Museum Library

In June 2015 Alberto Manguel prepared to leave his centuries-old village home in France's Loire Valley and reestablish himself in a one-bedroom apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Packing up his enormous, 35,000 volume personal library, choosing which books to keep, store, or cast out, Manguel found himself in deep reverie on the nature of relationships between books and readers, books and collectors, order and disorder, memory and reading.

Using information in its everyday, nonspecialized sense, Michael Buckland explores the influence of information on what we know, the role of communication and recorded information in our daily lives, and the difficulty (or ease) of finding information. He shows that all this involves human perception, social behavior, changing technologies, and issues of trust.

"Big Data" is on the covers of Science, Nature, The Economist, and Wired magazines, on the front pages of the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. But despite the media hyperbole, as Christine Borgman points out in this examination of data and scholarly research, having the right data is usually better than having more data; little data can be just as valuable as big data. Borgman, an often-cited authority on scholarly communication, argues that data have no value or meaning in isolation; they exist within a knowledge infrastructure.

On an afternoon in January 1865, a roaring fire swept through the Smithsonian Institution. Dazed soldiers and worried citizens could only watch as the flames engulfed the museum's castle. Rare objects and valuable paintings were destroyed. The flames at the Smithsonian were not the first—and certainly would not be the last—disaster to upend a museum in the United States. The Museum explores the concepts of "crisis" as it relates to museums, and how these historic institutions have dealt with challenges ranging from depression and war to pandemic and philosophical uncertainty.

When Stink Moody's second grade class goes on a field trip to the Gross-Me-Out exhibit at the science museum, he learns that his very own nose has amazing sniffing abilities - and that some people have real jobs sniffing stuff for NASA! Soon Stink is engrossed in toilet water, corpse flowers, and all things smelly. But is his fetid footwear foul enough to win a Golden Clothespin Award? Loyal fans will be holding their breath for Stink's latest outrageous solo adventure.

It is a perfect spring day in Istanbul. Kemal, a wealthy heir, is about to become engaged to the aristocratic Sibel when he encounters Füsun, a beautiful shop girl. He falls in love and finds his established world of Westernized families, opulent parties, society gossip and dining room rituals is shattered.

Most of us take for granted that our books are vertical on our shelves with the spines facing out, but Henry Petroski, inveterately curious engineer, didn’t. As a result, listeners are guided along the astonishing evolution from papyrus scrolls boxed at Alexandria to upright books shelved at the Library of Congress. Petroski takes us into the pre-Gutenberg world, when books were so scarce they were chained to lecterns for security.

The Psychic Lives of Statues explores both the toppling of colonial statues and the erection of postcolonial ones, illuminating how statues remain powerful and compelling forms of memorialization. Engaging with artists, scholars, and activists, Rao offers a fresh and exciting perspective on how we understand our past and present through iconography.

Nella sala di lettura del British Museum il professor Julius Arnell esala l’ultimo respiro. Sembrerebbe la classica morte per cause naturali. Ma quando dei confetti avvelenati vengono ritrovati nelle sue tasche, all’ispettore Shelley e al suo improbabile compagno di indagini non resterà che usare tutto il loro fiuto per scoprire l’identità del pericoloso omicida.

Sitting on the banks of the river Seine, in the very heart of Paris, the Musée d'Orsay is known worldwide for its exceptional collection of impressionist paintings. These works were absolutely scandalous at the time and for some, they still obviously are. Also, it provides a genuine feeling of time travel by recreating the context in which every single work of art has been produced. Its history is also full of twists and surprises. All of this contributes to making the Musée d'Orsay one of the most alive and striking museums ever.

The Brutish Museums sits at the heart of a heated debate about cultural restitution, repatriation and the decolonisation of museums. Since its first publication, museums across the western world have begun to return their Bronzes to Nigeria, heralding a new era in the way we understand the collections of empire we once took for granted.

Dewey's Nine Lives offers nine funny, inspiring, and heartwarming stories about cats - all told from the perspective of "Dewey's Mom", librarian Vicki Myron. The amazing felines in this audiobook include Dewey, of course, whose further never-before-told adventures are shared, and several others Vicki found out about when their owners reached out to her.

People who love art, are fascinated by archaeology, or are history buffs may have considered the idea of working in a museum. But experience as a museum visitor reveals only the public-facing side of the museum, and not its complex, dynamic internal structure. So You Want to Work in A Museum? helps to demystify museums as institutions and to prepare prospective museum staff to explore the field further.

At first glance, Josh Hanagarne seems an improbable librarian. He stands 6'7", competes in strongman contests, and was diagnosed in high school with Tourette's syndrome. But books are his first love - Josh's earliest memories involve fantastic adventures between the pages of Gulliver’s Travels and a passionate infatuation with Fern from Charlotte’s Web. Everything in Josh’s life - from his Mormon upbringing, to finally finding love, to learning to control his tics through lifting - circles back to a close connection with books.

Inviting listeners to explore a modern field of study with deep historical foundations, the book begins by considering the complexities of the term "information" and the information life cycle from classification to preservation. Each chapter examines a different area within IS, surveying its history, technologies, and practices with a critical eye.

Py-Lieberman reflects on the profound connections between even outwardly dissimilar objects and offers insight and stories from Smithsonian experts. The book explores artworks, scientific specimens, historical artifacts, airplanes, spacecraft, plants, and so much more, contemplating how each item represents different facets of humanity and resonates with cultural meaning in surprising ways. Whimsical, affecting, and insightful, The Object at Hand offers an intimate and exclusive tour of the Smithsonian collections.

日本が当事国であった戦争を知る世代が少なくなるなか，忘れてはならない記録と記憶の継承を志す場があり，人がいる．戦争の時代を生きた人間を描くノンフィクションを多数ものしてきた作家が，各地の平和のための博物館を訪ね，そこで触れた土地の歴史と人びとの語りを伝える．

Buried in information? Cross-eyed over technology? From the bottom of a pile of paper and discs, books, e-books, and scattered thumb drives comes a cry of hope: Make way for the librarians! They want to help. They're not selling a thing. And librarians know best how to beat a path through the googolplex sources of information available to us.

A never-before-published Dr. Seuss work about creating and looking at art! Based on a manuscript and sketches discovered in 2013, this audiobook is like a visit to a museum - with a horse as your guide! Explore how different artists - including Picasso, George Stubbs, Rosa Bonheur, Alexander Calder, Jacob Lawrence, Deborah Butterfield, Franz Marc, Jackson Pollock - have seen horses and maybe even find a new way of looking at them yourself.

The day Japan bombs Pearl Harbor, four 13-year-olds converge at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where an eccentric curator is seeking four uncommonly brave souls to track down the hidden pages of the Kelmsbury Manuscript, an ancient book of Arthurian legends that lies scattered within the museum's collection and that holds the key to preventing a second attack on American soil.