“In the Spirit of Gutenberg, Treasures for All”, an article in today’s New York Times technology section takes a look at the making of Octavo’s CD-ROM set of the LC (library of Congress) copy of the Gutenberg Bible. The opening line irritates me for so many reasons, but otherwise, I think it is an article worth reading.At the Octavo website, you can read about the 2 CD edition mentioned in the above article. There is also a (very expensive) 22 CD research facsimile edition with high resolution image files. Although it is a commercial site, it is worth browsing, if only to see how much digital imaging has advanced.
I know that other bloggers have written about this recently, but I am too time-pressed and lazy to search for links right now. Please feel free to add relevant links in the comments section.
November 13th, 2003
I have been having very strange and detailed library and book dreams lately so when I read (via librarian.net) Libronaut’s post on library dreams, I could not resist chiming in. Library dreams, after all, have long been my personal specialty.I had my first Special Collections dream a few weeks ago. I was looking for a book in our collection, but I could not find it. I spent most of the dream consulting bibliographies, accessions books, card catalogues, obscure research guides, and the like. Sadly, all of this was to no avail . . . Of course, on the surface, this was not a very exciting dream; it merely reflected my recent experiences in Special Collections (e.g., looking for books and not being able to find them). The difference, however, was the main figure in the dream. Unlike the non-dream me, the dream me was not discouraged by her book retrieval failure. Instead, she was determined and persevering. She was a pretty sophisticated book sleuth with skills to be envied.
The funny part of this story is that I told this dream to a co-worker who also has library dreams. My co-worker had a dream around the same time, but in her dream, a book was found hidden inside a wall. So, next time, if I have a book search dream, I will be sure to check the walls!
Recently, my library dreams have been replaced with a weird mix of literary and education-themed dreams. Last week, I was having dreams about Peter Pan. Inspired by a post by Lis Riba, I started re-reading Peter Pan, and although I found the book interesting, it wreaked all sorts of havoc on my sleeping life. I had several nights of nightmares about reading Peter Pan and nightmares about being Wendy, the girl who grew up. It made me wonder if my frequent and vivid nightmares as a child were not caused by overactive imagination after all but were instead the result of my choice in chapter books.
Last night I had an exam dream that was the exact opposite of a test anxiety dream. I wanted to take a standardized test, but the proctor would not let me into the testing room. I was determined to take the test because I knew I would do well so I planned elaborate ways to sneak in to the testing room and all sorts of craziness ensued.
If I keep dreaming like this, I may need to revive the dream journal I started as a pre-teen. Hmmm…I wonder what happened to those journals?
November 13th, 2003