Must Read Book-Discovering the Great Masters: The Art Lover's Guide to Understanding Symbols in Painting

So I've been lost in the most wonderful book, it seems to detour me from reading anything else (with the exception of cook books, my current obsession).
Discovering the Great Masters: The Art Lover's Guide to Understanding Symbols in Painting by Paul Crenshaw is a gorgeous, oversize book with glorious photos of some of the most recognized art works in the world. Really this book is stunning and if it wasn't so big, I wouldn't put it down!
I started the book by quickly skimming through and marking each of the works I have seen personally. Not surprisingly many are housed at the Louvre in Paris, the Prado in Madrid and throughout museums and churches in Italy. What makes this book such a fun and completely immersing read is the use of cut out pages which when overlayed over a famous work allow only a glimpse of a particular section of the piece for study, including the explanation of symbolism in the work. Have you ever wanted to know what makes Mona Lisa's smile so mysterious, or what the symbolism in The Last Supper truly means...than this is the book for you.
I have created a list of the works featured in the book that I have actually seen while traveling, I will list them here for my own future reference. The remainder of the works in the book I have on a list tucked in my wallet, looks like I need to plan a trip to Florence Italy to truly say I have seen many of the greatest art works on earth.

Works I've already seen:
The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan Van Eyck, The National Gallery, London
The Deposition from the Cross by Rogier Van Der Weyden, The Prado, Madrid
Madonna della Vittoria, The Louvre, Paris
Pallas Athena Expelling the Vices by Andrea Mantegna, The Louvre, Paris
The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci, Santa Maria Delle Grazie, Milan
Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci, The Louvre, Paris
The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, The Prado, Madrid
A Banker and His Wife by Quinten Metsys, The Louvre, Paris
Bacchanal of the Andrians by Titan, The Prado, Madrid
The French Ambassadors by Hans Holbein The Younger, National Gallery of Art, London
A Christian Allegory bu Jan Provost, The Louvre, Paris
Allegory of Vanity by Jan Van Der Straet, The Louvre, Paris
Allegory of Sight by Jan Breughel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens, The Prado, Madrid
The Education of Marie de'Medici by Peter Paul Rubens, The Louvre, Paris
The Spinners by Diego Velazquez, The Prado, Madrid
The Gathering of Manna by Nicolas Poussin, The Louvre, Paris
Les Meninas by Diego Velazquez, The Prado, Madrid
Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacroix, The Louvre, Paris
The Apotheosis of Homer by Jean Auguste-Dominique Ingres, The Louvre, Paris

Thoughts on ALA Annual-Any Benefit in Membership?

After spending the weekend at ALA's Annual Conference in Chicago I have mixed feelings on my continued membership in ALA. It was nice to attend the conference as an attendee instead of an employee and I enjoyed the ease of attending a conference so close to home. However I am torn on the benefits of membership in ALA and don't think I will be renewing my $98.00 membership dues as the end of this month.

Here are a few of my thoughts on ALA membership:
1. In the years I have been a member of ALA I have received very little educational, career or personal benefit from membership.
2. I find ALA to be out of touch with younger and newer-to-the-profession librarians and very slow in bridging the gap between us and the organization.
3. The ALA website, event planner and other technologies are often out of date, slow and not easily accessible.
4. I've seen many of my peers in the field speak at ILA and NSLS events which were more relative to my work than seeing them on a panel in an overcrowded conference room at an ALA conference.
5. Cost, seriously the cost of joining ALA is expensive and if a member is interested in also joining one of the ALA divisions like PLA or YALSA there is an additional cost for each unit. Very few librarians can afford yearly ALA membership dues running into the hundreds of dollars.

Here is what worked for me at the ALA Annual Conference:
1. The choice of McCormick Place West as the conference center. The train system to and from Chicago is excellent and takes you into the heart of the City. A cab ride to McCormick from the main train station is about $14, cheaper than parking and manageable if sharing a cab with a colleague. I chose to drive in on 2 days and the parking was excellently located, underneath the main conference floor and a bargain for the City of Chicago at $19 for the day.
2. The exhibit hall was wide open, well lit and not freezing. The exhibitors were friendly and author signings appeared to be well managed.
3. All but a couple of the programs I wanted to attend were on site at McCormick which meant no waiting for the bus system ALA provides between the conference center and the conference hotels.
4. The special events I attended were the highlight of the conference. Both the YALSA Fashion Show and Happy Hour (at the Westin River North Hotel)and the ALA Scholarship Bash (at the Art Institute) were excellent events, well attended and lots of fun!
5. Good signage throughout the conference center and programs started on-time. Plus I was able to find a seat in all but 1 of the programs.

