“They have not been able to procure a whole statue, but they have ornamented the city with a nice large piece of the intended statue’s arm” (New York Times, Feb. 26, 1877).

The Statue

Officially titled Liberty Enlightening the World, the Statue of Liberty was first envisioned as a lighthouse at the entrance to the Suez Canal before evolving into the Lady Liberty we know today: a symbol of American independence and Franco-American friendship.

Representing freedom, patriotism, and immigrants’ first sight of the New World, it is now difficult to imagine the New York Harbor without this iconic American symbol. However, sparking enthusiasm for this project wasn’t as easy as some might imagine.

A Pedestal Problem

Led by designer Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, France proposed to bestow the statue to the United States, while Americans were asked to fundraise for its pedestal. Lady Liberty did need a place to stand, after all. Because Americans were not particularly passionate about this fundraising endeavor, Bartholdi developed a plan to raise attention and money: The Arm of Liberty was going on a journey.

First presented at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition (though delayed until one month before its closing), thrill seeking visitors could buy tickets to  climb a ladder in the statue’s arm up to the torch, fostering curiosity and excitement in Bartholdi's creation.

“Finally, our eyes were gladdened by the actual receipt of a section of “Liberty,” consisting of one arm; with its accompanying hand of such enormous proportion that the thumb nail afforded an easy seat for the largest fat woman now in existence” (New York Times, Sept. 29, 1876).

“An Isolated and Useless Arm”

Despite sparking public interest, the Centennial Exhibition raised concerns about fate of the rest of Lady Liberty’s body and, in September 1876, the New York Times reported that “the statue has been suspended in consequence of a lack of funds.” Bartholdi chose the arm (over other body parts) because it would make an acceptable standalone structure if the project failed, and for some time, it seemed very possible that the arm is all we would have.

Igniting a Rivalry

In a clever response to the New York Times, Bartholdi said that he might just allow Philadelphia to claim the statue instead of the intended New York Harbor. Within a few months, New York took Bartholdi’s bait and announced that the hand and torch would be displayed in Madison Square while they awaited the rest of the statue.

Six Years in Madison Square

With the wrist reaching treetops and rooftops, and the flame high enough to see for many blocks, the Arm of Liberty became a long-standing advertisement for the statue from 1876-1882. Souvenir photographs were sold, and for 50 cents, visitors could climb a ladder leading to the balcony (NYPL, 1986). While this massive arm triggered public enthusiasm for the project, it eventually began to blend into the city’s background, with its surrounding grounds “infested” with infants and children.

Critics, however, did not feed into this excitement, and mockingly suggested that the statue’s other body parts be scattered throughout the city. In fact, they quipped, “we have hardly a public statue which would not be improved by being [divided] and distributed” (New York Times, Feb. 26, 1877).

Lady Liberty Was Going Where?!

Rivalries continued over the years, and despite New York’s apparent indifference to the statue, they were appalled when another city tried to claim Lady Liberty. A monument so iconic to New York, it is difficult to imagine the Statue of Liberty anywhere else. While Philadelphia was always a contender for the statue, Boston had also jumped in on the competition. New Yorkers weren’t thrilled about this.

Even more shocking was the possibility that the Statue of Liberty could have rested atop the Washington Monument, 150 feet high at the time. “You would have been surprised to see how nicely the statue fitted the monument. It really seemed to have been made for it” (Washington Post, March 27, 1883).

After years of procrastination, New Yorkers did not want to lose the opportunity to host Liberty Enlightening the World, and were determined not to let another city “steal away our grand, symbolic, international, one hundred and twenty feet high statue” (New York Times, Oct. 3, 1882).

A Push for the Pedestal

Eventually, donations for the pedestal were collected more aggressively. Fundraising efforts included benefit concerts, art exhibits, and auctions selling models of the statue, souvenir photos, sheet music, and other mementos. Campaigns by the American Committee and the World newspaper (headed by editor Joseph Pulitzer) were also instrumental in raising essential funds.

Among these auctions was an 1883 Art Loan Exhibition, where Emma Lazarus’ poem “The New Colossus” was donated, and later become the sonnet held by Lady Liberty herself 1903 (Berenson, 2012). 

Ultimately, New York and the rest of the country resolved to raise sufficient funds and see the statue through to completion. “Our failure to provide a suitable pedestal is the only thing that stands in the way” (New York Times, Oct. 3, 1882).

The Statue of Liberty was finally dedicated on October 28, 1886 on Liberty Island and has reigned as an unforgettable symbol of hope and freedom.

Further Reading

For a more complete history of the Statue of Liberty's construction and fundraising campaign, consult the following subjects in the library's Classic Catalog: 

• Statue of Liberty (New York, N.Y.) -- History.
• Statue of Liberty National Monument (New York, N.Y.) -- History.
• Bartholdi, Frédéric Auguste, 1834-1904.

Learn more details about the statue and Liberty Island via the National Park Service. Also explore the history of Madison Square through the Madison Square Park Conservancy and the National Park Service.

 

Track Lady Liberty's progress and gather insight on evolving popular opinion of the statue through the following databases:

• Proquest Historical Newspapers
• America's Historical Newspapers
• HarpWeek
• American Periodicals 

The U.S. History in Context database includes primary and secondary sources regarding the Statue of Liberty and Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi. Also search the library's Digital Collections for images of the Statue of Liberty.

Join us for a Kids LIVE event April 13th at the Allerton Library in the Bronx and meet the author and illustrator of Lost in NYC.

About the Book

Pablo’s first day in a New York City school quickly goes off the rails during a field trip to the Empire State Building. Pablo accidentally gets on the wrong train, but with help from a new friend and from the city itself, he soon is on the fast track to becoming a local. This story—which features maps, archival photos, and fascinating facts—will help readers explore the subway without leaving their seats. It brings all the bustle and beauty of NYC to young readers around the world.

Author Nadja Spiegelman

When and where do you like to read?

I used to love reading in a corner, or under the dining room table, while my parents had parties. It was the coziest feeling, to be surrounded by people I had no obligation to speak to and then to be able to slip in and out of the other world contained in my book—it was in those moments that I was most vividly aware of how transportive reading could be. I still often regret that I'm a bit too old to do that now without seeming deeply antisocial.

Now I love to read on trains, at cafe terraces, in parks—I still love to be surrounded by other people while I'm reading. It's then that I'm most aware of the feeling of disappearing into the story in my hands.

What were your favorite books as a child?

I loved Alice in Wonderland. My favorite edition was a big hardcover that had illustrations by different artists on each page. I was fascinated by how radically differently Alice could be imagined. On some pages she was a teenager and on some a young girl, on some she was brunette and on other pages she was blond, sometimes she was beautiful and sometimes she was grotesque. When I write children's books that others illustrate, there's an element of that magic there—the world I built in my own imagination takes shape through somebody else's eyes, and it's always exciting and surprising.

What books had the greatest impact on you?

This is a difficult question to answer as it's constantly changing. There are writers I read while I'm writing in the hopes that their rhythms will find their way into my stories—Elena Ferrante, James Baldwin, Nabokov.

Would you like to name a few writers out there you think deserve greater readership?

There are a number of books by young women that I've loved recently: The Wallcreeperby Nell Zink, A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing by Elmear McBride, The From-Aways by Cj Hauser. I also discovered Mavis Gallant recently and love her writing as well.

What was the last book you recommended?

I'm reading the Faraway Nearby by by Rebecca Solnit right now, and I've been recommending it to everyone who comes within earshot. It's a book about her mother's decline into dementia and yet it touches, seamlessly, on Frankenstein, on leprosy, on Che Guevera, on Iceland and it pulls all of these disparte things together into what is ultimately a book about stories and why we tell them. Her subjects resonate with each other until it feels like the whole book is humming. It's just so good. It's exactly how I would love to be able to write, and it fills me with the perfect chemical combination of awe and envy that makes me itch to do so.

What do you plan to read next?

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

What inspired you to start writing?

When I was very young, my father told me stories as he walked me home from preschool. My favorites were about the Magical Anything Shop where lucky pennies found on the street could be redeemed for magical objects -- provided you were fortunate enough to stumble upon the shop, which appeared on different street corners and alleyways at random and then vanished again without a trace.

As soon as my little brother was old enough to understand me (and probably before), I began telling him stories about the shop, and other stories too. As soon as I could write easily on my own, I was writing them down. I had a penchant for stories about enchanted items that ended with an ironic twist of fate where the magic had turned itself against the user. My parents were almost impossibly encouraging and I haven't stopped since (although my subject matter may have evolved a little bit).

Illustrator Sergio García Sánchez

When and where do you like to read?

Siempre que tengo tiempo, en cualquier momento y en cualquier lugar.

I always have time to read books, whenever and where ever I go. I always try to make time.

What were your favorite books as a child?

Es difícil decidirse por un solo libro. Guardo un especial recuerdo de Miguel Strogoff de Julio Verne y de La isla del tesoro de Robert L. Stevenson, que inspiraron mis primeras ilustraciones.

It is difficult to choose one book. I keep a special memory of Michael Stragoffby Jules Verne and Treasure Island by Robert L. Stevenson, who have inspired my first illustrations.

What books had the greatest impact on you?

De adolescente quedé muy impresionado con la lectura de Crónicas marcianas de Ray Bradbury. Me gusta esa visión tan personal que tiene de la ciencia ficción. Más adelante descubrí a Charles Dickens,y quedé fascinado por Los papeles póstumos del club Pickwick. Es su primera novela y me parece fresca y muy divertida (algún día me gustaría adaptarla al cómic.)

Cien años de soledad de García Márquez ha marcado mi labor creativa. Gran parte de mi obra bebe del realismo mágico sudamericano.

Mi Familia y Otros Animales de Gerard Durrell me animó a vivir en plena naturaleza.

As a teenager I was very impressed with the reading of The Martian Chroniclesby Ray Bradbury. I like that very personal vision you have of science fiction. Later I discovered Charles Dickens, and was fascinated by The Pickwick Papers. It is his first novel and it seems fresh and fun (Someday I'd adapt to comics.)

One Hundred Years of Solitude by García Márquez set my creative work. Much of my work bebe South American magical realism.

My Family and Other Animals by Gerard Durrell encouraged me to live in the countryside.

