MeFi Projects

This is an online version of an exhibition held at Houghton Library in the summer of 2022, set in a virtual recreation of the library's exhibition space. The exhibition highlights 40 examples from Houghton collections of early modern portraits of named people of color from around the world.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Dec 22, 2022 - 1 comment

I just defended my dissertation and one of the main offerings is a toolkit of resources for library workers to design and discover restorative environments. Since MeFi is a place full of people who either are librarians, or who love them, I thought it might be a good fit for announcing here.
posted by 10ch on Dec 12, 2022 - 3 comments

A website that honors the libraries that Andrew Carnegie helped to fund. [more inside]
posted by jessamyn on Aug 24, 2021 - 8 comments

Available for Firefox and Chrome. Is your Kanopy.com movie queue way too long and giving you decision paralysis? Let this extension choose for you! [more inside]
posted by waninggibbon on Jan 20, 2021 - 2 comments

I posted previously on Projects about the literary food blog that my friend and I write, and now I'm back to share that we have published a book! [more inside]
posted by exceptinsects on Oct 14, 2019 - 6 comments

The Library of Congress contains vast troves of digital resources. LOC Serendipity is a website that simulates the experience of exploring a library and skimming eye-catching or interesting titles. From books like, "Dainty dishes for slender incomes," which contains a delicious recipe for beignets, to the oddball early-1800's "Memoirs of the notorious Stephen Burroughs of New Hampshire" to "The forgotten book," published in 2018, this tool enables serendipitous and deeply engaging discovery every day. [more inside]
posted by metasunday on Mar 10, 2019 - 3 comments

When the evil Dr. Glockenspiel threatens to destroy every book in the world, only one person can stop him: Lyric McKerrigan, secret librarian. Will she be able to defeat Dr. Glockenspiel's army of giant moths? You'll have to read my first published picture book to find out. (That link goes to Indiebound. If you don't have a local indie bookstore, you can also find it on Amazon.) The art is by the Eisner-winning Caldecott honoree Vera Brosgol (previously, previously) and she is FANTASTIC. [more inside]
posted by yankeefog on Sep 4, 2018 - 5 comments

I don't have much of a background in programming, but I do have a bit of one in libraries. This was my final paper for a graduate course from last semester. I'm curious to hear from other people in the library and programming fields about the viability of the idea. Is it useful, feasible, doable? The basic idea is to automatically attach search terms to library items that end up being used because of those search terms. I'd love to hear what you think!
posted by holmesian on Feb 14, 2017 - 1 comment

We're doing a program to complement summer reading in the Vermont, the Passport to Vermont Libraries. The Vermont Library Association designed a passport and made 1000 of them to give to patrons at participating libraries. Vermont has about 200 libraries (if you count publics and academics and others) and almost 100 of them signed up. You all helped me get started! [more inside]
posted by jessamyn on Jun 3, 2015 - 4 comments

As part of Open Data Day DC, I began the Books for DC (aka 'booksfordc') project with the goal of increasing user engagement with the DC Public Library's many wonderful resources. Last month, I wrote a web scraper that publishes a Twitter feed of new additions to the DCPL book catalog. And I just released a Chrome browser extension that lets you know what books and ebooks are available at the DCPL when browsing Amazon, Goodreads, or Barnes & Noble. [more inside]
posted by waninggibbon on Mar 15, 2015 - 6 comments

This is [indirectly] Jessamyn's fault. :) [more inside]
posted by bitter-girl.com on Feb 18, 2015 - 2 comments

You're The Expert is a live show and podcast that makes academic research fun and accessible through comedy. I appeared on a special episode taped at the Boston Book Festival in my capacity as a rare book and manuscript librarian at Harvard's Houghton Library. Also available from Stitcher or as a direct mp3 link.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Oct 29, 2013 - 2 comments

We're constantly digitizing new material at my library, which is Harvard's largest for rare books and manuscripts. I post about larger collections on our blog, but I wanted to have a place to put interesting single images as well. Right now, I plan on posting one new item per day. Each image links to the record in our online catalog, for anyone who wants to know more about the source or come in to see it in person.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Jun 6, 2013 - 1 comment

Recently, I've been using concordances of poems in my teaching and presenting, and have been surprised at the new poems that emerge from the rearranged works. I started a single-topic tumblr to document some of my favorites. [more inside]
posted by activitystory on Apr 30, 2013 - 4 comments

Our default display interface for digitized books and manuscripts uses frames (I know) and worked very poorly on mobile devices. We've just released an interface that autodetects visits from these devices and routes them to an alternative interface that is much more usable, and offers orientation awareness and gesture based page-turning and zooming . To try it, follow this link on your touchscreen device. Try it out, and please leave me any feedback you have about your experience.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Feb 13, 2013 - 0 comments

In 1962, John R. Platt predicted a personal microfilm library of all the world's written records would soon be installed in every home. In essence, he hypothesised a pre-digital Internet powered by photographic film, optical lenses and the postal service. [more inside]
posted by distorte on Nov 7, 2012 - 2 comments

The Publication Standards Project campaigns for free and open standards for digital publishing, for the benefit of readers, writers, libraries, and publishers alike. We started with a two-part essay by nickd on A List Apart. Last month's campaign concerned DRM, and this month we're focusing on libraries. We hope our supporters will embrace Monday, July 16 as Information Access Day and take the opportunity to open a conversation on issues of information freedom, literacy, and access.
posted by booknerd on Jul 12, 2012 - 0 comments

I'm one of the contributors to the blog of Houghton Library, Harvard's primary repository for rare books and manuscripts. This year we've inaugurated a new feature called You've Got Mail, which highlights a letter from Houghton's collections every Friday. Posts so far have included letters from Ben Franklin, Herman Melville, Rene Descartes, and the conjoined twins Chang and Eng.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Feb 12, 2012 - 0 comments

It occurred to me that some of the best conversations I’ve had lately revolve around the question - why are you a librarian? I thought it would be fun to collect these stories in a central place so that we’d have a snapshot of all the different reasons people join the information science profession but more importantly, why we’ve stayed in libraries. I’m collecting anecdotes from Twitter (tweet with hash tag #ilibcause), via email (ilibcause@gmail.com) and via a submission form on the website ilibcause.com/submit. More information available at ilibcause.com/about. [more inside]
posted by ginagina on Apr 21, 2011 - 1 comment