The Rarest Books in Canada

Finally made it inside. It’s been on my list every year during ‘Doors Open Toronto’, and 4 years later, tada!

It’s the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, inside the University of Toronto.

6 floors housing 700,000 books and 3,000 metres of manuscripts. It’s the largest collection of rare books and manuscripts in Canada.

Some of their best books:

  • Darwin’s proof copy of ‘On the Origin of Spiecies’
  • Egyptian manuscript fragments
  • An original copy of Shakespeare’s ‘First Folio‘ (one book containing all his plays)

How it works:

You tell them what you’d like to read, and they retrieve it for you (only librarians go into the shelves, the “stacks”).

You’ll meet up in the ‘Reading Room’, and be under constant supervision.

I asked them: do I wear gloves when handling the books?

Nope, and I quote, “We are a library, not a museum”. I like that.

I worked in a library for years. I had the dewey decimal system memorized to 5 places. 

I have a Books category here on KeriBlog.

Here’s the best part: people like us, normal public non-university people, can come and read the books.

Website: Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library
Twitter: @Fisher_Library
Address: 120 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A5
Hours: Monday – Friday 9am – 5pm

Here’s their catalogue.

 

 

What Was Up with Friday April 20, 2013?

I flew on Friday, was at the Nashville airport very early.

My flight was delayed, and it was the weirdest checkin ever; employees were whisper-y, eyes everywhere, pretending to be calm. There was a ground-stop issued, and tweets for both the Nashville (BNA) and Chicago (ORD) airports were missing.

There was a bird strike that grounded a plane, but that was in NYC’s JFK?

It’s best to be quiet, during times like this.

Was it because it was Hitlers birthday? Evil has arrived on April 20th before. The Columbine massacre was on this day 13 years ago.

Or was it because there was a New Moon the next night?

Even YouTube had a bad day.

Or maybe this was all because it was National Assuming Day? (what a dumb thing to give a day to).

Meanwhile, the Trayvon Martin trial reached a climax in the courtroom on TV.

Then the riots started.

Below is the Kingdom of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, and shockingly, the top photo is Montreal.

Come on Canada, that’s not us; be better.

Then the weirdness got real close to home.

Come ON. That’s my old neighbourhood, I lived there for 3 years, and that doesn’t happen. I always felt safe, all times of the day.

We rarely have amber alerts around here?  And Hamilton News accidentally broadcast hardcore porn?

All this before noon.

My internet failed around then, and that’s probably good because I was OCD-ing out, checking, watching, looking for a pattern.  There is always a pattern. 

Instead, I made a Flixel I titled, “Ruminating”.

Weird strange day. Let not too many of these happen.