Would you like to name a few writers out there you think deserve greater readership?

Soy dibujante de cómic, por ello en este apartado me gustaría recomendarles autores de cómic. Mis autores favoritos son:

I am a cartoonist, so in this section I would recommend cartoonists. My favorite authors are:

Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Rutu Modan, André Franquin, Hergé, Yves Chaland, Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, Christophe Blain, Emmanuel Gibert, David Mazaucchelli…

What was the last book you recommended?

Un cómic maravilloso, Asterios Polyp de David Mazzucchelli.

A wonderful comic, Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli.

What do you plan to read next?

Otro cómic (leo mucho cómic de autor) El árabe moderno de Riad Satouf.

Another comic (I read a lot of comic authors) The Modern Arab by Riyadh Satouf.

What inspired you to start writing?

Siempre he sentido un irrefrenable deseo de contar historias, el dibujo es para mí el vehículo ideal para poder hacerlo.

I have always felt an uncontrollable desire to tell stories, drawing is for me the ideal vehicle to do so.

Cheap stuff wreaks havoc on the environment. Organic, fair trade, and recycled goods are better for the environment and for the people, plants and animals who inhabit it. The United States and Canada comprise 5% of the world's population, yet they consume 32% of the world's products. Landfills are overflowing with waste, including plastic, which can last for 500 years. Advertising messages bombard us every day and pressure us to buy more, consume more. Sweat shops in China force teenagers to work long shifts that they can barely remain awake for. 

Pesticides from cotton farms runs off and contaminates our drinking water. Factory farms are intolerable places where animals suffer a great deal, and they are fed antibiotics that make the people that consume them sick. Cell phones and other electronic devices emit dangerous chemicals. Large fast food chains do not pay workers enough to live on. 

Local food tastes better and does not pollute the environment as much as the produce that from large food store chains that travels many miles before it hits the grocery shelves. Corporations will only be socially responsible if consumers demand it. 

Shop at thrift shops.

Buy less stuff.

Buy organic, fair trade, and recycled goods.

Enjoy earth-conscious products.

Reduce, reuse and recycle.

Get Real by Mara Rockliff, 2010

• Mara Rockliff's web site
• Books on consumerism
• Buy Nothing Day
• National Farm to School Network
• Sustainable Table

It's no rarity to hear someone say, "I love to read, but I don't like poetry." Yet often, when probed, even those who consider themselves writers or readers struggle to define what poetry is. In fact, the categorical boundaries are rather porous, and this is all the more apparent when we consider the number of fiction writers who also wrote poetry.

The following list contains poetry collections written by some of your favorite writers, whose prose work is often better known than their verse. As such, you won't see the likes of Sylvia Plath, who did indeed write a novel in addition to her poetry, nor any other writers celebrated primarily for their poetry. Get ready to see your favorite (mostly) fiction authors in a whole new light.

Raymond Carver
All of Us: The Collected Poems
Carver's blue collar minimalist stories are some of the most beloved in the American canon for their distilled language, and this quality is all the more apparent in the author's poetry.

Alice Walker
Horses Make A Landscape Look More Beautiful
Though perhaps best known for her novel The Color Purple, Alice Walker has written nearly ten collections of poetry.  In Horses Make A Landscape Look More Beautiful, Walker propels her poems forward with passionate calls for justice.

Alexander Pushkin
The Gypsies & Other Narrative Poems
For fans of narrative poetry, this collection offers Pushkin's earthy sensibility arrayed in lines that organize his lush descriptive writing.

Charlie Smith
Women of America: Poems
Smith may be America's most bewitching stylist alive, and in the poems of Women of America, his gritty tenderness is on full display.

Margaret Atwood
The Door
In the house that is Margaret Atwood's oeuvre, The Door opens up to explore the passage ways between life and death, individuals in and out of love, and the poet and her world.

Thomas Hardy
The Complete Poetical Works of Thomas Hardy
The cartography of Hardy's poetry is rich with landmarks and historical happenings, but it also offers the grappling with fate that lovers of Tess of the D'Urbervilles will appreciate.

Jorge Luis Borges
Fervor de Buenos Aires
Run through the labyrinth of Borges' work, and you may find yourself facing the heady rush of the author's first publication, Fervor de Buenos Aires.

Kathy Acker
Hello, I'm Erica Jong
Who is as alluring, confrontational, and enlivening on the page as Kathy Acker? In this prose poem originally published as a pamphlet, Acker takes on the author of Fear of Flying.

Denis Johnson
The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millennium General Assembly
Johnson's Jesus' Son is an MFA workshop favorite across the country, and in his poetry, the author's hallucinatory imagination spills down the page with equally bruised beauty.

There is a certain time of the year when families decide to take a vacation. For many of us who come from large families, the only way we were able to visit new places was by driving. I reminisce a lot about the holidays, spending quality time with loved one, and going on road trips to visit other family members, many of whom live in various parts of the United States.

Here are some great titles for children to enjoy while on a family road trip.

Travel Picks For Kids

Road Tripby Roger Eschbacher (Book - 2006)
A family piles into their car to head for a family reunion, embarking on a road trip that includes songs, games, food, roadside attractions, and restful motels.

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech (Paperback - 2012)
After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother's route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also left.

The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis (Paperback - 2013)
The ordinary interactions and everyday routines of the Watsons, an African American family living in Flint, Michigan, are drastically changed after they go to visit Grandma in Alabama in the summer of 1963.

Not for Parents The Travel BookbyMichael DuBois (Book - 2011)
Takes the inquisitive, data-hungry explorer on a tour of 200 countries. Packed with iconic images, evocative stories and informative facts and stats. In-the-know info on capital cities, language, currency, epic events, hideous histories, food, festivals and wildlife.

The Everything Family Guide to Budget Travel by Kelly Merritt (Book - 2011)
Taking a fun family vacation doesn't have to break the bank! Discover historic sites, scenic areas, and fun-filled attractions right in your own backyard.

Road Trip by Jim Paulsen (Book - 2013)
A father and son embark on a road trip to a distant animal shelter to save a homeless Border collie puppy.

Weekend Mischief: Poemsby Rob Jackson (Book - 2010)
Describes the weekend of a young boy in a collection of poems.

National Geographic Kids Ultimate U.S. Road Trip Atlas [maps, Games, Activities, and More for Hours of Backseat Fun!] by Crispin Boyer(Paperback - 2012)
Learn about amazing facts, sites, and activities related to each state in the U.S.

Sesame Street Elmo's Travel Songs and Games (DVD - 2011)
Elmo and Abby are so excited to go to the zoo, but it will take a while to get there. To help pass the time, they play stimulating travel games featuring the alphabet, counting, and shapes and rhyming along with exciting songs.

The Berenstain Bears: Bears Take A Car Trip (DVD - 2005)
The cubs are excited about going on a family trip, until they find out the destination is not Grizzlyland, but a tour of Bear Country's National Parks.

Let's Go: Travel, Camp and Car Songs by Susie Tallman (Music CD - 2000)
Let’s Go! takes you and your children on an adventure through music: you’ll explore the woods, star gaze on a cowboy’s range, dig for clams in San Francisco Bay, yodel with an ostrich on a mountain and visit 22 other traditional-now-hip places.

Say you had a chance at a fresh start. Not just for you, but for civilization. Imagine an apocalypse that doesn't destroy the people or the planet, just everything we have built and all knowledge/memory of building it. What books would you like to survive to guide in the building of a new utopia? Why that book?

Re-posted from Business Insider.

Without a doubt, I choose The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin. This is the story of just that, and there is still an abundance of material to consider - ideas, dreams, consequences. It's an interesting look at utopia — that there can be an imperfect utopia and it can still be a utopia. That, the revolution is you, that revolutions like change are cyclical and unending. That time itself is a revolution. This is an outstanding book. —Carmen Nigro, Milstein Division

The book I would give to people starting a new utopia is Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. On the surface, it is made up of fictional conversations between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan (over a chess game) interspersed with 55 brief, fantastical accounts of cities visited by the Venetian explorer. However, the narrative builds to a dramatic and fitting conclusion, addressing the nature of urban spaces, the limits of language, and potential paths that might lead us away from dark, dystopian futures. —Thomas Knowlton, MyLibraryNYC

I'd want the Foxfire magazine compilations - with advice on topics from how to build a log cabin to how to make apple butter. My hope is that it would help us stay fed while we re-built society. —Judd Karlman, City Island

I would offer All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. Perhaps if we rebuilt with some simple basics like "share, don't hit others, play fair, take a nap each day and go out into the world with a sense of wonder" we would get off to a better start in our rebuilding efforts. —Maura Muller, Volunteers Office

This question immediately called to mind James Howard Kunstler's World Made By Hand series. It may be too literal a suggestion since World Made By Hand is about an apocalyptic upstate New York and the steps they take to rebuild. However, this question seems to be more a combination of a deserted island and "Memento" type scenario where nothing's destroyed exactly, we just get a chance to do better. In this case, I would recommend art and architecture books, homesteading type books and other practical information, but also something that encourages people to care about each other and the planet. In this case, I'd suggest Lost Horizon by James Hilton. Lost Horizon originated the term "Shangri-La" and can be a bit difficult to get into, but I think it fits the bill here for envisioning utopias. —Jenny Baum, Jefferson Market

One Hundred Years of Solitudeby Gabriel Garcia Marquez because the magnificence of ice is a wonder to remember, as is the importance of family traditions and the trials of founding a community, and, of course, for the pleasure in reading it. Also, a practical survival guide, like Living Off The Landby Chris McNab, because the uses of a homemade bone saw should not be underestimated. —Jessica Cline, Mid-Manhattan Library

I'd have to go with The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein or The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. Something meaty that I could sink many hours into over and over again and find something new every time. Also, Swords around a Throne by John Robert Elting and Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Lo Kuan-Chung to scratch that historical itch; the Moss Roberts translation, naturally. Last but not least, a childhood favorite: D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths by Ingri and Edgar D"Aulaire. The illustrations were brilliant and would bring some color to a dreary post-apocalypse. —Joshua Soule, Spuyten Duyvil

