The Library’s curators and specialists are gearing up and pounding the pedals for an exciting tour of the Library’s collections related to the history of cycling for visiting historians of the International Cycling History Conference. On Friday August 8, 2014 from 1:30-3:00 p.m. the Mumford Room, in the Library’s Madison Building, will be the hub …
For the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics Games I wrote about an exhibit I created of ‘classic’ winter sport and game books (1800-1950) in the post He Shoots, He Scores: A Love of Winter Games. In this post I mentioned that the Library has been involved in digitization of its pre-1923 U.S. monograph imprint collection. Over the …
You might think this post will be about the battle between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49’ers in Superbowl XLVII (2013). This post is not about the players or the teams, but about a part of the game. Plain and simple, I am writing about the turf grass (natural and synthetic) because in …
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 …
The 30th Olympiad of the Modern Era, aka London 2012, is here! This is the third time London has hosted the Olympics. The first time was in 1908 (4th Olympiad) and the second was in 1948 (14th Olympiad). I thought it would be fun to examine how the Olympics have changed in the past 100 years , so I’m going to …
I am the granddaughter of a football coach and the Super Bowl XLV (45th) is this Sunday (Feb. 6), so I was inspired to write something for the blog about the history of football in the United States. I searched the Library’s online catalog, databases, and browsed the football section of the book stacks hoping …
Are you ready for some football? This week’s Pic of the Week comes from the Library’s Prints and Photographs collection and features a photograph taken during the first Super Bowl game. The Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs battled it out at the Los Angeles Coliseum January 15, 1967- with the Packers claiming victory …
This is the perfect time to write about winter sports with the excitement of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games fresh in our minds. A few years ago I did an exhibit of the Library’s winter sport and game books from 1800- 1950. The following are selected examples of notable works I used for the …