“It is the true Arabia … there can never be another picture of the whole, in our time, because here it is all said, and by a great master” T. E. Lawrence Setting off from Damascus in 1876, Charles Doughty travelled for 21 months across the deserts of Arabia, through regions almost entirely unknown…
Camerawoman revealed
The Fine Arts Library holds a collection of over 10,000 photographs of European medieval monuments taken by Professor Arthur Kingsley Porter (1883-1933) in the 1920s. The Porter collection includes negatives as well as prints and served as the basis for several of his noted publications such as Romanesque sculpture of the pilgrimage roads (1923). Kathryn…
Unique photography book acquired
The Fine Arts Library recently acquired a limited edition publication by renowned Australian photojournalist Stephen Dupont. Entitled Axe Me Biggie, a rendering of the Dari expression for “take my picture”, it includes ninety black and white Polaroid portrait photographs of Afghanis taken near the central bus station in Kabul, on one day in 2006. These…
Dr. Madaus Commemorative Album
50 Jahre Madaus: Eine aufgeschlossene Firma. Köln-Merheim: Dr. Madaus & Co., [1969]. This photography book was especially created for the 50th anniversary of a German pharmaceutical firm. Founded in 1919, Madaus is still a major drug company although no longer with the homeopathic focus of its early years. A whimsical and creative tour-de-force, the work…
Shades of Nakedness: the Douglass A. Roby Fund
One of the singular, and most generous, book funds available to the Harvard College Library is the one created by Douglass A. Roby, Class of 1965. Although Mr. Roby spent a great part of his career working for the New York City Transit Authority, he was an accomplished scholar, receiving advanced degrees from Yale University…
American Library Association conference, Atlanta, Georgia, 1899
Moore and Stephenson (no dates), Atlanta, Georgia. American Library Association Twenty-first annual conference, Atlanta, Georgia, May 8-13, 1899. In May 1899 over 200 librarians from across the United States assembled in Atlanta for the annual meeting of the American Library Association (ALA). The six day program was packed with sessions devoted to reports from officers…