To complement the D'Aulaire's, I would suggest Neil Gaiman's Sandmangraphic novels for their fascinating exploration and extension of many of these classic stories and archetypes, and Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Facesor The Power of Mythto help us understand the universality and importance of myths in human existence. I'd also want a good cookbook! I love The Silver Spoon, the "bible" of Italian home cooking, but an all around basic cookbook like Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everythingwould also be useful in the circumstances. —Elizabeth Waters, Mid-Manhattan

I would recommend former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser's The Poetry Home Repair Manual, which is not only a guidebook for writing and revising poems, but also a testament to the power of poetry as a means of reflection, communication, and inspiration. What better way to start a new utopia than with poetry? —Susie Heimbach, Mulberry Street

I'd go with The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm and Aesop's Fablesbecause I think any civilization needs a foundation of stories to give people a set of shared references and a place from which to build a culture and rich life of creating their own tales and adventures. —Stephanie Whelan, Seward Park

R. Buckminster Fuller’s I Seem To Be a Verbbecause "Bucky" is a neo-futurist, his housing designs are energy-efficient, and this book is fun to read about where we live and where we are going. —Lori Salmon, Mid-Manhattan

I would carefully choose books that (as the poet Dickinson relates) "dwell in possibility"—titles that inspire readers to imagine, explore, create and commit to leading a life with purpose including, Kamkwamba's The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, Pinsky's Singing School: Learning to Write (and Read) Poetry by Studying with the Masters, I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban, and Soul Fury: Rumi and Shams Tabriz on Friendship.—Miriam Tuliao, Selection Team

If we have to start again, our (new) literature canon should cultivate thoughtful, kind individuals with bright, limitless imaginations. For my money, you can't do any better than Dr. Seuss. The Lorax, Oh! The Places You'll Go, and Oh, The Thinks You Can Think are some of my favorites, and if those don't work for you, hunt through his work until you find the particular kind of nonsense that gets your brain whizzling, clicking and popping like it should. Too old for children's books? Dr. Seuss wrote, "Adults are just outdated children." He keeps me an up-to-date child, every time I open a book! —Charlie Radin, Inwood

Some of my selections fall into the category of cautionary tales, like Lord of the Fliesby William Golding and Animal Farm by George Orwell. I think it's important to know our history so that we don't repeat the bad parts, but it's such big subject, and, yes, there have been some bad parts, whether you read Greek history (Herodotus) Roman history (Tacitus) or 20th century Western history (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer). Rebuilding or survival stories like Robinson Crusoeby Daniel Defoe and Swiss Family Robinsonby Johann David Wyss might be helpful, lots of ingenuity and thinking outside the box. —Lois Moore, Mid-Manhattan

I would say… Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talent series. Unfortunately she did not live long enough to make it to the third book to complete the trilogy. While far from using these books (or any book for that matter) for a foundation of a new memory or survival, as it would be better to start anew, the story highlights the importance of community building and sharing, while focusing on empathy rather than destruction. Concentrating on the struggle of Lauren Olamina, who sets out, among a crumbling government and society, to build a new community, Butler writes not just to warn of a dystopic future, but to inspire and show how lives can be built with each other to create a positive surrounding. A great addition to anyone's reading list pre-apocalypse to get you prepared and a brief manual on appropriate ways to live post-apocalypse. —Ian Baran, Yorkville

Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges, because just one of Borges' ultra-short stories can open up a mind and keep it busy for hours and days and weeks after reading it—and this volume contains all of his best. His weird and imaginative labyrinths, libraries, mysteries, and encyclopedias have the potential to inspire new ideas and create a wealth of new possibilities for a new and creative civilization. A wonderful book by one of humankind's best teachers, Carl Sagan's Cosmosis an essential, empowering, and humbling read. Post-apocalypse, Sagan's accessible and heartfelt tome on the evolution and interconnectedness of time, space, life, and civilization would be an invaluable resource for a humanity rising from the ashes. —Nancy Aravecz, Mid-Manhattan

I would suggest Darwin's On the Origin of Species ... so we wouldn't have to go through figuring that out all over again. Also, if we really are starting over from scratch, I would want a very good collection of technical manuals ranging over human endeavors from agriculture to hunting and fishing to manufactures to transportation. No sense in re-inventing the wheel. —Kathie Coblentz, Rare Books Cataloging

The Survivor Libraryis made up of public domain books you should probably download before the grid fails. (with the caveat that some of the materials might not meet modern medical or safety standards)—Lauren Lampasone, Digital Experience

I would choose Earth Abides by George R. Stewart. It is a science fiction classic from 1949 that describes this exact event, and gives a believable look at what the outcome will be after several generations. I might also want to have The Boy Scout Handbook, or Two Little Savages by Ernest Thompson Seton for their tips on survival. —Gregory Holch, Mulberry Street

Akhil Sharma comes to Books at Noon next Wednesday, April 15 to discuss his latest work, Family Life: A Novel. We asked him six questions about what he likes to read.

When and where do you like to read?

When I am reading a book that I love, I can read anywhere: standing in the subway, cooking dinner in the kitchen. When a book is good but does not demand my love I tend to read in an easy chair with my legs kicked out. Being lost in a book feels very womb-like and so physical comfort tends to be nice. Reading a book that is challenging, I like to be slightly physically uncomfortable, leaning forward with the book open before me on the dining table.

 What were your favorite books as a child?

Pinocchio, the Freddy the Pig  series, Dr. Dolittle. I liked books where the world of the book was recognizable, but not too threateningly real.

 What books had the greatest impact on you?

The books I read as a child must have had the greatest impact on me since they shaped what I expect a book to do. As a writer, the books that had the greatest impact were The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms.

Would you like to name a few writers out there you think deserve greater readership?

Zia Haider Rahman's In the Light of What We Know has written a wonderful book. It is like a Conrad for the 21st century. 

What was the last book you recommended?

The book that I am surprised more people don't read more is Joseph Roth's Radetzky March. For those who have read this, they should definitely read Roth's The Tale of the 1002nd Night.

What do you plan to read next?

I am rereading Hemingway and Dostoevsky right now. I feel that I am finally becoming mature enough for Dostoevsky.

As a librarian it is hard for me to admit that the poetry section has never been one of my favorites.  Parents and teachers are often scandalized when I admit this to school groups.  I always tell kids that it is okay if they are not fans of a certain genre or literary form as there is something in the library for everyone.  You never know when you will find something, like a silly poem about boogers, that will tickle your funny bone and get you excited about reading.  

Although the overanalyzing and dissecting of poems during my school years spoiled poetry for me somewhat, I have always tried to keep an open mind.  I have attended poetry jams at library conferences, learned about fun programming and listened to the advice of literary greats.  Many years ago, I had the honor of attending a lecture given by Ashley Bryan during which he told the audience that poetry has to be read aloud with feeling in order to be properly savored and enjoyed.  I keep this in mind every time I share a poem with an audience.  

When I look at the poems that I share with kids, they fall under three main categories: funny, disgusting and about food.  I should not be surprised by this as the only poem I remember enjoying as a child is called "Alligator Pie" by Dennis Lee (Alligator Pie. Toronto: Macmillan, 1974).

"Alligator pie, alligator pie,
If I don't get some I think I'm gonna die. 
Give away the green grass, give away the sky, 
But don't give away my alligator pie.

Alligator stew, alligator stew..."

"Alligator Pie" set me on the path to find my all-time favorite poem to share with kids - "Booger Love."  This poem and another called "Chocolate Maniac" can be found in a collection entitled Giant Children by Brod Bagert.  I recently recommended "Booger Love" to a friend who wanted to know what she should read to her son's 2nd grade class.  While her son thought it might be a bit too much, the rest of the class loved it.  It is totally gross and it gets kids' attention which is the point.  We want kids to get excited about poetry.  Maybe a poem about bodily functions or moldy food will open up a child's mind to a world of possibilities.  They may not grow up to be die-hard poetry fans, but being able to respect and simply enjoy poetry in its various forms would be fantastic.

Here is a list of the top 5 poetry collections that I share with school groups.

Giant Children by Brod Bagert; illustrated by Ted Arnold

As mentioned above, "Booger Love" and "Chocolate Maniac" are two favorites.  "Booger Love" comes with a great warning.  The glue from the perfume inserts in magazines make for a good prop to go with this poem.  If you peel off the glue and roll it up,  it looks like a booger.  I like to gross the kids out first and then move on to chocolate.  In order to regain control of the class, I ask them if they like chocolate.  The mention of food usually gets the attention back on me.  

If Not for the Cat by Jack Prelutsky, illustrated by Ted Rand

Each poem can be read as a short riddle about an animal.  I like hiding the images until after the kids have tried guessing what animal the poems are about.  The poem about the jelly fish stumps them every time.  

Monster Goose by Judy Sierra; illustrated by Jack E. Davis

I have used this collection so much that I know "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Slug" by heart.  The children often comment on the fact that I am reciting the poem and not reading it. "Mary had a Vampire Bat" is also popular with students and teachers.  Show and tell anyone?

Once I Ate a Pie by Patricia MacLachlan; illustrated by Katy Schneider

So who can say no to pie? Or dogs?  Kids can completely relate to these poems.  I often ask kids if they have a cat or dog to get them warmed up.  I love the poem about the guilty dog who ate the family's pie.  I also really like that one about the yappy dog as it allows me to make the most annoying barking sounds. 

A Poke in the I selected by Paul Janeczko; illustrated by Chris Raschka

Concrete poetry is always popular with children.  It is hard to find a one word poem about a cat intimidating.  "Tennis Anyone?" is as fun as it sounds and looks like a game of tennis when read aloud.  

If you are interested in more poetry titles here is a reading list.  Hopefully, you will find something that will strike your fancy.  Do not forget to read aloud and with feeling.  

For more inspiration, please listen to some NYPL librarians as they read excerpts from their favorite poems during our 30 Days of Poetry.  Join me on April 13 as I read from "Booger Love."

Lexington, Kentucky is the "Horse Capital of the World." It hosts the Kentucky Derby, and horse farms abound. However, for me, it's prime asset is the amazing Kentucky Horse Park, which I was fortunate enough to visit. I participated in 4-H Horse Bowl, which is a jeopardy-like game involving trivia questions. Our team received 1st place in New York State in the 1990s, so we were invited to go to Kentucky for the National competition (in truth it covered about half of the states). I was so excited, and I had worked for years for the chance to go to Nationals. Kentucky Horse Park is a mecca for horse lovers, and I was amazed and delighted by the museums that the park features. It is the only park in the United States devoted entirely to the horse.

