A molecular biologist from Madurai, our quizmaster enjoys trivia and music, and is working on a rock ballad called ‘Coffee is a Drink, Kaapi is an Emotion’. @bertyashley
Sunday Quiz | Easy like Sunday morning: On books
The Joanine Library of the University of Coimbra in Portugal is one of the most beautiful libraries in the world.
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1 / 10 |
On April 24, 1800, the United States Library of Congress was established when President John Adams signed a legislation to appropriate $5,000 to purchase “such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress”. The largest library in the world with more than 170 million items adds more than 10,000 items to its collections each working day. There was one place from where it received and sent so many books that in 1895 an underground tunnel with a ‘Rapid Transit Literary Line’ was established. What place is this that is just across the street from the library?
Answer : The U.S. House of Parliament, The Capitol.
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In ancient Egypt, all ships visiting the city had to surrender their books to this library. Some were confiscated while in other cases the original would be kept in the library and a copy given back to the owner. This library was the ‘keeper of all knowledge’ of two great civilisations — Greek and Egyptian. A modern day device that is supposed to ‘know a lot’ is named after this library. Which legendary library was this and what device is named after it?
Answer : The Library of Alexandria, Alexa.
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The Human Library is an international organisation that aims to address people’s prejudices. It allows you to check out their ‘books’ and learn more about something you did not know earlier. These ‘books’ have “experienced prejudice, social exclusion or stigma” and you can interact with them to learn more and also challenge your own prejudices. Now there are 150 such libraries around the world. What are the books in this unique library?
Answer : People. You can borrow a person and discover their life story.
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4 / 10 |
The Haskell Free Library and Opera house, built in 1905, has a thick black line running beneath the seats of the opera house and diagonally across the centre of the library’s reading room. You can visit this library in Vermont by just walking in but if you were to exit the library through the emergency exit you are required to report to a customs officer thereafter. What is special about this library which, thanks to its location, has two historic recognitions?
Answer : It is built on the U.S.-Canada border, and belongs to both countries.
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The very first library of this type was started at the Berkeley Ecology Center, called the Bay Area ____ Interchange Library (BASIL). Here library members can check out one of these items, use them to start/build their own collection and then return a copy of the item to the library. Other than encouraging a new hobby, this also allows researchers to collect and categorise heirlooms that might have got lost. What libraries are these that would be very useful in a dystopian future?
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The Joanine Library of the University of Coimbra in Portugal is a baroque building, considered one of the most beautiful libraries in the world. It houses more than 7,00,000 priceless, historical documents and first editions. One of the biggest enemies of such libraries are insects that survive on paper. The Joanine has a peculiar pest-control method that works efficiently and silently at night. All the staff need to do is cover the shelves with sheets and in the morning clean it. Who are these experts who live in the beautiful library and keep it pest free?
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The Osmothèque is a library in Versailles, France, which is a repository for certain items, of which many are no longer made or available. It also houses an archive of the industry’s history, with many of the famous companies having donated samples both current and historical, in order to safeguard their formulas. Currently presided by its first woman president Patricia de Nicolaï who runs ‘Parfums de Nicolai’, what item does the Osmothèque archive?
Answer : Perfumes and scents (Osme is scent in Greek)
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8 / 10 |
The Dewey Classification System is the most popular system used by libraries worldwide to classify its books. The scheme works hierarchically by dividing knowledge into 10 main subjects, meaning that books within the same subject group can be shelved together. A certain prolific writer is the only person to have published books, which are in nine of the 10 major categories. Who was this author who does not have a book only in “100 Philosophy” and is best known for science fiction works such as Foundation and Earth?
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In 2011, the Camden School of Arts lending library in Australia had a first edition of a certain author’s Insectivorous Plants returned to them. The book had been checked out in 1889 (19 years after publication) and was in the collection of a retired veterinarian. Finally someone noticed the library stamp and returned the book after 122 years. Probably the longest ‘checked-out’ book, fittingly it was written by an author who wrote about what nature does over long periods of time. Whose book is Insectivorous Plants?
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Renowned book collector Harry Elkins Widener died under tragic circumstances in 1912, and as a result his mother endowed a library in his honour at Harvard University. It holds his personal book collection of 3,300 rare works. A legend persists that due to her son’s fate, Mrs. Widener made it a condition of her donation that all students must learn to swim. There is no evidence that this request is true. What historic event was Widener part of, which led to the existence of this library?