Here is what didn't work for me at the ALA Annual Conference:
1. The cost. Expensive for a full conference registration. If I attend another ALA Annual Conference again I absolutely will not pay for the entire conference only exhibits and a few special events.
2. Food options. Yes it's a conference center but $12.00 for a salad bar, come on. $6.50 for a cup of soup! $9.75 for a sandwich! Ya and only 1 Starbucks to handle thousands of people. If conference centers can't get businesses like Subway and other affordable food vendors in they are doomed.
3. The librarians there only for the free stuff. I know to expect this but really the grabbing and stuffing of their free tote bags with every imaginable piece of crap is nauseating. How many posters, bookmarks, pens and suckers do you need! And then as they try to squeeze by you in an overcrowded room they smack everyone's ankles with their jammed bags. Sigh.
4. Lack of networking opportunities. Sure there were some but I never found one without a cost associated with attendance.
5. Redundancy of programs. I attended 2 programs on Web 2.0, the only difference appeared to be in the catchy title of the program. I learned nothing new and walked away with no ideas or solutions for my library.

In the library field we've heard so much in the past few years about the future of libraries and the printed book but I think the real threat in the profession is to the relevancy of professional organizations like ALA that aren't adapting as quickly to the needs of members as librarians and libraries are adapting to the needs of their patrons.

Do You Know What's Going Digital?

The cover story of the Friday May 8 issue of The Wall Street Journal (titled The Next Age of Discovery) is about the race to digitize precious items from the past. Scholars, scientists, librarians and others are using digital technology to preserve rare manuscripts and artifacts from collections around the world. As I prepare to leave for London in a few days I have been searching the digitized collection of the British Library and have found wonderful images of works by Leonardo da Vinci and Jane Austen. The Library of Congress has an amazing collection called "American Memory" that includes slave narratives, maps, recordings and thousands of images. One of my favorites are the images of the contents of Abraham Lincoln's pockets on the evening he was assassinated. For a glimpse, click here.
How much more fascinating is the study of the past when you can see it? Here is a list of websites to browse compiled by The Wall Street Journal:
The British Library
The Library of Congress
The World Digital Library
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri at Oxford
Codex Sinaiticus
The Archimedes Palimpsest

One of the Greatest Home Libraries

Last week I blogged about home libraries and a few days later came across this excellent article on one of the world's greatest personal collections at Wired.com.
The article, Browse the Artifacts of Geek History in Jay Walker's Library takes you on a tour of the founder of Priceline's "priceless" collection. The pictures show an almost unbelievable library built to display a mind numbing array of books, artifacts, models, antiques and maps. Walker owns an original 1493 copy of the Nuremberg Chronicle, a 1535 Coverdale Bible, 20th Century books covered in jewels and thousands of other items in the same room as an original Sputnik satellite, a field tool kit of Civil War surgeons, the original hand from the TV show The Addams Family and a chandelier from the Bond movie Die Another Day!
Check out the article and the amazing pictures. The library is private and has only been viewed by invitation from Walker, in fact the article is the first time a member of the press was allowed access.
Just reading about this man's fantastic collection made me happy that somewhere someone had the means and the thought to collect all those treasures. To me just a glimpse of such a place is a fantasy brought to reality.

End of Summer

Most of our kids are enjoying their last days of summer vacation before another long school year begins. Here's hoping that most of you squeezed in your family vacations, trips to the pool and lots of bbqs with family and friends. One of the top priorities on my summer-to-do list (see my earlier post here:http://livelylibrarian.blogspot.com/2008/05/new-exhibits-at-chicago-museums.html) was to see 2 exhibits at Chicago museums. My son and I recently visited the Field Museum to see the Mythical Creatures exhibit and while not as good as I had hoped, it was worth the visit. This past Friday my Library had a Staff Development day at the Museum of Science and Industry to see the Smart Home: Green and Wired. Not only is the museum fantastic but the new exhibit is really inspiring. Showcasing current green technology and ideas the house is a not-to-be-missed event.
One of the little known facts about Chicago museums is that they have some of the best gift shops in the City. Not only do they collect fare from around the world but they offer items relevant to their special exhibits. I bought a great reusable bag (Reisenthel Cityshopper see post http://livelylibrarian.blogspot.com/2008/08/ireland-is-green.html, a scarf from India and an organic cotton t-shirt with the green message.
When supporting your local museum also consider supporting their shops and the vendors they use from around the world.