Museums

The International Museum of the Horse has online exhibits as well as museum exhibits, including Horses in Sport, Horse Drawn Vehicles, and the Legacy of the Horse. The Wheeler Museum has items from the hunter/jumper industry, as well as many online videos on topics such as Hunt Seat Equitation and Preparing the Horse to be a Winner. The American Saddlebred Museum has a research library. The Al-Marah Arabian Horse Galleries is a multi-media interactive experience for kids. I was enthralled by the museums. Unfortunately, my camera film became overexposed, and the photos did not come out correctly.

Barn Tours

The park also has walking tours of the barns. The Kids Barn has well-behaved horses that children can learn from. The Big Barn houses draft horses. It is 463 ' long and 74 ' wide. The Mounted Police Barn houses police horses. The Farrier Barn features working demonstrations of a blacksmith shoeing horses. 

Horses of the World

The Horses of the World show is fantastic, and it features 22 different horse breeds, including the Chincoteague Pony, which is the star of the novel, Misty of Chincoteague, and Arabians, which is the breed of The Black Stallion books. Unfortunately, the show does not go on during the winter.

If you have a chance and you like horses, the Kentucky Horse Park is very impressive and educational! However, there are many barns right in New York City if you would like to engage in urban horseback riding.

• Books about horses

April is National Autism Awareness Month, dedicated to educating the public about one of the fastest growing developmental disabilities. The New York Public Library’s “Visible Lives: Oral Histories of the Disability Experience” project recently interviewed two young men, who shared their very different experiences coping with life on the autism spectrum.

As a child, Dalton Whiteside moved with his mother from Tennessee to Europe and North Africa and then to New York City. Now an architecture student at CCNY, Dalton discussed the blessings and limitations of his disability and how he uses it in a positive way.  Learn why he says“I’m glad I’m different.”

Brooklyn resident and CCNY student Ryngin Garcia was diagnosed early in life with Asperger Syndrome. Ryngin loves poetry and he is skilled at math, especially algebra. To find out why Garcia believes he has “talents that make him special,” listen to his interview. 

Autism is believed to affect about one percent of the world’s population. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that approximately 3.5 million Americans currently live with autism spectrum disorder and that one out of every 68 children will be affected by it. To learn more, visit the CDC's autism information page.

These stories are part of a growing oral history collection through Visible Lives: Oral Histories of the Disability Experience at Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library - Interested in sharing your story, collecting stories, or both? Please contact Alexandra Kelly at AlexandraKelly@nypl.org or 212-621-0552. There are two upcoming volunteer orientation sessions.

Enrollment Now Open! SAGEWorks Boot Camp.  This two-week long, intensive training course will provide participants with essential skills to lead them toward job placement.  The first session starts on Monday - Friday, from April 27 to May 8,  9 am - 2 pm.  Participants must attend every day at the SAGE Center, 305 7th Avenue, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10001.

Clinical Staffing will present a  recruitment on Thursday, April 16, 2015, 10 am - 2 pm,  for Certified Nursing Assistant - LTC (20 openings), Registered Nurse - LTC (10 openings), Registered  Nurse - Hospital (10 openings), Licensed Practical Nurse - LTC (15 openings), at  NYC Workforce 1 Career Center, 215 West 125th Street, New York, NY 10027.

CVS will present a recruitment on Thursday, April 16, 2015, 10 am - 2 pm,  for Regional Loss Prevention Manager Bklyn./Queens (1 opening),  Loss Prevention Specialist II (1 opening), Retail Store Manager (3 openings), Clerk / Cashier (14  openings), Retail Store Shift Supervisor (10 openings),  Pharmacy Technician Trainee (P/T) (14 openings), Photo Lab Technician (P/T) 10 openings. at NYS Department of Labor , 9 Bond Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201.

St. Nicks Alliance Workforce Development provides Free Job Training and Educational Programs in Environmental Response and Remediation Tec (ERRT).  Commercial Driver's License, Pest Control Technician Training (PCT), Employment Search and Prep Training and Job Placement, Earn Benefits and Career Path Center.  For information and assistance, please visit St. Nicks Alliance Workforce Development, 790 Broadway, 2nd Fl., Brooklyn, NY 11206, 718-302-2057 ext. 202. 

Brooklyn Workforce Innovations helps jobless and working poor New Yorkers establish careers in sectors that offer good wages and opportunities for advancement.  Currently BWI offers free job training programs in four industries: commercial driving, telecommunications cable installation, TV and film production, and skilled woodworking.  BWI is at 621 Degraw Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217. 718-237-5366. 

CMP (formerly Chinatown Manpower Project) in lower Manhattan is now recruiting for a free training in Quickbooks,  Basic Accounting, and Excel.   This training is open to anyone who is receiving food stamps but no cash assistance.  Class runs for 8 weeks, followed by one-on-one meetings with a job developer.  CMP also provides Free Home Health Aide Training for bilingual English/Cantonese speakers who are receiving food stamps but no cash assistance.  Training runs Mondays through Fridays for 6 weeks, and includes test prep then taking the HHA certification exam.  Students learn about direct care techniques such as taking vital signs and assisting with personal hygiene and nutrition.   For more information for the above two training programs, please Email: info@cmpny.org, call 212-571-1690 or visit 70 Mulberry Street, 3rd Floor, NY, NY 10013. CMP also provides tuition-based healthcare and business trainings for free to students who are entitled to ACCESS funding.  Please call CMP for information.

How much did a plate of chop suey cost at the Cotton Club?

What did the Buffalo Soldiers have for Christmas dinner in 1920?

At the African Pavilion of the 1964-65 New York World's Fair, was the Lobster Tail Malagasy served in The Tree House of Calabash or the Tree House of Fetishes?

...Find the answers in the Schomburg Center's Menu Collection, now online. 

The Schomburg Menu Collection is a diverse one, with menus from both restaurants and private dinner parties, souvenir photo covers, and floor plans. Browse through and find: an invitation to a dinner given by the American Minister in Monrovia, Liberia; programs for the National Association of Negro Musicians Grand Ball; an essay on "The Origins of Soul Food"; menus for everything from New Orleans classics to  jazz clubs to African airlines... and much more.

Want to learn a new language? Do you know that we have a service that provides visual and auditory instruction for 64 different languages? Mango Languages is great for tourists who want to master conversation basics for travel to a different country. Just choose a language, pick a conversation topic, and start learning. Users can put their mouse over the foreign words to see a phonetic pronunciation, and they can hear the pronunciation if they use earphones. I have used Mango many times for ESOL classes in order to facilitate English-language learning.

First-time users can pick the Quick Start option; it is not necessary to create an account to use the database, but customers must log in to the database through nypl.org and enter their library card number and PIN (personal identification number). Users must access nypl.org, go to Research, then Articles & Databases, then either type in Mango in the search field, or click on M, and scroll down to Mango Languages. Click on the database, and select the Quick Start option. The database is also accessible remotely by users (outside of the library) indicated by the house icon next to the database.

Top Languages to Learn

The most popular languages that users learn from the database are Spanish, French, English, Russian, Chinese (Mandarin) and Italian.

Scottish Gaelic

Scottish Gaelic is an interesting language to learn. I love the spelling and sounds of the words. I lived in Edinburgh for five months, and the country is lovely and fascinating.

Spanish for Librarians

Are you a librarian who wants to learn Spanish in order to communicate with your customers better? Mango has a Spanish for Librarians (in the Spanish, Latin America section) course just for you.

English for Speakers of Other Languages

The library holds ESOL Classes that can be useful for customers, but this database also offers lessons for speakers of 18 other languages. For example, Russian speakers can choose the English for Russian Speakers course.

Specialty Courses You Can Take

Specialty courses include Flamenco Dancing, Endangered Languages, Legal, Horse Race in Siena, Oktoberfest, Soccer Celebration, St. Patrick’s Day, Superstition, Wine and Cheese, and Zodiac to help users who are travelling for particular reasons.

Other Languages to Learn

This is not a complete list of the languages that one can learn from using Mango, but it gives customers an idea of the variety of lessons that are offered through the database.

• Arabic
• Bengali
• Cherokee (Native American)
• Chinese, Mandarin
• Finnish
• Hawaiian
• Hindi
• Icelandic
• Latin
• Pirate
• Swahili
• Tagalog
• Turkish
• Ukrainian
• Vietnamese

Movies on Mango

Mango even shows foreign films with subtitles in the language of your choice! It currently offers seven movies, including The Diary of Anne Frank. You can relax and enjoy your favorite film while learning another language.

Mango is Great!

Use Mango today to facilitate learning another language. It’s free and easy to use, and it is accessible from home with the user’s library card number and PIN. Learn about another culture and make any international travel more fun and interesting! The library also has books, CDs and DVDs to help people acquire new languages.

• Conversation classes (English, Italian, etc.)
• Citizenship Resources
• ID NYC - call 311 to make an appointment

It’s been a tough month for Downton-ites as we recently learned that next season will be its last! Honestly, this past March was a tough pop culture news month for me all round: first Zayn left One Direction AND Downton announced its end?! I can't. Now we must find a way to somehow wait patiently for next January for new episodes and (hopefully) the answers to all our questions! The writers better make this last season the best one yet!

(Spoilers Ahead)

Will Lady Mary find love with Matthew Goode’s dreamy Henry Talbot? Will Edith finally get a guy and move on from her Jan Brady ways? Will Branson come back from America? Will Lady Rose? Will we get the best wedding ever featuring everyone's favorite characters? Will Anna and Bates finally get the happiness they’ve earned? Will the countess live forever? Will they jump ahead to post-WWII and let us know what happened to everyone? Like, I said, it’s going to be rough wait but we will do it together and somehow find something to fill the Downton-sized hole in our hearts.

