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Category: Inventions

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Watching Baseball at the Opera House

Posted by: Jennifer Harbster

The following is a guest post by Emmy-Award-winning engineer Mark Schubin. He has been writing about the intersecting histories of opera and media technology since 1972 and currently serves as engineer-in-charge of the Metropolitan Opera’s Media Department. In October 2011, Mark gave a presentation at the Library on the “Fandom of the Opera: How a …

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Pic of the Week: Scientific Treasures

Posted by: Jennifer Harbster

This week I participated in the Science at Risk: Toward a National Strategy for Preserving Online Science meeting hosted by the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP). During this two-day meeting the Library’s recently-retired manuscript specialist Len Bruno took us on a journey through the scientific treasures of the Library’s  Manuscript Division. On display were items …

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Loving the Stars- Telescopes, from Galileo to James Webb

Posted by: Jennifer Harbster

Today’s post is from science reference librarian  Margaret Clifton.  She is also the author of Saving Energy: The Fall Back Position, Stars in his Eyes and Sun Spots this Summer.  I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night – Sarah Willams (1837-1868)* In February of 2010 I wrote a post  for Inside …

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Through the Lens of Opera

Posted by: Jennifer Harbster

Disregard what you learned from the history books about the first sound movie, first color TV program, first  stereo broadcast….because opera did it first! Some of the first synchronized sound movies were of opera arias shown at the Phono-Cinema-Theatre at the 1900 Paris World’s Fair. A sound movie of the complete opera Faust was released …

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As American as Peanut Butter and Jelly

Posted by: Jennifer Harbster

Today’s post is by 2011 Junior Fellow  Brian Horowitz of Montgomery College in Maryland. Brian is also the author of  the  Art of War…and of Sandwich Making and Stumbled upon in the Stacks– a brief biography of Brevet Major Alfred Mordecai. In elementary school my favorite lunch consisted of a peanut butter and jelly (PB&J)  sandwich in a brown …