Thursday, May 01, 2008

VSL Covers Legacy Libraries

Very Short List, a website about which I knew absolutely nothing until today but which I'm already quite keen on (and have signed up for), covers the Legacy Libraries projects today. And they do it in style:

"Buried inside the LibraryThing website (think MySpace for OCD literati) is 'I See Dead People’s Books,' a catalogue of the libraries of 33 deceased luminaries, including Marie Antoinette, Thomas Jefferson, Ezra Pound, Theodore Dreiser, and Tupac Shakur.

While browsing, you may discover some excellent books you hadn’t heard of (like Aboard the Flying Swan, by Stanley A. Wolper, found in Ernest Hemingway’s library). Also, by peeking at the titles in a dead person’s library, you’ll get fresh insight into his or her intellectual nooks and crannies — sure, we more or less get why Aspects of Chinese Painting, by Alan Priest, was found in e. e. cummings’s library, but Machiavelli’s The Prince in Tupac’s library? Who knew?"

I really like the graphics they include, and check out that banner at the top of the page!

[Update: Jane Ciabatti at Critical Mass comments as well.]