Genealogy tip for today: Finding Rare or Old Books
My grandmother’s maternal
grandmother’s maiden name was Mary Kingsley. When I got back to her generation
and started working on the Kingsley line, I discovered that a book had been
written about the Kingsley family.
I looked it up in WorldCat, (which
we recently discussed) and found libraries who owned copies of that book. The
problem was, no one wanted to loan it through Interlibrary Loan (ILL) because
the book is rather old and there were not that many copies available.
But it wasn’t the end of the
world. I discovered a wonderful source, actually two, where you can find old,
out-of-copyright books wherever you have access to the Internet: Google Books
and the Gutenberg Project.
I typed in the name of the
book I wanted into Google Books and they had it! Now all I had to do was print
it out – or as much of it as I wanted or needed. If you have a book you want
and can’t get your hands on – checkout these two possibilities. They are taking
on a huge project of adding books that are in the public domain! Several
Universities are helping with this and hundreds if not thousands of books are
being added continually, many are already in the collection.
This is a great source and a
great way to disseminate information. Between the functionality of the Internet
and the books being scanned and made available, it is helping to spread access
to information on such a large scale, never before possible. It’s like having a
worldwide library at your fingertips! No library card, needed!
Now I must add a caveat. Sometimes
books are republished and now have a new copyright date. So it may prevent you
from getting the whole book from Google Books. Google Books may have the book scanned in, but
now they may limit access to that book. This will be something that you will
need to watch.
But the next time you want a
book and can’t get it – check and see if it might be available on the Internet,
free of charge, through one of these two sources. You just might be surprised
how easy it is to get your hands on a rare book after all.
1571 In the last great clash of galleys, the Ottoman navy
is defeated at Lepanto, Greece, by a Christian naval coalition under the
overall command of Spain's Don Juan de Austria.
1765 Delegates from nine of the American colonies meet in
New York to discuss the Stamp Act Crisis and colonial response to it.
1849 Edgar Allan Poe,
aged 40, dies a tragic death in Baltimore. Never able to overcome his drinking
habits, he was found in a delirious condition outside a saloon that was used as
a voting place.
1870 French Minister of the Interior Leon Gambetta escapes
besieged Paris by balloon, reaching the French provisional government in Tours.1913 In attempting to find ways to lower the cost of the automobile and make it more affordable to ordinary Americans, Henry Ford took note of the work of efficiency experts like Frederick Taylor, the "father of scientific management." The result was the assembly line that reduced the time it took to manufacture a car, from 12 hours to 93 minutes.
1944 Prisoner uprising at Birkenau concentration camp.
1949 Iva Toguri D'Aquino, better known as Tokyo Rose, is sentenced to 10 years in prison for treason.
1949 East Germany, the German Democratic Republic, is formed.
1957 A fire in the Windscale plutonium production reactor (later called Sellafield) north of Liverpool, England, spreads radioactive iodine and polonium through the countryside and into the Irish Sea. Livestock in the immediate area were destroyed, along with 500,000 gallons of milk. At least 30, and possibly as many as 1,000, cancer deaths were subsequently linked to the accident.
1976 Hua Guofeng, premier of the People's Republic of China, succeeds the late Mao Zedong as chairman of the Communist Party of China.
1985 Four Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) hijackers seize the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and demand the release of 50 Palestinians held by Israel.
1993 The Great Flood of 1993 on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers ends, the worst US flood since 1927.
1996 Fox News Channel begins broadcasting.
2001 US invasion of Afghanistan in reaction to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 begins; it will become the longest war in US history.
2003 California voters remove Democratic governor Gray Davis from office in the state's first successful recall of a sitting governor (only the second successful recall of a governor in US history); a Republican candidate, bodybuilder/actor Arnold Schwarzenegger wins the election to replace Davis 17 days later.
Birthdays today
1849 James Whitcomb Riley, poet.
1885 Nils Bohr, physicist whose model of atomic
structure
helped establish quantum theory.
1900 Heinrich Himmler, Nazi leader.1907 Helen MacInnes, writer.
1931 Desmond Tutu, South African religious leader.
1934 Leroi Jones (Imamu Amiri Baraka), playwright.
1935 Thomas Keneally, novelist, author of Schindler's Ark, the basis for the film Schindler's List.
1952 Vladimir Putin, former prime minister and current (2013) president of Russia.
1955 Yo Yo Ma, cellist.
furfuraceous
(fuhr-fyuh-RAY-shus)
MEANING:
adjective:1. Covered with dandruff.
2. Flaky.
ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin furfur (bran,
flake). Earliest documented use: 1650.
USAGE:
"When she looked at the
photographs of raging urticaria and furfuraceous rashes, she teetered between
repulsion and captivation."Dashka Slater; The Wishing Box; Chronicle Books; 2010.
"I met quite a number of composers who were frankly flaky, or furfuraceous, to use a more elegant term."
Nicolas Slonimsky; Musings of a Musical Mind; Los Angeles Times; Mar 27, 1988.
No, no, you're not thinking, you're just being logical. -Niels Bohr, physicist (1885-1962)
Today’s
Recipe
Treats,
No Tricks!
Ingredients:
- 2/3 cup vegetable oil
- 1 15-oz. can pure pumpkin
- 2 large eggs
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 quart vanilla ice cream
- Sprinkles
Directions:
1. Preheat
oven to 375°F. In a bowl, whisk oil, pumpkin, eggs, sugar and vanilla. In a
separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and
salt. Stir flour mixture into pumpkin mixture until just blended.
2. Place
rounded tablespoons of batter on an ungreased baking sheet, spacing them 1 to 2
inches apart. Using damp fingertips, flatten and shape batter into smooth
rounds. Bake until beginning to turn light brown, about 12 minutes. Transfer
cookies to a wire rack to cool. Repeat with remaining batter.
3. Cover flat
side of one cookie with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream and top with another
cookie. Roll edges in sprinkles. Serve, or cover in plastic wrap and freeze.
ENJOY!
.
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