Today we’re going to look at several beautiful libraries, both real and imaginary. One of my greatest joys in this job is thumbing through (the very generous) Creative Commons images on Flickr to find just the right pictures to start the day around here. Here’s to a fantastic Tuesday for all of our readers, with some cozy, friendly, gorgeous libraries to guide your way.
I have such great memories of visiting my childhood library. Are libraries as popular a destination for today’s parents as they were twenty or thirty years ago?
Indianapolis library with fancy photographer exposure tricks from Flickr
Carnegie Library in Ann Arbor, MI, on Flickr with the following text:
Carnegie Library – Saved (partially)
This is a shot of an old Carnegie Library in Ann Arbor, MI. Built in the early 1900’s, this library was most recently part of the Frieze Building. The Frieze Building held classrooms for The University of Michigan but is being torn down to make way for a new dormitory. Fortunately, however, the library building will not be demolished, although it remains to be seen how it gets utilized in the new structure.
Update: Apparently only the facade will be saved and incorporated into the new dormitory. The remaining sides (and the interior) will be demolished. Such a shame.
It’s hard to get a good shot of this building since it faces north and is almost always in shade. For this shot I used the auto-bracketing feature of my Olympus E-500 to take 3 handheld exposures. I then used Photomatix to create an HDR from the three images, finishing off some details such as sharpening in Photoshop. I also removed a street light which I found distracting. A glimpse of what the library looked like originally can be found here, in particular this image.
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Seattle Public Library, from top of Microsoft Atrium on Flickr
Beinecke Library, Yale on Flickr
We Indiana girls always heard about Oberlin. Here’s the Oberlin Mudd library on Flickr
The reading room at the New York Public Library on Flickr
Biblioteca Central U.N.A.M Ciudad Universitaria, Distrito Federal, Mexico on Flickr
State Library of New South Wales, Australia on Flickr
