Tag: library

Astronomy in the Library

Posted on by Brian Garthwaite
Spines of astronomy texts on a library shelf.
Browsing the stacks.

Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 1970’s. Presumably a good chunk of it holds up? Chances are there are some spectacular discoveries (like our modern value of the Hubble constant) that would need a little updating. Maybe it’s also safe to assume that Astronomy and Astrophysics in the New Millennium has a few details now out of sync with our modern understanding?

By “our modern understanding,” we mean the field of experts, not the guys in the basement. We know stuff, sure. Some stuff.

Incidentally, Astronomy from a Space Platform is also from the ’70s. The proceedings from an AAAS symposium in Philadelphia in December 1970, it opens with an article titled “Energy Production from Nuclear Fusion,” highlighting the (then) current state of research on the subject.

Guess they didn’t yet realize what they were up against, but, hey, who doesn’t appreciate a little optimism now and then?

Perforations

Posted on by Brian Garthwaite
Perforation in library book page reads "Bucknell University Library"
Better or worse than a rubber stamp?

Old texts from the library sometimes still have these perforated markings, ensuring that no one forgets that this particular copy of Morse’s Vibration and Sound, from the International Series in Pure and Applied Physics, isn’t the same one that Grandma’s reading for her book club. They’re kind of charming in their own way, a means of labeling texts that disappeared at some point.

Presumably the librarians could enlighten us on that point, were we to ask nicely.

In the meantime, we’ll just muse over the idea that for a time, some individual had to take every new acquisition and punch a few of these before the first shelving. Some dedicated machine sat on a desk just for this purpose. And when it was a big day, those little punched-out chads probably got everywhere. The spilled glitter of their day.