The Vespiary Book Binding & Book Conservation

It’s my very first link dump! I’ve been away (making sure my brother got good and married), and have been thinking about all these groovy word-related sites to feed to you.

A few of these may be slightly old news, but then again, I don’t know where you get your news from, so I’ll take that risk.

Last week’s hotness is Wordle, a tag cloud visualizer that lets you choose font, color, arrangement, etc. I had fun plugging in my del.icio.us tags, as you can see.

While I furiously work on my various conservation projects, I listen to a lot of podcasts. A LOT. The hands are working, so why not the brain, too? My themes tend towards science and news media, and a recent episode of “On the Media” dealt with how two stalwarts of journalism have redesigned their headquarters. The New York Times hired sound artist, Ben Rubin and statistician, Mark Hansen to design a new art installation that will remain relevant for the next few hundred years. I must admit, the visual was not as stunning as what I had imagined by listening to the podcast, but I love the idea of turning information overload into a kind of unconscious text-based emergence. (check out Rubin’s cool installation over at the Minneapolis Public Library!)

Next up is Jonathan Harris, and his blog-ripped mash-up, We Feel Fine. A similar vein as Moveable Type, Harris mines blog entries that include the word “feel” and makes various visualizations based on mood, gender, location, weather, etc. (My favorite section is “mobs”)

Lastly, I have Paul Otlet (pronounced <ot-LAY>) and his tangible version of the World Wide Web that was crushed before it could really evolve into something useful. Reading his description of the Mundeneum is so eerie, it makes me want to bust out my crystal ball and see what I can come up with, so I can be memorialized 50 years in the future… But I digress. Otlet gathered together as much information as he could on 3×5 cards in order to create a master bibliography. Google Tech Talks has a nice video that discusses Otlet and other forward thinkers. Kevin Kelly over at The Technicum has an amazing post about other forms of punch-card methods of organization. I love that a person must use a glorified knitting needle in order to select the desired cards.