The Subdivide

Via Anna Pivovarchuk for  Al Jazeera , each year from 2014 to 2114 a manuscript is sealed away in the Silent Room of Norway's Silent Library and waits to be unveiled in 100 years. It's a short-term project for Scottish artist Katie Paterson. The plan is to get 100 works by carefully chosen authors who submit a manuscript each. One per year. The works are safeguarded, unread, for a Century. At that point they will be unlocked, traversing a passage of time to deliver their message to future generations. From the feature article : "One hundred layers – one for each year and author – line the undulating walls of the Silent Room, folding on top of each other in soft, asymmetric curves from floor to ceiling. They resemble tree rings and are made from the wood of older trees that have been felled to make space for the Future Library forest – a process of continuous regeneration carried out as part of the maintenance of the managed forests around the city."

Image source: Wikimedia   Here is a beautifully written article at publicbooks.org by Carolyn Dever on the soul of the British Library in the wake of the Halloween cyberattack. "...if I wanted to request to see a specific book, I could look it up electronically, and then ask the librarians to find the physical copy. Until Halloween, 2023, that is. How ironic that the most quaintly analog form of research possible, using physical books in a physical library, has been devastated by the hijacking of a  digital  system. I am experiencing this irony as especially bitter this morning, having arrived at desk 1086 with my list of tasks, hoping against hope that the crisis had resolved. It hadn’t."

From Bibliotheque Nationale de France : Catlin's notes of eight years travels and residence in Europe, with his North American Indian collection   : George Catlin (1796-1872). London: the author, 1848 - BnF - Philosophy, history, human sciences, 8-P-426 (2)

From CTV News , Liudmyla Pass, Ukranian watchmaker has repaired the post office clock tower in Carbonear, Newfoundland, that has been sitting rusty and dormant for decades. One day she grabbed a tool box, climbed the stairs, and started scrubbing all the rust that had accumulated from the coastal town's salty air. She then set about resetting the machinery. In four hours, she had the clock tower running again.

Image source: Library of Congress Image here: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017777937/ Title: Shadows on tent. Quarter Circle 'U' Ranch, Montana Creator(s):  Rothstein, Arthur, 1915-1985 , photographer Date Created/Published: 1939 June. Medium: 1 negative : safety ; 3 1/4 x 4 1/4 inches or smaller. Reproduction Number: LC-USF34-027679-D (b&w film neg.) Rights Advisory: No known restrictions. For information, see U.S. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black & White Photographs (http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/071_fsab.html) Call Number: LC-USF34- 027679-D [P&P] LOT 164 (corresponding photographic print) Other Number: G 5445 Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

  Image source: Wikimedia Commons     France's parliament has passed a bill that will allows for human remains currently stored in their museums to be returned to their countries of origin for "funeral purposes, " according to Radio France Internationale . The bill comes after years of debate over the ethics of keeping body parts in French cultural inventories.      According to RFI's article:  The bill is to facilitate France returning the human remains of Aboriginals to Australia, as well as the skeleton of an indigenous Tehuelche chief to his descendants in Argentina. Madagascar has asked for three skulls of its Sakalava people to be brought home, including one it says is that of a king decapitated in 1897 during an attack by French colonial forces to quash a rebellion. Several hundred French institutions, including museums and universities, are thought to have human remains in their collections.