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T
HIS month’s Mediawatching is reaching far and wide – from the moon to
endangered rain forests, all via a quick trip back in time to 1959. The launch of the Mini at the end of the 50s saw the tiny runabout quickly establish itself as a motoring icon, and the Alec Issigonis-designed car is the subject of an Irish Times’ Design Moment column. It took just six years for the Mini to rack up a million sales as it became a car for everyone, “appealing to all demographics, from pop stars to librarians,” according to Bernice Harrison who wrote the article. Thanks to Elizabeth Murphy, who noted that librarians were at the “end of the notional scale”, for sharing the article, which can be found here
https://bit.ly/2Ss9Zxp. Five, four, three, two, one… Blast Off! And news of a moon mission that is establishing the world’s first extra- terrestrial library. The Arch Mission Foundation (AMF) has created a digital Lunar Library containing 30 million pages of humanity’s greatest cultural offerings. The compendium is designed to be a back-up plan for humanity in case things go dreadfully wrong back on earth. Embedded on a specially-designed disc that will apparently last for one billion years, with the moon providing a perfectly sterile, cold and oxygen-free atmosphere that will ensure the archive’s enduring viability. Nova Spivack, co-founder and Chair of AMF, said: “We can definitely preserve
Dracula. Indeed, it is not fanciful to suggest that his extraordinary tale of the Transylvanian undead has many of its origins in the quiet confines of St James’s Square.”
Bram Stoker found the London Library a valuable source for research.
our unique cultural heritage and biological record in a way that will survive for millions to billions of years.”
Due to some oversight on the part of AMF, Mediawatching has not been asked to supply back issues for inclusion on the discs, so we will have to wait until the next mission is launched to save humanity’s cultural heritage. Find the full story at
https://bit.ly/2EyBFgs. Next, we move to creatures of the night and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, who certainly preferred to conduct his business by moonlight. It turns out that author Bram Stoker researched much of his novel in the London Library. Phillip Spedding, the Library’s Development Director, discovered a series of books held within the collection that appear to have been annotated by Stoker. Detective work by Phillip matched handwritten notes from 1913 with markings from 25 books held by the London Library (
www.londonlibrary.co.uk/ dracula).
Fly me to the moon. March 2019
It has long been known that Stoker was a member of the library, but until Phillip’s discovery no one was aware just how, or even if, he made use of the collection in researching Dracula. Phillip said: “It is almost certain that the books we have found have been marked up by Bram Stoker himself and that he drew heavily on The London Library’s collection to help research
From the sharp fangs of Transylvania’s most famous resident to the sharp fangs of Millie the cat – who has died at the ripe old age of 17. The moggy was a popular and semi-permanent resident of the Spires Shopping Centre in Barnet, and upset members of the local community have now raised £2,000 for a statue in her honour. And while she was known as the Spires Cat, and occasionally the Waitrose Cat, she also spent time at the local library, picking up the moniker of Library Cat as well. MailOnline reports that her owner is now exploring the possibility of erecting a plaque, statue or a bench bearing Millie’s name in the shopping centre (
https://dailym.ai/2UeEKYt). Finally, Kew Gardens has created a tree library that is helping the fight against illegal logging. The move is part of Kew’s research that is helping customs officials identify illegal timber and forms part of an alliance with conservations to create the Global Timber Referencing Project. According to the Guardian (https://bit. ly/2Tg95ID) researchers will go further than just identifying trees, they will also work to identify where a tree was grown through the use of isotopes. This is important because trading teak from Thailand is allowed, while teak grown in Myanmar is banned. IP
Nilambur teak forest. INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 57
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