• blogTO notes a threat to some of Liberty Village's historic buildings through development.
• Centauri Dreams looks at planetary formation around close binary SDSS 1557, which includes a white dwarf.
• False Steps' Paul Drye announces a new book project, They Played the Game, which looks at how different baseball players overlooked in our history might ( Read more... )

The Toronto Star's Ellen Brait reports on how first-year engineering students at the University of Toronto came up with a solution to save the books of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library.

When 750,000 volumes of rare books are imperiled by condensation, it’s time to think outside the building ( Read more... )

blogTO's Derek Flack highlights the ongoing upgrading of not a few of the branches of the Toronto Public Library system.

Perhaps the most stunning of these upgrades is happening at the TPL's Albion Branch, where architecture firm Perkins + Will have designed a stunning new building immediately adjacent to the existing branch that dates back to ( Read more... )

The Grande Bibliothèque in downtown Montréal, centrepiece of the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec network, is a stunning building in the heart of Montréal.


( Read more... )

The Globe and Mail's Alex Bozikovic reports on the central place that the library has taken in Canaidan architecture, as a locus for experimentation. As someone who likes the Toronto Reference Library and loves the newly-encountered Bibliothèque nationale in Montréal, this article makes perfect sense.

Imagine a slab: a low box clad in limestone ( Read more... )

• Centauri Dreams looks at the advanced microelectronics that might last a space probe the two decades it would take to get to Proxima Centauri.
• Dangerous Minds links to a 1980 filmed concert performance by Queen.
• The Dragon's Gaze reports on the discovery of potassium in the atmosphere of WASP-17b.
• Language Hat looks at the Carmina of Optatianus, an ( Read more... )

Spacing Toronto's Arlene Chan profiles the exciting introduction to the public via the Toronto Public Library of an archive of Chinese Canadian history over the past century and more.

On Dominion Day, 1923, Canadians were in a celebratory mood. But those good feelings didn’t extend into any Chinatown. July 1 came to be regarded by the Chinese in ( Read more... )

• Beyond the Beyond remembers pioneering electronic musician Jean-Claude Risset.
• blogTO notes the changes that will save the Toronto Public Library a million dollars.
• In Media Res' Russell Arben Fox finds things to be thankful for.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the increasingly large vote margin of Hillary Clinton's popular vote victory.
• Marginal ( Read more... )

Torontoist's Christopher Bird engages in an excellent criticism of an ill-judged, ill-thought op-ed in the Financial Post against the Toronto public library system. ("The Financial Post and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad anti-Toronto Library Op-ed" is a fantastic title.)

Periodically, one gets the opportunity to see the pundit ( Read more... )

Torontoist's Nikhil Sharma describes how important Toronto's public library system can be for immigrants, thanks to settlement programs based at some of the branches.

Three years ago, Gong Zan Cang entered through the doors of the Parliament Street library for the first time. He lived nearby-it took him just a few minutes to get there in his ( Read more... )