The new Minneapolis public library deserves all the plaudits it has been getting. Open stacks to browse, plenty of room to add new collections, a comfortable feeling of both light and scholarship, and a cafe in the building ... what more could you want?
Working electrical outlets would be nice ... After a happy afternoon reading the Gas Age, the Coal Age, Electrical World, and other sirens of industrial triumphalism from the early twentieth century, and being able to connect to the magic internet via wireless that the power points aren't working! It seems I was just reading in a 1918 issue of Electrical World (while looking for an article about employing women as heavy coil winders) that the marvellous thing about electricity was its reliability ...
Rob MacDougall had a good post a year or so ago that drew some artful comparisons between early twentieth century telephone triumphalism and our latter-day turn of the century enthusiasm for the internet. Even the Coal Age (in 1918, when really, coal was not the coming technology) has that business press enthusiasm for the possibilities of human advancement you just don't get in other media.
Electricity. The marvel of the age.
Posted by eroberts at June 23, 2006 3:21 PM