Electronic calculating-machines

Source: tumblr

Today I want to draw attention to a very special (dusty and possibly moldy) old book we have in our collection, a book about electronic calculating-machines. Yep, that hyphen is meant to be there.

Electronic computers : fundamentals, systems, and applications / with the cooperation of Hans W. Gschwind, Martin G. Jaenke, and Robert G. Tantzen. Vienna : Springer ; Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice-Hall, 1961.

This book is apparently 235 pages long, has illustrations and diagrams, and has a spine length of 23 cm. It also includes bibliographies. Most importantly, though, it has a subject heading of "electronic calculating-machines". Totally avec hyphen.

I looked up this subject heading on Library of Congress Authorities and found that, unsurprisingly, it's been superseded by a brand spankin' new authority heading:

C o m p u t e r s

Edward Joseph Doherty...or "Eddie" to his mates

Image from Amazon.com

I came across this author in the library catalogue today, and thought nothing much of him till Library of Congress Authority Headings informed me his name should be written as "Doherty, Eddie, 1890-1975" instead of "Doherty, Edward Joseph, 1890-1975." Funny how a little bit of informality can change one's perception of a guy. But I still didn't get really intrigued until I checked out his books on our catalogue and found:

1. Splendor of sorrow : for sinners only (1943)
2. Psalms of a sinner (1976)
3. Lambs in wolfskins : the conquering march of don John Bosco (1953)
   
   and my personal favourite:


4. A hermit without a permit (1977)

Seems as if half his books were published posthumously. Seems also like the guy led an interesting life. But really, I just wanna know more about the hermit who has no permit! Especially after I just looked at the Amazon.com product description:

"Meditations fun and frolicsome, by an elderly Irish hermit!"

There's more, too, like what may be chapter titles: "God is a Pushover", "The Most Unmortified Christian Mystic" and "Beware the Divine Pickpocket!"

Sounds to me like this Eddie guy lived a life of great vivacity!

Boron in da house

And I quote...

Name: Boron
Type: Metalloid
Density @ 293 K: 2.34 g/cm³

Discovery of Boron

Boron compounds such as borax (sodium tetraborate, Na₂B₄O₇·10H₂O) have been known and used by ancient cultures for thousands of years. Borax's name comes from the Arabic buraq, meaning "white."

Boron was first partially isolated in 1808 by French chemists Joseph L. Gay-Lussac and L. J. Thénard and independently by Sir Humphry Davy in London. Gay-Lussac & Thénard reacted boric acid with magnesium or sodium to yield boron, a gray solid. ⁽¹⁾ They believed it shared characteristics with sulfur and phosphorus and named it bore. ⁽²⁾ [Chemicool.com - Boron]

What I want to know is, what does all that mean for Leo F. Boron, Sophie Boron and Walter F. Boron, all of whom are authors represented in our library catalogue over here?

Back in 1960, Leo was an added author on the book Transcendental and algebraic numbers, (so not my area of expertise...). More recently, Sophie's been writing about France's constitution, and during the 2000s Walter's been all about a cellular and molecular approach to Medical physiology (come to think of it, I'm an expert on none of these things!).

Happy Boron!

"Microbes and men" by Robert Reid

I love these dorky scientists and their very dorky book titles. Microbes and men - bring any famous books by Steinbeck to mind, folks? It should have been called Of microbes and men, though, really. Right?

Anyway, this is all I have to say today, but I want to explain that this post is part of the Library Treasures blog post series we will be featuring here. Great authors, great book titles, and great other things (authority records perhaps?) that we stumble across in our lovely dusty grimy library and its...errrr, "quaint" catalogue.

One down, many thousands to go!

P.S. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!