[Reader-list] Happy Sunday :) Library and Garbage bins

[Monica Narula]

Talking of libraries and books, here is an interesting link

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/373-a-map-of-the-land-of-books/

You can see a picture of a map of the land of books :-)

and below is the description from that page.

best
M
This map by German illustrator Alphons Woelfle (1938) shows the extent  
and the divisions of Bücherland (the Land of Books). The Land consists  
of about half a dozen distinct territories, most of which are  
explicitly named: Leserrepublik (Reader’s Republic), Vereinigte  
Buchhandelsstaaten (United States of Booksellers), Recensentia (a  
realm for Reviewers), Makulaturia (Waste Paper Land), and Poesia  
(Poetry). The capital of the US of B is the city of Officina (Latin  
for workshop, and the origin of our ‘office’; the name seems  
remarkably unremarkable. Possibly there is an old reference or a  
German word-joke here we’re not getting).

Plotting out imagined places on a map as if they were “real” countries  
is a favourite trope in curious cartography. The artificial equation  
of place and meaning allows for double-entendres and other humorous  
leaps of the imagination on which this allegorical form of cartography  
thrives. As a sub-genre of cartography, it has been around since at  
least La carte de tendre, an 18th-century French map of love’s  
topography (discussed in entry #245 of this blog). Other examples  
previously discussed include a Map on Temperance (#258) or a German  
map of the Empire of Love (#59).

This map was possibly commissioned by the Heimeran Verlag (publishing  
house) of Munich, a frequent employer of Mr Woelfle’s artisanship –  
although no information could be found relating to the specific  
circumstances of this map. One can only presume that it illustrated a  
book about books, or more precisely, a book about publishing. The look  
and feel of the map is definitely older than its mid-20th-century age;  
in a positive case of antiquarianism (i.e. lending something  
respectability by increasing its age), it has been made to resemble  
the maps of earlier times (17th, 18th century, I’d say).

Monica Narula
Raqs Media Collective
Sarai-CSDS
www.raqsmediacollective.net
www.sarai.net



On 10-May-09, at 6:07 AM, Jeebesh wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> It's Sunday morning in Delhi. It's nice and warm. The birds are
> eagerly practicing flight as the afternoon sun will start draining
> them. The ants crawl the trees in quick hope of feed. Heat will slowly
> make them much less mobile as the day progresses. Delhi summer heat
> beats down everyone. Very little insight comes of it :)
>
> Is it possible to calm the heat down in this list? Well here is a
> suggestion.
>
> Can we together explore two questions that can maybe give us all some
> vantage point to better understand the milieu we live in.
>
> 1) Why is there almost no public library in the cities in India?
> Simple places that one goes to read and meet people from other walks
> of life.
>
> Was recently in Montreal and was taken to the newly built public
> library there. It has been jointly built by the municipality, the
> province and the federal funding. It is managed by an group of
> librarian and has already developed an amazing collection of books.
> It's children section was an amazing zone. The library had a sitting
> arrangement for many hundred and has wireless connectivity.
>
> 2) Why are the public garbage bin's design so unimaginative in the
> cities in India?  We keep hearing so much about enormous garbage being
> produced by our increasingly visible and affluent middle class and so
> little innovation in garbage bins. Huge fences guard the various
> localities but the garbage bins remain undesigned and overflowing.
> This is a strange anomaly.
>
> Thought this maybe a good starting point for sunday thinking :)
>
> warmly
> Jeebesh
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