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Angus Snead Macdonald
Angus Snead Macdonald (1883-1961) was an American architect and businessman; from 1915 to 1952 the president of Snead and Company. This company, based in Louisville, Kentucky, manufactured the cast iron book stacks found in libraries all over the world in the beginning of the 20th century including the Washington DC Public Library and Harvard's Widener Library. After World War I Angus Snead Macdonald would lead Snead and Company to revolutionize and standardize library book stacks. Innovations in library shelving With the success of the public library movement of the mid-19th century came the rapid expansion of library construction in the United States. Macdonald took advantage of this expansion to revolutionize a number of library features. In 1915 Snead standardized the length of a book shelf to three feet in order to reduce cost and create interchangeable parts. The company also standardized the stack range spacing to four feet six inches. In 1930 the company developed a standa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. Named after King Louis XVI of France, Louisville was founded in 1778 by George Rogers Clark, making it one of the oldest cities west of the Appalachians. With nearby Falls of the Ohio as the only major obstruction to river traffic between the upper Ohio River and the Gulf of Mexico, the settlement first grew as a portage site. It was the founding city of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, which grew into a system across 13 states. Today, the city is known as the home of boxer Muhammad Ali, the Kentucky Derby, Kentucky Fried Chicken, the University of Louisville and its Cardinals, Louisville Slugger baseball bats, and three of Kentucky's six ''Fortune'' 500 companies: Humana, Kindred Healthcare, and Yum! Brands. Muhamm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slate (magazine)
''Slate'' is an online magazine that covers current affairs, politics, and culture in the United States. It was created in 1996 by former '' New Republic'' editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. In 2004, it was purchased by The Washington Post Company (later renamed the Graham Holdings Company), and since 2008 has been managed by The Slate Group, an online publishing entity created by Graham Holdings. ''Slate'' is based in New York City, with an additional office in Washington, D.C. ''Slate'', which is updated throughout the day, covers politics, arts and culture, sports, and news. According to its former editor-in-chief Julia Turner, the magazine is "not fundamentally a breaking news source", but rather aimed at helping readers to "analyze and understand and interpret the world" with witty and entertaining writing. As of mid-2015, it publishes about 1,500 stories per month. A French version, ''slate.fr'', was launched in February 20 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book Stack
In library science and architecture, a stack or bookstack (often referred to as a library building's ''stacks'') is a book storage area, as opposed to a reading area. More specifically, this term refers to a narrow-aisled, multilevel system of iron or steel shelving that evolved in the 19th century to meet increasing demands for storage space. An "open-stack" library allows its patrons to enter the stacks to browse for themselves; "closed stacks" means library staff retrieve books for patrons on request. Early development French architect Henri Labrouste, shortly after making pioneering use of iron in the Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve of 1850, created a four-story iron stack for the Bibliothèque nationale de France. In 1857, multilevel stacks with grated iron floors were installed in the British Library. In 1876, William R. Ware designed a stack for Gore Hall at Harvard University. In contrast to the structural relationship found in most buildings, the floors of these ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Library
A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a virtual space, or both. A library's collection can include printed materials and other physical resources in many formats such as DVD, CD and cassette as well as access to information, music or other content held on bibliographic databases. A library, which may vary widely in size, may be organized for use and maintained by a public body such as a government; an institution such as a school or museum; a corporation; or a private individual. In addition to providing materials, libraries also provide the services of librarians who are trained and experts at finding, selecting, circulating and organizing information and at interpreting information needs, navigating and analyzing very large amounts of information with a variety of resources. Li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Washington DC Public Library
The District of Columbia Public Library (DCPL) is the public library, public library system for the District of Columbia, in the United States. The system includes 26 individual libraries including Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library (the DCPL's central library). History The library was founded in 1896 by an act of United States Congress, Congress after a lobbying effort by Theodore W. Noyes, editor of the ''Washington Star, Washington Evening Star'' newspaper. Noyes served on the library's board of trustees for 50 years. The first library branch was located in a home at 1326 New York Avenue (Washington, D.C.), New York Avenue NW, with a collection of 15,000 donated books and an appropriation of $6,720 for its maintenance. This was replaced by Carnegie Library of Washington D.C., a main library, donated by Andrew Carnegie, built at Mount Vernon Square, which now houses the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. and an Apple Store. President Theodore Roosevelt attended the d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and one of the most prestigious and highly ranked universities in the world. The university is composed of ten academic faculties plus Harvard Radcliffe Institute. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences offers study in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate academic disciplines, and other faculties offer only graduate degrees, including professional degrees. Harvard has three main campuses: the Cambridge campus centered on Harvard Yard; an adjoining campus immediately across Charles River in the Allston neighborhood of Boston; and the medical campus in Boston's Longwood Medical Area. Harvard's endowment is valued at $50.9 billion, making it the wealthiest academic institution in the world. Endowment inco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Widener Library
The Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library, housing some 3.5million books in its "vast and cavernous" stacks (library architecture), stacks, is the centerpiece of the Harvard College Libraries (the libraries of Harvard's Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Sciences) and, more broadly, of the entire Harvard Library system. It honors 1907 Harvard College graduate and book collector Harry Elkins Widener, and was built by his mother Eleanor Elkins Widener after his death in the sinking of the RMS Titanic, sinking of the RMS ''Titanic'' in 1912. The library's holdings, which include works in more than one hundred languages, comprise "one of the world's most comprehensive research collections in the humanities and List of social sciences, social sciences." Its of shelves, along five miles (8km) of aisles on ten levels, comprise a "labyrinth" which one student "could not enter without feeling that she ought to carry a compass, a sandwich, and a whistle." At the bui ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighting occurring throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died as a result of military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died in genocides within the Ottoman Empire and in the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war. Prior to 1914, the European great powers were divided between the Triple Entente (comprising France, Russia, and Britain) and the Triple Alliance (containing Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy). Tensions in the Balkans came to a head on 28 June 1914, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Library
A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also Civil service, civil servants. There are five fundamental characteristics shared by public libraries: they are generally supported by taxes (usually local, though any level of government can and may contribute); they are governed by a board to serve the public interest; they are open to all, and every community member can access the collection; they are entirely voluntary, no one is ever forced to use the services provided and they provide library and information services services without charge. Public libraries exist in many countries across the world and are often considered an essential part of having an educated and literate population. Public libraries are distinct from research library, research libraries, school library, school libraries, academic library, academic librar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interchangeable Parts
Interchangeable parts are parts ( components) that are identical for practical purposes. They are made to specifications that ensure that they are so nearly identical that they will fit into any assembly of the same type. One such part can freely replace another, without any custom fitting, such as filing. This interchangeability allows easy assembly of new devices, and easier repair of existing devices, while minimizing both the time and skill required of the person doing the assembly or repair. The concept of interchangeability was crucial to the introduction of the assembly line at the beginning of the 20th century, and has become an important element of some modern manufacturing but is missing from other important industries. Interchangeability of parts was achieved by combining a number of innovations and improvements in machining operations and the invention of several machine tools, such as the slide rest lathe, screw-cutting lathe, turret lathe, milling machine and metal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Midwest Inter-Library Center
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It was officially named the North Central Region by the Census Bureau until 1984. It is between the Northeastern United States and the Western United States, with Canada to the north and the Southern United States to the south. The Census Bureau's definition consists of 12 states in the north central United States: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. The region generally lies on the broad Interior Plain between the states occupying the Appalachian Mountains, Appalachian Mountain range and the states occupying the Rocky Mountains, Rocky Mountain range. Major rivers in the region include, from east to west, the Ohio River, the Upper Mis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
