items’ to search for the electronic version of this work.

Open the page in the British Library’s itemViewer (page: 000241)

Download the PDF for this book

[widenerlibrary]

We can’t find any information about James and Maud Roberston, but they certainly had a very Romantic bookplate for their library.

From: Modern Bookplates and Their Designers (1900)