Showcasing the hidden treasures in the collections of the Othmer Library of Chemical History at the Science History Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Our collections assistant is going through a rather large donation that has fun little surprises like this. A jewelry box with a very small leather bound book! The book contains the United States' pledge of allegiance.
Bat stars — the ultimate arm wrestling champions of the sea! 🌊💪
When these stars bump into each other, it's not just a friendly handshake, it's a 'gently intense' arm wrestling match! They become engaged in a slow-motion skirmish, striving to get the upper hand, er, arm. Who knew stars could be so competitive? 🌟
A pack horse librarian delivering books in rural Kentucky in 1938. During the Great Depression, the Pack Horse Library Project was a Works Progress Administration (WPA) program in which the librarians, who were often called "book women" or "book ladies," delivered books to remote parts of Appalachia.
Librarians are amazing. They love reading so much, they will find a way to get books to people.
We return to Trianon Press's publications of William Blake's works this week, this time taking a look at William Blake's Illustrations of the Book of Job. It is similar to other Trianon Press works we have shared, with a leather and marbled paper half-binding. These two volumes slide into a single slipcase to protect them, which is part of the reason the marbling is in such good shape. These are part of a set with a group of colored plates of Blake's illustrations for the Book of Job that comes in its very own slipcase.
The marbling is a nonpareil pattern, one of the most foundational patterns in marbling. Nonpareil uses usually a stone or Turkish pattern base followed by a gelgit (zigzag) pattern that is ultimately combed to create the small lines or arches seen in the final pattern. This example uses shades of blue and tan to create the pattern.
A Total Solar Eclipse over Wyoming
Image Credit & Copyright: Ben Cooper
Explanation: Will the sky be clear enough to see the eclipse? This question is already on the minds of many North Americans hoping to see tomorrow’s solar eclipse. This question was also on the mind of many people attempting to see the total solar eclipse that crossed North America in August 2017. Then, the path of total darkness shot across the mainland of the USA from coast to coast, from Oregon to South Carolina – but, like tomorrow’s event, a partial eclipse occurred above most of North America. Unfortunately, in 2017, many locations saw predominantly clouds. One location that did not was a bank of the Green River Lakes, Wyoming. Intermittent clouds were far enough away to allow the center image of the featured composite sequence to be taken, an image that shows the corona of the Sun extending out past the central dark Moon that blocks our familiar Sun. The surrounding images show the partial phases of the solar eclipse both before and after totality.