Way back in 2012, I wrote my first “Waiting for Downton Abbey” blog post and I filled it with read and watchalikes that I’d found to help me get through the down time. Back then, I had to scour the library’s catalog for books and series that took place during the same time period as Downton Abbey. Luckily, publishers and TV producers got wise to the wants and needs of fans as there is now a WHOLE sub-genre of historical fiction specifically for us. They went through their back catalogs for old books and green-lit new stuff too—fiction and non-fiction. There is so much out there and what I’m listing here is just the tip of iceberg. This goes for TV too. There are plenty of great new series and hidden gems to keep you occupied and lucky for you, I’m on top of it! No worries, I got your back.

Fiction

History and Romance

There is so much fiction out there but my favorite in the multi-volume series category has to be Passing Bells by Phillip Rock. See if this sounds familiar: an aristocratic family and their servants live at Abingdon Priory in Yorkshire, outside the town of Ripon, and navigate the changing times, WWI and scandal (including a daughter that runs off with the chauffeur). I kid you not. Originally published in the ’70s, you have to wonder if Julian Fellows ever read it. However, it is wonderfully written with a lot of thoughtful commentary on the horrors of war and their effects on the family. Other great multi-book series full of Edwardian/post war family drama are Fay Weldon’s Habits of the House, Elizabeth Cooke’s Rutherford Park, T. J. Brown’s sudsy Summerset Abbey and Barbara Taylor Bradford’s Cavendon Hall.

If you prefer one and done, there’s Park Lane by Frances Osborne about life in one London house in 1914 and That Last Summer by Judith Kinghorn set at an idyllic country house during that last golden summer before the war started and the world fell apart. In the 1912 set,The Golden Prince we get a glimpse inside the life of a young Prince Edward. Crossing on the Paris by Dana Gynther gives readers the intersecting lives of three women travelling on an ocean liner in 1921. The well-crafted Ashenden by Elizabeth Wilhide spans the 230 year history of an English manor house and all those that lived in it. Well known author Tracy Chevalier brings us the life of one Edwardian family in Falling Angels and in Remains of the Day award-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro shows readers life in a manor between the wars from the point of view of the butler.

Takes on the period from early 20^th century authors include: Parade’s End by Ford Madox Ford about social upheaval, the lead up to the war and one man torn between two women; Nancy Mitford’sPursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate is a satirical look at love and snobbery among two families during the ’20s and ’30s and finally, John Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga takes the upper middle class Forsyte family from the Victorian era all the way through the 1920s. Unlike Mary and Edith, not all society women stayed at home during the war and in Somewhere in France by Jennifer Robson, a young, aristocratic woman defies convention and finds love and adventure as a nurse at a field hospital. In the utterly perfect Spear of Summer Grass by Deanna Raybourne and equally divine The Ashford Affair by Lauren Willig, two women find adventure and purpose in 1920s Kenya.

Mystery and Thrillers

One of my favorite new authors Simone St. James writes these amazing romantic, gothic mysteries set in England just after the great war. In last year's chilling Silence for the Dead a young nurse goes to work at a remote, veteran’s hospital filled with ghosts and shell shocked soldiers (you might want to buy a night light for this one). You can also try her brand new The Other Side of Midnightabout a reluctant clairvoyant in 1925, the veteran trying to debunk her and a murder they must solve together.

World War I veterans take on the role of detective in other novels as well, including the wonderful Ian Rutledge series by Charles Todd about a shell-shocked Scotland Yard detective getting back to work after the war, start with A Test of Wills and Elizabeth Speller’s newish Laurence Bartram series, a veteran and gentleman is urged back into life through crime solving, start with The Return of Captain John Emmett.

For something lighter, there’s the Phryne Fisher series set in 1920s Australia featuring a gutsy, smart, crime solving socialite, start withCocaine Blues. Another fun treat is Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman by Tessa Arlen in which an Edwardian lady teams up with her pragmatic housekeeper to investigate a murder and clear her son's name.

Lastly, there is the smart and atmospheric The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters, set at a London boarding house in 1922 where a genteel family is forced to take in “lodgers.” This is a topsy-turvy love story and crime thriller that will keep you up all night!

Non-Fiction

Upstairs

The more I read about the British upper classes, the more I realize it wasn’t so much a glamorous life as much as a battle against constant ennui, the pressures of high society manners and an unyielding, if hypocritical, moral code. In To Marry an English Lord, we find out what it must have been like for all those freer-thinking American girls to come over and infiltrate British high society at the end of the 19^th century. Did they thrive like Cora Crawley or did they more likely struggle to find their place?

Find the true stories behind the real life past countesses of Highclere Castle (aka Downton Abbey), in Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey and Lady Catherine, both by Lady Fiona Carnarvon, the present countess. They tell the gripping stories of two American women who conquered British society first during the Edwardian period and again in the 1920s and ’30s. In The Secret Rooms, historian Catherine Bailey uncovers the secrets surrounding the mysterious life of the 9^th Duke of Rutland. While set more in the Victorian Era, Mrs. Robinson’s Disgrace stands out for its harrowing account of one upper class wife’s struggles as she’s put through the ringer during Britain’s first sensationalized divorce trial.

In Wait for Me the current Duchess of Devonshire, Deborah Mitford-Cavendish, discusses her notorious family and what it was like to join one of the great aristocratic families. In the elegiac WWI memoir Testament of Youth, Oxford student Vera Brittain abandons her studies to become an army nurse. It is the story of her war and of all those she loved and lost. (Also, it's coming soon to a theater near you!)

Finally, House Unlocked a memoir by award winning novelist Penelope Lively. In graceful, absorbing prose, we get the first hand account of living at Golsconcott, the country house her grandparents bought in 1923. She charts her years there from the use of gongs and picnic rugs to being witness to the changing attitudes of the time.

Downstairs

Non-fiction perfect for DA fans has grown exponentially over the years particularly when it comes to the lives of servants. In Life Below Stairs by Alison Maloney you get detailed first hand accounts of what it was like to have so much grueling work and still witness all the glamor. In Real Life Downton Abbeywe get a fun, inside look at all those that served the super rich and were privy to their darkest secrets. Full of full color photos, historic details and scandalous stories, Upstairs & Downstairs takes readers through a day in the life of an upper crust Edwardian household starting with servants hard at work at dawn and culminating with a lavish dinner party in the evening.

Get all the juicy dish from a real life British nanny in A Spoonful of Sugar by Brenda Ashford. Former kitchen maid Margaret Powell, started work in a 1920s great house and her memoir Below Stairsbecame the inspiration for both Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton. She wrote a sequel called Servants Hall about the real life scandal of Rose, an under-parlour maid who eloped with her employer’s son. Ms. Powell has also written a fabulous cookbook full of 500 extravagant dishes, Margaret Powell’s Cookery Book. Also perfect for cookbook fans? Edwardian Cooking: 80 Recipes Inspired by Downton Abbey’s Elegant Meals by Larry Edwards and The Unofficial Downton Abbey Cookbook by Emily Ansara Baines with recipes based on characters and situations from the show. If you plan to try your hand at the crab canapés, vol-a-vent and lamb noisettes recipes, please make sure to invite me to your next Edwardian dinner party.

Downton Abbey Books

The DA machine is churning out TV tie-ins like clockwork. They are all beautifully done and filled with gorgeous photographs, fun details on the show and the history of British society. There’s The World of Downton Abbey (season 1), The Chronicles of Downton Abbey (season 3), Behind the Scenes at Downton Abbey (season 4) and my particular favorite, A Year in the Life of Downton Abbey (season 5). It chronicles a year in the life of the fictional Downton as well as fun snippets about the show and includes official recipes for your own festive occasions. I can totally vouch for the scone recipe which were huge, light, buttery perfection! Perfect for your next tea party.

If you want the actual scripts from show, NYPL has those too. Need to know a great, sarcastic, Mary monologue or want to perfect Edith’s best strop? Maybe, you want to see if you can outdo Maggie Smith’s best put downs and withering glances as the countess or Mrs. Hughes's kindly speeches and eye-rolls? These scripts should do the trick. We have Downton Abbey: The Complete Scripts for season one, season 2 and season 3.

TV Series, Movies and Documentaries

TV Series and Films

If you need old or new seasons of Downton Abbey, NYPL has you well sorted. There’s also still some great viewing choices in my old 2012 blog available but if you've already watched those than here are some new ones for you. My favorite has to be Flambards. Originally aired on PBS in the ’80s, it’s the story of one orphaned, young women during the early 1900s who finds a place to belong at the ramshackle home of a drunken, horse mad uncle and his two, very different, sons. The series takes you up through the war and after and is witty, heartfelt and beautifully done.

A newer series is The Village, season one is set in a rural English village 1914-1920 and is the story of all the different classes who live there and the effects the great war has on all their lives. While well done, it is nowhere near as sudsy or fun as Downton but very much worth watching. Along the same lines is Steven Spielberg’s breathtakingly filmed War Horse. For a closer look at the war try the Eddie Redmayne starring Birdsong based on the novel by Sebastian Faulks (bonus: it also stars the dreamy, long-lashed Scottish actor Richard Madden). And I can't forget to tell you about the great adaption of Parade's Endstarring Benedict Cumberbatch!

As an anecdote to all the war dramas try the series, Mr. Selfridge. Now in its third season it stars Jeremy Piven as the American maverick entrepreneur who revolutionized shopping with his London dept. store Selfridges and delves into the lives of his family and the store’s employees. For more breezy fun try the Australian detective series Miss Fisher mysteries, the satirical Love in a Cold Climate and the deliciously fun Cold Comfort Farm, about a 1920s bright young thing who solves the problems of her distant cousins with perfect aplomb. I can't forget to mention the sweet Lark Rise to Candleford about life in small countryside towns during the late 1800s. Another favorite series is the epic Forsyte Saga, starring the always amazing Damian Lewis as the very Victorian Soames Forsyte, a husband and father who can’t quite change with the times. While we’re in the Victorian era I might as well mention my all-time favorite British mini-series ever(!), North and South. Based on the novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, it’s an epic love story of class divides, mill factories and one very domineering mother. While we’re already in a Victorian mill town you should also try the fascinating, new docu-seriesThe Mill and the breezier, The Paradise, a wonderful series set around a department store in Northern England in 1875 and loosely based on a Emile Zola novel.

