Atlas Obscura, digital archives and other curiosities
I just heard the news that my favourite website, Atlas Obscura, is now available in book (and eBook) form! In case you're not familiar with it, Atlas Obscura is, true to its name, a sort of crowd-sourced encyclopedia of the world's strange and out-of-the-way places; it also compiles articles on little-known historical events, obscure but interesting people, and so on. If you're looking for a place to sink into a deep (and deeply informative) internet trance, this is it.
Atlas Obscura
by Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, and Ella Morton
A guide to some of the world's most curious places and events. From the publisher's description:
"Talk about a bucket list: …a baobab tree in South Africa that's so large it has a pub inside where 15 people can drink comfortably… the M.C. Escher-like stepwells in India… the Baby Jumping Festival in Spain, where men dressed as devils literally vault over rows of squirming infants…" and so on.
If you like that sort of thing (and who doesn't?), you'll love this.
While you're waiting for your hold on Atlas Obscura to come in, there's a whole world of curiosities that you can explore without getting off your couch. Have you taken a look at the Internet Archive?
The Internet Archive (archive.org)
Oh, man.
Over 600 playable vintage arcade games; over 2,000 old-time radio shows; 4,000+ vintage feature films; nearly 200,000 digitized microfilms from the world's libraries. Early records, TV shows: you name it – if it's fascinating and old and out of copyright, the Internet Archive's got it. The Prelinger Archive alone – nearly 7,000 ephemeral films (old ads, educational films, industrial films, you name it) – can suck up days of happy browsing if you let it; and in the right hands, it can produce miracles of collage, like this music video by local artist Jonathan Culp.
Toronto Public Library's Digital Archives
Of course, Toronto Public Library has a portal on the Internet Archive, full of old Eaton's catalogues, city directories, social registers and ephemera. But that just scratches the surface of the digital archive that's available through our website. If you ever have several hours to kill, take my advice and have a look at some of the digital scans from the Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books.
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Its over 2,000 scanned items include 60 children's books about cats (among them the rather dark and violent – not to mention colonialist – Cat's Castle Taken By the Rats… |
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…and an alarming variation on the old folk song, Froggy Went A'Courtin'. |
Have a look – you're bound to turn up some gems. Happy browsing!
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