We at Treasure Hunt Towers like to start our morning with Radio 4’s Today programme and this morning we were intrigued to hear an interview with the editor of one of our very favourite online resources, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. If you missed it, you can listen here - here (it’s the last item). He was discussing the way the concept of heroism has changed over the last 150 years.
Anyway, this prompted me to revisit the ODNB (linked from the Biography page of the Westminster Libraries Gateway and check out the fascinating article on heroic figures in the ODNB here with links to biographies of such varied characters as Grace Darling, The Unknown Warrior and Princess Diana. This led me to some of the other themed articles on such subjects as Childhood in the ODNB, the Great Fire of London, Servants in the ODNB and Trafalgar Square.
My thirst for knowledge not satiated, I checked out the Life of the Day (you can subscribe at Lives of the Week) and found the rather sad little story of Penelope Boothby (1785–1791), artist's model and subject of poetry.
Then I took a quick look at the list of 90 new names added this month including Kathleen Drew, (1901–1957), phycologist (who knew there were celebrity experts in algae?) and George Tuthill, (1817–1887), banner and regalia maker.
Fascinating stuff and you can easily get lost browsing around there but you’ll certainly learn a lot more than you set out to.
After all those biographies, I felt like a change of scene and had a look at a rather fun site sent in by Stuart Walsh, a correspondent from Victoria. This is the Literature Map. Simply put in the name of your favourite authors, (here at Treasure Hunt Towers it’s George Orwell) and watch as a hypnotic pattern of names appears, all of other writers who you might enjoy. Click on one of those for another hypnotic cluster of suggestions. It’s rather like the If You Like… site linked from the Books & Literature page of the Gateway or the book Who Writes Like? which some of you may have at your enquiry desk but a lot more psychedelic.
Anyway, this prompted me to revisit the ODNB (linked from the Biography page of the Westminster Libraries Gateway and check out the fascinating article on heroic figures in the ODNB here with links to biographies of such varied characters as Grace Darling, The Unknown Warrior and Princess Diana. This led me to some of the other themed articles on such subjects as Childhood in the ODNB, the Great Fire of London, Servants in the ODNB and Trafalgar Square.
My thirst for knowledge not satiated, I checked out the Life of the Day (you can subscribe at Lives of the Week) and found the rather sad little story of Penelope Boothby (1785–1791), artist's model and subject of poetry.
Then I took a quick look at the list of 90 new names added this month including Kathleen Drew, (1901–1957), phycologist (who knew there were celebrity experts in algae?) and George Tuthill, (1817–1887), banner and regalia maker.
Fascinating stuff and you can easily get lost browsing around there but you’ll certainly learn a lot more than you set out to.
After all those biographies, I felt like a change of scene and had a look at a rather fun site sent in by Stuart Walsh, a correspondent from Victoria. This is the Literature Map. Simply put in the name of your favourite authors, (here at Treasure Hunt Towers it’s George Orwell) and watch as a hypnotic pattern of names appears, all of other writers who you might enjoy. Click on one of those for another hypnotic cluster of suggestions. It’s rather like the If You Like… site linked from the Books & Literature page of the Gateway or the book Who Writes Like? which some of you may have at your enquiry desk but a lot more psychedelic.
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