Documentaries

Want something more non-fictiony? TryThe Secrets of Highclere Castle, a documentary about the house where Downton is filmed. If you want to know about Edwardian society etiquette try this informative doc The Manners of Downton Abbey which gives you the low down on all you need to know when attending your next high society do. Make like Mary in a hog pit with Edwardian Farm, a 12 part doc, that has two archeologists and a historian spending a full year recreating life on a historically accurate farm. From farm life we turn to manor life with the brilliant, must watch reality series, Manor House. For two months, modern day Brits volunteered to live the life of upstairs/downstairs with varying, hilarious results. The lord of the manner, the flirty footmen and the butler enjoyed themselves immensely but the scullery maid, lady of the manor and the unmarried sister-in-law… not so much. Whenever I think I want to be an Edwardian woman of leisure I remember this series and thank heaven for the suffragettes.

While clearly there is still more, these are all the options I have for now. For more read and watch recommendations, you can always try my 2012 post, if you haven’t already, or maybe you have something to recommend to the rest of us. If so, please put it in the comments below.

And if you’re still bereft about a Downton-less future or a Zayn-less One Direction, know that we will get through it together. See you in 2016!

This is a translation to french of “From paper maps to the Web : A DIY Digital Maps Primer” by Claire Chemel, library curator and digital manager at the Département des Cartes et plans of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

En novembre 2014, j’ai été invité à la 2e Semaine du livre numérique organisée par la Bibliothèque nationale de Colombie. J’y ai présenté les projets développés par le NYPL Labs, et animé un atelier consacré aux outils actuels de cartographie numérique. Voici le contenu de cet atelier, qui vous expliquera comment créer vos propres cartes géo-référencées à l’aide d’outils Web gratuits.

En bref

Nous allons créer ceci. Ce tutoriel nécessite que vous disposiez d’une carte numérisée et de données à lui superposer. Les principales étapes décrites sont:

1. géo-référencer la carte numérisée pour générer des tuiles,
2. créer des données GeoJSON à superposer à la carte numérisée,
3. créer un fond de carte personnalisé comme référence actuelle,
4. assembler tous les éléments sur une page Web interactive.

Note: Ce tutoriel suppose que vous utilisiez Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari ou Google Chrome. Nous allons utiliser la console développeur, et je ne dispose pas d’instructions pour tous les navigateurs.

Pour commencer

Voici ce que nous voulons obtenir. Il s’agit d’une carte de Bogota en 1891, conservée à la Bibliothèque nationale de Colombie (lien Flash Player), enrichie de données trouvées dans un annuaire de Bogota de 1888.

1) Geo-référencement

Après numérisation de la carte, la première étape est de lui ajouter des données géographiques, d’établir des correspondances entre les pixels de l’image et les lieux qu’ils représentent : il s’agit du géo-référencement. Ce procédé va déformer l’image numérisée :

Le scan original (réduit, évidemment)

…pour l’aligner sur la projection de Mercator qui est utilisée dans la plupart des projets de cartographie en ligne comme OpenStreetMap ou Google Maps:

Scan géo-référencé aligné sur la projection de Mercator

Le degré de déformation dépendra de la qualité du relevé, de l’état de conservation et de la projection originelle de la carte. Vous vous demandez sans doute comment cela fonctionne. Des logiciels commerciaux ou open-source permettent de géo-référencer des images, mais le principe de ce tutoriel est d’obtenir le même résultat en utilisant uniquement votre navigateur Internet. Voici donc Map Warper! Map Warper est un outil en ligne qui permet de télécharger vos cartes numérisées et fournit une interface simple pour les géo-référencer (ou les “rectifier”). Géo-référencer consiste à faire correspondre une partie de la carte numérisée (à gauche) à une partie du fond de carte Mercator (à droite) :

L’interface de rectification en vis-à-vis de Map Warper

Vous remarquerez les repères sur chaque image. Chaque repère porte un numéro, et figure dans les deux vues. Ils permettent de savoir que le nord se trouve à gauche sur l’image numérisée, et l’est vers le haut. Plus vous ajouterez de repères, plus le géo-référencement sera précis, mais plus l’image finale prendra du temps à générer. Toutefois, la génération d’image est une opération unique, donc ne vous inquiétez pas trop à ce sujet. Il s’agit plus de savoir combien de repères vous voulez ajouter. La carte utilisée dans ce tutoriel en a 101.

Dernier point, il faut être sûr d’obtenir une image géo-référencée de haute qualité après qu’elle ait été modifiée. L’action de déformer l’image de départ s’appelle le réechantillonage1 (“resampling” en anglais). Dans les options avancées de Map Warper, vous pouvez choisir entre deux méthodes, “Nearest Neighbour” (qualité basse mais rapide) ou “Cubic Spline” (qualité haute mais lente) :

Choisir “Cubic Spline” dans l’option “Resampling Method”

Vous pouvez voir le résultat final ici. Vous pouvez aussi télécharger cette carte en haute résolution dans l’onglet “Export”.
Mais à mon avis l’élément le plus importantà obtenir de Map Warper, ce sont les tuiles. Voici le modèle de leur URL :

Vous trouverez l’URL de la tuile dans l’onglet “Export”.

Le modèle de leur adresse est :

http://mapwarper.net/maps/tile/4949/{z}/{x}/{y}.png

Gardez précieusement cet URL, vous en aurez besoin. L’outil de création de tuiles de Map Warper utilise l’image géo-référencée pour produire des tuiles carrées, à différents niveaux de zoom et avec des coordonnées propres, de manière à ne montrer que les parties utiles de votre carte interactive quand vous la consultez2.
En voici un exemple :

Les cartes en lignes sont constituées de millions de tuiles comme celle-ci.

2) Extraction des données

Nous avons la carte, maintenant il nous faut choisir quelles données y afficher. Notre exemple utilise l’annuaire de la capitale de la Colombie, Bogota, en 1888. Cet annuaire regorge d’informations, regroupant les noms de dizaines de milliers de personnes (chacune avec son adresse et sa profession), des dizaines de métiers (décrits en page 4) et des publicités, listant aussi de nombreux commerces (avec leurs adresses et propriétaires).
Cet annuaire nous donne un aperçu intéressant de la vie en Colombie à la fin du XIXe siècle : avocats, photographes et comptables en partagent les pages avec selliers et forgerons.
Je n’ai pas été très original, et j’ai cherché des hommes politiques importants de l’époque, comme le président en exercice (page 222, premier nom de la seconde colonne). Il y a sept personnes sur notre liste : quatre présidents, un vice-président, un ministre et un président par interim3. Cette liste précise les :

• nom
• fonction (poste le plus élevé occupé au sein du pouvoir exécutif colombien)
• mandat
• page (d’apparition dans l’annuaire)
• profession (telle qu’indiquée dans l’annuaire)
• adresse
• URL de la photo dans Wikimedia Commons
• latitude, longitude (une valeur défaut située au centre-ville de Bogota, que nous allons modifier).

Télécharger la liste en format CSV

Vous pouvez bien sûr créer votre propre liste avec des données plus intéressantes ou plus utiles pour vous.
N’oubliez pas de créer des colonnes latitude et longitude.
Sauvegardez sous forme de liste CSV (“comma-separated values”).

GeoJSON

Pour le moment, nos données sont contenues dans une liste CSV, mais les outils cartographiques en ligne utilisent généralement le format GeoJSON. GeoJSON est fondé sur la norme JSON, un des formats de données les plus courants sur le Web. GeoJSON utilise le concept d’entités (“features”) pour décrire une information géographique. Ces entités peuvent être des points (comme dans notre exemple) ou des éléments géométriques plus complexes comme des lignes simples ou des multilignes, des polygones… Chaque entité est définie par une géométrie –geometry– (point, ligne, polygone…) et des propriétés –properties– liées, qui sont les données que vous voulez lui associer (pour nous, les nom, adresse, photo… d’un individu). Par exemple⁴:

Nous devons convertir notre tableau en un objet GeoJSON, puis remplacer les valeurs par défaut de latitude et longitude par les valeurs exactes, qui nous seront indiquées par la carte elle-même. Il nous faut un outil permettant de générer et de manipuler facilement du GeoJSON : voici donc GeoJSON.io! Il s’agit d’un “outil rapide et simple pour créer, visualiser et partager des cartes”. Il possède une interface bien pratique pour créer le GeoJSON dont nous avons besoin.

Ouvrez donc GeoJSON.io dans une nouvelle fenêtre de votre navigateur. Vous verrez la carte par défaut, sans aucun zoom. Maintenant, bricolons un peu. Faites un clic droit n’importe où sur la carte, et choisissez Examiner l’élément (Inspect Element en anglais):

Clic droit→ Examiner l’élément

Ceci ouvrira un affichage avancé permettant de lire et de modifier le code de la page vue (ici, l’interface cartographique). GeoJSON.io comprend une interface de programmation (API) pour contrôler la carte affichée. Le noyau du site est MapBoxJS, lui-même construit sur Leaflet, une “bibliothèque JavaScript open-source pour des cartes interactives adaptées aux mobiles”. Je mentionne les deux, puisque, la plupart du temps, ce qui fonctionne dans l’un fonctionne dans l’autre (documentez-vous bien avant de choisir!), et j’utiliserai le terme Leaflet au lieu de MapBoxJS.

Dans l’onglet Console vous verrez du texte et, en bas, un curseur là où vous pouvez exécuter du code JavaScript. Vous remarquerez également des commentaires du créateur de GeoJSON.io. Une ligne est prévue pour entrer du JavaScript supplémentaire, tapez-y le contenu du GIF suivant et appuyez sur Entrée :

La carte sera centrée et zoomée sur Bogota, Colombie, la zone couverte par la carte de 1891. Maintenant tapez ceci :

…et faites Entrée. Cela ajoutera la couche de tuiles proprement dite. Cette ligne de code comprend l’URL que vous aviez copiée à l’étape 1. Le résultat donnera quelque chose comme ça :

Un petit “bricolage” dans GeoJSON.io

Vous pouvez maintenant fermer la console de développement (mais pas le navigateur!).

Note: Il faudra entrer ce code à chaque fois que vous accéderez à GeoJSON.io, puisqu’il ne sauvegarde pas les modifications faites dans la console. Vous pouvez par contre conserver les données que vous ajoutez à la carte en vous connectant.

