University libraries and their books

“University libraries around the world are seeing precipitous declines in the use of the books on their shelves”: Dan Cohen, Vice Provost for Information Collaboration at Northeastern University, writing in The Atlantic. Both faculty and students, Cohen writes, are making less use of printed books.

See also Bryan Garner on the trend of “deaccessioning” books from university libraries (ABA Journal).

A related post
Weeding

Memorial Day

[“Water fountain on Memorial Day.” Photograph by Marjory Collins. Greenbelt, Maryland. May–June 1942. From the Library of Congress. Click for a larger view.]

Hi and Lois watch

[Hi and Lois, May 26, 2019. Click for a larger, more disturbing view.]

Here are the final panels of today’s Hi and Lois. How long has Thirsty been crouched against his side of the hedge, secretly hoping for an invite to the Flagstons’ cookout? At least I hope that’s what he’s been doing. Mysteries abound in the interstices.

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All OCA Hi and Lois posts (Pinboard)

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Finishing today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, is “Quite an accomplishment” (1-Across, ten letters). I had to travel down to 55-Across, four letters, “Pisa/Mona Lisa rhymer (1934)” to find a way in. That answer gave me 27-Down, “Great examples,” and more answers began to fall into place.

A clue that tricked me up: 28-Down, five letters, “Tied up in the ring.” The clues I liked best: 1-Down, four letters, “Buff to an excessive extent.” 19-Across, three letters, “Cause of many hand movements: Abbr.” And 21-Across, six letters, “Last character seen in ‘Hamlet.’” All four answers look obvious once they’re in place, but getting them, for me, was 1-Across, ten letters.

No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

NYT, sheesh

A sentence from Dwight Garner’s review of Wendell Berry’s What I Stand On: The Collected Essays:


[The New York Times, May 20, 2019. Click for a larger mistake.]

I read this sentence last night. This morning the mistake’s still there.

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All OCA sheesh posts (Pinboard)

Hi and Lois watch

[Hi and Lois, May 25, 2019. Click for a larger view.]

Anything can happen in a Hi and Lois interstice. Here, it appears, both the trapdoor and Thirsty Thurston have changed position. I’m not sure which of the two is less likely to have moved.

The tired misogyny of the “He-Man Woman Haters Club” dates to 1937. Give it up, boys.

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All OCA Hi and Lois posts (Pinboard)

Weeding

An exceptionally good episode of the podcast 99% Invisible: “Weeding Is Fundamental,” on library deaccessioning gone wrong. The story of the San Francisco Library reminded me of a recent Illinois misadventure in weeding that began when a library director ordered the removal of all non-fiction books more than ten years old. The library board ended up removing that director.

“The genre of the sentence”

Verlyn Klinkenborg:

I’m interested in the genre of the sentence,
The genre that’s always overlooked.

Several Short Sentences About Writing (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012)

That’s more and more my interest in reading and writing. Artful sentences, please. Keep them coming.

Last week I was happy to see Several Short Sentences About Writing prominent in bookstores in Boston and New York. I suspect that the book is becoming a DIY manual for those who would write well. But does it get much classroom use? The book still does not appear in the listings of The Open Syllabus Project.

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All OCA Verlyn Klinkenborg posts (Pinboard)

[“Artful sentences”: from Virginia Tufte’s Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style (Graphics Press, 2006).]

“Penciled rain”

Maeve Brennan, “The Shadow of Kindness,” in The Springs of Affection: Stories of Dublin (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997).

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All OCA Maeve Brennan posts (Pinboard)

New directions in spelling, okay?

“Achomlishments.” “Intentially.”

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Donald Trump’s spelling

[“Okay”: As in “I’m an extremely stable genius, okay?”]