Ajouter des données dans GeoJSON.io

Nous allons maintenant utiliser cette version modifiée de la carte comme base pour géo-localiser correctement notre liste CSV des présidents.
Faites glisser sur la carte le fichier CSV que vous avez téléchargé :

La magie du glisser-déposer dans GeoJSON.io

Vous remarquerez que les données sont automatiquement converties en GeoJSON (à droite) et que la carte zoome sur les repères correspondant à chaque président (à gauche). Un message (sur fond vert en haut à gauche) nous informe que sept entités ont été importées.

Mais où est passée la carte de 1891? Pas de panique, la carte est juste à un niveau de zoom trop avancé, et notre jeu de tuiles ne dispose pas d’images à cette échelle. Dézoomez un peu, et vous verrez réapparaitre la carte de 1891.

Localiser les points de repère

Les points indiqués dans notre CSV sont tous localisés les uns sur les autres, sur la Plaza de Bolívar. Il faut les déplacer sur leur emplacement correct. Si vous cliquez sur le marqueur gris, vous verrez les données attribuées au repère du dessus (General Rafael Reyes). Il habitait alors au 50, Calle 16. Trouvons cette adresse sur la carte.

Il est relativement facile de trouver les adresses puisque les coins de chaque pâté de maisons indiquent les numéros des immeubles correspondants. La numérotation des “carreras” (rues verticales) va du sud vers le nord, et se répartit entre pairs à l’ouest et impairs à l’est ; alors que celle des “calles” (rues horizontales) va de l’est à l’ouest, avec les numéros pairs au nord et impairs au sud :

Plaçons-nous sur une adresse approximative, en nous repérant sur les coins de rues. Pour ce faire, ouvrez le mode édition en cliquant sur l’icône . Les marqueurs sont encadrés en rose, et vous pouvez les déplacer. Placez-les à l’endroit voulu, cliquez sur “Save” pour enregistrer les modifications :

Certaines adresses sont délicates à placer, mais il est plaisant de pouvoir se perdre ainsi dans le Bogota de 1891.
Vous remarquerez que sur cette carte les bâtiments gouvernementaux portent les couleurs du drapeau colombien. Quand on place Rafael Núñez Moledo, le président en exercice à cette date, son adresse correspond à un de ces bâtiments, la Casa de Nariño.

Sauvegarder le fichier GeoJSON

Maintenant il faut générer le GeoJSON final, que nous utiliserons pour créer notre carte interactive. Choisissez simplement Save > GeoJSON dans le menu. Un fichier nommé map.geojson sera généré et enregistré sur votre ordinateur. Pour tricher, vous pouvez aussi télécharger celui que j’ai créé…

3) Créer une carte personnalisée de 2014 (facultatif)

Nous voulons comparer cette carte de 1891 avec le Bogota d’aujourd’hui, afin d’étudier les changements dans le temps. Il nous faut une carte de base, qui est ce que GeoJSON offre quand vous chargez la page : une carte du monde toute simple (et exacte, espérons-le), affichant les rues actuelles. Nous pouvons utiliser les tuiles standard d’OpenStreetMap ou un service comme MapBox pour produire une carte complétement personnalisée (MapBox s’appuie sur les données d’OpenStreetMap). MapBox peut faire beaucoup de choses : il permet de changer les couleurs, de choisir ce qui est affiché (rues, bâtiments, parcs, etc.) et même d’avoir recours à l’imagerie satellite! Je ne vais pas expliquer comment utiliser MapBox, vous pouvez vous référer à leur excellent tutoriel.
Quand vous aurez fini, notez bien l’identifiant de la carte (“Map ID”), qui se présentera sur le modèle username.k53dp4io. La page “Projects” de MapBox permet de voir toutes vos cartes et de copier directement les identifiants dans votre presse-papiers :

NOTE: Si vous ne voulez pas créer votre propre carte personnalisée, je donnerai plus loin un exemple de MapBox ID.

4) Assemblage final

Nous disposons maintenant de tous les éléments nécessaires à l’assemblage de notre carte interactive :

• des données géographiques en format GeoJSON,
• des tuiles pour la carte de 1891,
• des tuiles ou une MapBox ID pour la carte de 2014.

Nous afficherons un prototype dans JSFiddle, un outil permettant de rapidement créer et tester du code HTML, JavaScript et CSS. Familiarisez-vous avec l’interface grâce à ce tutoriel.

JSFiddle affiche quatre volets principaux :

• code HTML (en haut à gauche),
• code CSS (en haut à droite)
• JavaScript (en bas à gauche),
• et le résultat final (en bas à droite).

JSFiddle se charge d’assembler les trois codes et d’en afficher le résultat chaque fois que vous cliquez sur “Run” (en haute, dans la barre bleue).

HTML et CSS

Dans cet exemple, les éléments HTM et CSS sont très simples. Nous avons uniquement besoin d’une zone rectangulaire de la page affichant la carte et ses commandes.
Il nous faut un élément HTML là où sera placée la carte. Tapez ou collez ceci dans le volet HTML :

Avec ce code nous créons un élément div identifié comme une carte et qui, vous l’aurez compris, contiendra la carte. Il faut ensuite donner un style à cet élément : une hauteur, une largeur et, si vous voulez, une bordure ou d’autres attributs. Le style est contrôlé par le code CSS. Tapez ou collez ceci dans le volet CSS :

Une hauteur et une largeur de 400 pixels seront attribuées à l’élément dont l’identifiant est map (le préfixe # signifie identifiant en CSS). Bien sûr vous pouvez créer un rectangle plus grand (si votre écran peut l’afficher) et indiquer d’autres attributs entre ces accolades { } (par exemple, background-color: #f00; pour un arrière-plan rouge si vous souhaitez voir l’élément sans carte), mais j’ai voulu garder les choses simples.

Si vous cliquez sur “Run” maintenant, vous ne verrez pas grand-chose (à moins que vous n’ayez ajouté une couleur d’arrière-plan ou une bordure). Nous n’avons plus besoin d’HTML et de CSS pour le moment.

Ajouter MapBoxJS

Pour visualiser la carte et la rendre interactive, nous avons besoin d’éléments supplémentaires et de JavaScript. J’ai déjà parlé de Leaflet et de MapBoxJS: Leaflet est inclus dans MapBoxJS, donc nous nous préoccuperons uniquement de ce dernier. MapBoxJS est composé de deux fichiers: un fichier JS et un fichier CSS. Vous savez déjà ce que fait le CSS. Le fichier JavaScript renferme tout l’interactivité magique de notre carte. Voici les URL des fichiers en question (NB : il ne s’agit pas de la dernière version de MapBoxJS, mais cela fonctionnera quand même) :

Fichier CSS :
http://api.tiles.mapbox.com/mapbox.js/v1.5.0/mapbox.css

Fichier JavaScript :
http://api.tiles.mapbox.com/mapbox.js/v1.5.0/mapbox.js

Dans la colonne de gauche de JSFiddle, ouvrez la section “External Resources”. Copiez ces URL et collez chacune d’elle dans la zone JavaScript/CSS URI, puis cliquez sur le bouton “+”. Vous verrez alors quelque chose comme cela :

Votre page JSFiddle après l’ajout des deux fichiers MapBoxJS

Désormais, JSFiddle chargera ces fichiers quand vous cliquerez sur “Run”.

Bonjour la carte!

Et maintenant, le moment que vous attendez tous! Créons un peu de JavaScript pour voir la carte de 1891. Écrivez ceci dans le volet JavaScript :

…et cliquez sur “Run”. Voici ce que vous devriez voir :

Votre première carte Web!

Grâce à Leaflet, créer des cartes en ligne est aussi facile que ça.

Note: Je n’entre pas ici dans les détails des API Leaflet ou MapBoxJS. Il existe des tutoriels et des exemples pour les deux. A la place, je vais vous donner des fragments de code, en expliquant brièvement ce qu’ils font. Vous allez copier, coller, cliquer sur “Run” et le résultat sera magique5. Plus tard vous découvrirez par vous-même comment faire encore mieux.

Combiner plusieurs jeux de tuiles

Vous avez vu que la carte est vide, sauf pour la partie correspondant à 1891 : c’est normal. L’URL de ce jeu de tuiles ne contient que la carte rectifiée, et rien d’autre. Il nous faut un jeu de tuiles supplémentaire pour comparer avec 2014 (je vais utiliser un exemple de MapBox Map ID, au cas où vous n’auriez pas créé le vôtre à l’étape 3). Nous allons remplacer le code JS par un nouveau, contenant :

• les informations de provenance de la carte,
• les tuiles pour 2014,
• une commande pour passer d’un jeu de tuiles à l’autre.

Ce code doit remplacer votre JS précédent :

Vous remarquerez que ce code est assez similaire à l’autre. Les différences principales sont l’attribution des données et les jeux de tuiles MapBox (par le biais de la Map ID). La commande elle-même consiste en deux lignes : une pour créer une variable baseMaps qui supportera les tuiles (vous pouvez ajouter autant de jeux que vous voulez) et une autre pour créer une commande de bascule et l’ajouter à la carte. La voici en action:

La mention de provenance de l’image change avec le jeu de tuiles.

Nous y sommes presque! Il faut maintenant afficher nos données. Leaflet nous facilite le travail, puisque il est par défaut compatible avec GeoJSON. Cette étape tient en quelques lignes, mais d’abord, supprimez la fonction de zoom map.setView([4.598056, -74.075833],14). Maintenant collez ce code en bas du volet JS :

Copiez le GeoJSON depuis le fichier texte que vous avez téléchargé dans GeoJSON.io et collez-le là où vous lisez 'paste_geojson_here_keep_quotes'. Gardez bien les guillemets! Cette ligne devrait ressembler à ceci :

Nous avons remplacé la fonction zoom par map.fitBounds(geolayer.getBounds()). Cela rend la carte plus “intelligente” : nous ne rentrons pas manuellement longitude, latitude et niveau de zoom, nous laissons Leaflet calculer la zone occupée par l’ensemble des marqueurs avec getBounds() et ajouter cette valeur à la fonction fitBounds(). Voilà, la carte est maintenant zoomée pour montrer tous nos marqueurs. Si vous en ajoutez de nouveaux, les limites de la zone s’ajusteront automatiquement!

Vous pouvez également ajouter des points de repères ou d’autres informations à la bascule de couches. Il faut juste créer une variable comparable à celle que vous avez créée pour les jeux de tuiles et mettre à jour le code de création de commande :

Vous verrez quelque chose comme ceci en cliquant sur “Run” :

Votre carte et ses données personnalisées

Note: Pensez bien à déplacer le code de création de commande L.control.layersen dessous de l’analyse de GeoJSON. La variablegeolayer a besoin d’exister pour être ajoutée à d’autres couches (overlays). Consultez mes résultats JSFiddle pour plus de détails.

Une autre ligne importante est celle contenant la fonction L.geoJson(). Celle-ci analyse toutes les entités décrites par le fichier map.geojson. Leaflet/MapBoxJS affiche par défaut des marqueurs bleus pour les entités points, que vous pouvez personnaliser. L.geoJson() permet aussi d’ajouter de l’interactivité aux marqueurs, car pour le moment il ne se passe rien si vous cliquez dessus.

Animer les marqueurs

Nous voulons pouvoir cliquer sur nos points de repère et afficher une fenêtre pop-up avec les données que nous leur avons associées (dans les propriétés de l’entité). Il y a deux choses à faire :

1. créer une fonction qui créera et affichera un pop-up pour chaque entité point,
2. et modifier l’appel L.geoJson() pour utiliser cette fonction.

C’est ce que fait la fonction bindPopup() de Leaflet : afficher une boite de texte pour une couche donnée. Le texte peut être balisé en HTML. Collez ce code sous tout ce que vous avez jusqu’à présent :

Cette fonction showPopup()reçoit une entité (feature), l’élément de GeoJSON qui renferme toutes nos informations (une géométrie et des propriétés), et une couche (layer), dans notre exemple, le marqueur bleu. Ces deux paramètres sont traités automatiquement par la fonction L.geoJson(). showPopup() extrait ensuite les propriétés de chaque entité (nom, adresse, etc.) et construit une chaîne HTML, utilisée pour créer le pop-up.

Modifiez votre ligne L.geoJsoncomme ceci pour connecter showPopup:

…vous ajoutez , {onEachFeature: showPopup} après geodata. Ceci indique à Leaflet d’appliquer la fonction showPopupà chaque entité GeoJSON.

Note: Si votre GeoJSON comporte plusieurs catégories d’entités (points, lignes, polygones…), il faut savoir que la même fonction sera appliquée à toutes. Par exemple, les polygones ont des limites, mais pas les points. Vérifiez si l’entité sur laquelle vous avez cliquée a bien des limites avant d’utiliser la fonctionfitBounds.

Si vous chargez la carte et cliquez sur un repère, vous verrez quelque chose comme cela :

C’est déjà très bien, mais ce serait encore mieux en affichant la photo, et en liant le numéro de page à l’annuaire numérisé. C’est ce que nous allons faire. Remplacez la fonction showPopup par celle-ci :

Nous avons juste ajouté une action sous condition : si key est égal à “Page” un lien est créé vers l’annuaire, et si key est égal à “Photo” une vignette est affichée, avec une hauteur limitée à 150 pixels (au cas où l’image serait trop grande).

Voici à quoi ressemble M. Núñez maintenant :

…tout à fait présidentiel!

Et nous en avons fini!

Pour conclure

Il vous faudra compiler ces trois fragments de code dans une page HTML pour publier votre nouvelle carte quelque part. Pas d’inquiétude, voici du code avec les zones nécessaires pour y coller vos CSS, HTML et JS. Sauvegardez le tout dans un fichier .html et publiez-le :

Voici la carte finie. J’ai fait quelques petites modifications au CSS pour remplir la fenêtre du navigateur.

J’espère que ce tutoriel vous aura été utile. N’hésitez pas à me contacter pour tout commentaire ou question!

This week marks the 150^th anniversary of the final battles of the Civil War, followed all too closely by the anniversary of President Lincoln’s assassination. LPA staff can be blogging this week about performing arts and Abolitionism, plays and films about Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth’s career, or whether the Civil War actually ever ended. But I want to commemorate the anniversary with this contemporary response to the news of Lincoln’s death. We discovered it while researching Touring West. It comes from Jeanine Behrend’s translation of Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s diary.

Gottschalk was a piano virtuoso and composer active in America, the Caribbean and Europe in the mid-19^th century. His diary (which is at the Music Division) is primarily concerned with horrible traveling conditions and badly tuned pianos. On this date, he was traveling to California, which, at that time, meant sailing West around Central America.

Louis Moreau Gottschalk on hearing about Lincoln's assassination

April 23, 1865, on board The Constitution, off Baja California.

“A steamer in sight! It is the Golden City, which left San Francisco two days ago. The captain comes on board, and, in the midst of questions from all the passengers who crowd the staircase hurls these words like thunderbolts: Richmond is taken, Lee has surrendered, Lincoln has been assassinated.

“The news, more or less true, which has been transmitted to us since the commencement of the war, has rendered us incredulous. Nothing is more probable than that Lee has surrendered, since, on the morning of our departure from New York, the news of the taking of Petersburg was confirmed—but the death of Lincoln! Some ask for the papers; a passenger has mounted in the rigging and has been requested to read with a loud voice. Alas! There is no longer any doubt Lincoln is dead. We do not know the details of the horrible outrage—the name only of the assassin is mentioned—Wilkes Booth. I remember having seen him play a year ago in Cleveland, I was struck at that time with the beauty of his features, and at the same time by a sinister expression in his countenance. I would even say that he had something deadly in his look…

“I never recollect having seen a more affecting sight than that presented by the immense deck of the Constitution. The sky is blue, the sun resplendent, the sea is calm, all nature seems to smile above our heads, to render the contrast of our grief more striking with the stillness of all that surrounds us. …Around me, rude features of the seamen leave the badly effaced traces of their tears to be seen. A judge, sitting in the corner, his head in his hands, weeps as if he had just lost a father. All the men seem crushed, overwhelmed under the weight of an incommensurable grief…”

Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Notes of a Pianist.
translated by Jeanne Behrend (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1964)

Henry has a voracious appetite for books, and he cannot stop consuming them. One day, he gets bored, so he sneaks a taste of a single page, which leads to a chapter, and eventually an entire book. Soon, he is hooked, and he seeks books of every variety, color and subject matter. Henry loves story books, books about math, science, fact books, dictionaries and atlases. All of this book nibbling leads him to develop more smarts. A book about goldfish teaches him what to feed his goldfish. Snacking on joke books helps him impress his friends. 

Henry eats books faster and faster, and, inevitably winds up with a stomachache. He loves the texture and satisfaction of delicious knowledge, but the stomach pains are making him suffer. The paper and ink are taking their toll. Henry is tasked with finding a solution to his gnawing bibliophilia. All of this book-chomping can have negative consequences. 

The Incredible Book Eating Boy by Oliver Jeffers, 2006

The illustrations are very creative.

• Oliver Jeffers's web site
• Books about books

Our beloved Sony AV8650 EIAJ ½” open reel deck has been repaired by Bob Shuster, alias Midnight Bob.  Up and running, the 8650 is sending both color and soft grey sometimes ghostly moving images to our old and forgiving FOR.A TBC, then to our Snell and Wilcox, completing the transition from CCTV to SDI.  I have run the tape through my gloved fingers making myself a primitive kindred apparatus. Perhaps it is the result of prolonged exposure, but I have true affection for this medium and am heartbroken when people express disappointment at its most obvious flaws.  You love the children that you labor to bring forth even if they are weak and pale and suffer from poor contrast. Think of these recordings as a last faithful carbon copy or an imprinted shroud. 

There is so much history wound up in these open reels that would not exist in any other form.  The medium became available at a rich time in Dance history.  Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Dance Theater Workshop, Judson Dance Theater artists and countless others employed it. There is ridiculously little existing dance footage of Isadora Duncan.  In the briefest of fragments she orbits a huge tree at a 1920s garden party.  The tree obscures her from the camera for a moment in a clip that is only a few moments in duration. We would be happy to have even an artifact ridden open reel recording of something more.

If you’re curious about the Non-EIAJ Sony CV 1/2” open reel format take a look at an earlier Time Machine post.   You might also take a look at Charles Bensinger's Video Guide; it is freely available on line.  It was written at the height of half inch open-reel’s serviceability and an innocent optimism as to how the medium would change television and document us. 

A Song of Ice and Fire is a fantasy series written by George R.R. Martin. The first book in the series is A Game of Thrones which follows powerful families of Westeros in the quest for power and control of Westeros.  

Books

1. A Game of Thrones
2. A Clash of Kings
3. A Storm of Swords
4. A Feast for Crows
5. A Dance with Dragons
6. The Winds of Winter (No release date set)
7. A Dream of Spring (No release date set)

• A Song of Ice and Fire series is also available as e-books
• A Song of Ice and Fireseries is also available as Audiobooks

Television Series

Game of Thrones has become a very popular HBO series. Catch up on all the action with the series on DVD:

• Game of Thrones: Season 1         
• Game of Thrones: Season 2
• Game of Thrones: Season 3
• Game of Thrones: Season 4

Soundtrack

• Game of Thrones: Season 1 Soundtrack           
• Game of Thrones: Season 2 Soundtrack
• Game of Thrones: Season 3 Soundtrack
• Game of Thrones: Season 4 Soundtrack

Other Books

• A Feast of Ice and Fire The Official Companion Cookbook By Chelsea Monroe-Cassel
• Game of Thrones: In Memoriam
• The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones
• Inside HBO's Game of Thrones by  Bryan Cogman
• The Unofficial Game of Thrones Cookbook From Direwolf Ale to Auroch Stew—more Than 150 Recipes From Westeros and Beyond by Alan Kistler
• Inside HBO's Game of Thrones Seasons 3 and 4 by C.A. Taylor
• Game of Thrones and Philosophy: Logic Cuts Deeper Than Swords
• Dothraki: A Conversational Language Course Based on the Hit Original HBO Series Game of Thrones by David J. Peterson

Graphic Novels

• A Game of Thrones Volume 1: the Graphic Novel by Daniel Abraham
• A Game of Thrones Volume 2: the Graphic Novel by Daniel Abraham
• A Game of Thrones Volume 3: the Graphic Novel by Daniel Abraham