Ursula Kroeber Le Guin was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the Earthsea fantasy series. Her work was first published in 1959, and her literary career spanned nearly sixty years, producing more than twenty novels and over a hundred short stories, in addition to poetry, literary criticism, translations, and children's books. Frequently described as an author of science fiction, Le Guin has also been called a "major voice in American Letters". Le Guin said she would prefer to be known as an "American novelist".
Brewster Lurton Kahle is an American digital librarian, computer engineer, Internet entrepreneur, and advocate of universal access to all knowledge. In 1996, Kahle founded the Internet Archive and co-founded Alexa Internet. In 2012, he was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame.
A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users.
The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world.
Flaying is a method of slow and painful execution in which skin is removed from the body. Generally, an attempt is made to keep the removed portion of skin intact.
Jess Nevins is an American author and research librarian best known for annotated guides and encyclopedias covering Victoriana, comic books, genre fiction and pulp fiction. Among Nevin's books are Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana,Horror Fiction in the 20th Century and Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes. He has been a recipient and finalist for a number of honors, including the World Fantasy, Sidewise, and Locus Awards.
Anthropodermic bibliopegy is the practice of binding books in human skin. As of April 2022, The Anthropodermic Book Project has examined 31 out of 50 books in public institutions supposed to have anthropodermic bindings, of which 18 have been confirmed as human and 13 have been demonstrated to be animal leather instead.
The Narrative of the Life of James Allen, alias Jonas Pierce, alias James H. York, alias Burley Grove, the Highwayman, Being His Death-bed Confession to the Warden of the Massachusetts State Prison is an autobiographical work by James Allen, published in Boston by Harrington and Co. in 1837.
The John Hay Library is the second oldest library on the campus of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is located on Prospect Street opposite the Van Wickle Gates. After its construction in 1910, the Hay Library became the main library building on campus, replacing the building now known as Robinson Hall. Today, the John Hay Library is one of five individual libraries that make up the University Library. The Hay houses the University Library's rare books and manuscripts, the University Archives, and the Library's special collections.
The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., that serves as the library and research service of the U.S. Congress and the de facto national library of the United States. Founded in 1800, the library is the United States's oldest federal cultural institution. The library is housed in three elaborate buildings on Capitol Hill. It also maintains a conservation center in Culpeper, Virginia. The library's functions are overseen by the Librarian of Congress, and its buildings are maintained by the Architect of the Capitol. The Library of Congress is one of the largest libraries in the world. Its collections contain approximately 173 million items, and it has more than 3,000 employees. Its collections are "universal, not limited by subject, format, or national boundary, and include research materials from all parts of the world and in more than 470 languages".
John Horwood was a miner's son convicted of murder in Bristol, England, and executed in 1821. He was the first person to be hanged at Bristol New Gaol.
The University of Manchester Library is the library system and information service of the University of Manchester. The main library is on the Oxford Road campus of the university, with its entrance on Burlington Street. There are also ten other library sites, eight spread out across the university's campus, plus The John Rylands Library on Deansgate and the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre situated inside Manchester Central Library.
There are two notable instances of lampshades made from human skin. After World War II it was reported that Nazis had made at least one lampshade from murdered concentration camp inmates: a human skin lampshade was reported to have been displayed by Buchenwald concentration camp commandant Karl-Otto Koch and his wife Ilse Koch, along with other human skin artifacts. Despite myths to the contrary, there were no systematic efforts by the Nazis to make human skin lampshades.
Lawrence Sidney Thompson (1916–1986) worked at the University of Kentucky as the Director of Libraries and as a faculty member in the classics department. He wrote extensively on the processes of printing and publication. Thompson also researched processes for cataloging materials, frequently corresponding with European colleagues.
The Order of the Good Death is a death acceptance organization founded in 2011 by mortician and author Caitlin Doughty. The group advocates for natural burial and embracing human mortality.
John Batterson Stetson Jr. was an American diplomat and businessman. The son of John B. Stetson, he served as the United States Minister to Poland from 1925 to 1929.
Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin is a 2020 non-fiction book by the medical librarian and death-positive advocate Megan Rosenbloom. Dealing with anthropodermic bibliopegy, the binding of books in human skin, it expounds upon Rosenbloom's research on such books and their historical, ethical, and cultural implications.
Paul Needham is an American academic librarian. From 1998 to 2020, he worked at the Scheide Library at Princeton University. A Guggenheim Fellow and Bibliographical Society Gold Medallist, Needham has delivered the Sandars Readership in Bibliography at the University of Cambridge, the A. S. W. Rosenbach Lectures in Bibliography at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Lyell Lectures at the University of Oxford. His focus is on incunabula, the earliest printed books in Europe.
Destinies of the Soul is an 1879 book notable for being bound in human skin. It was written by Arsène Houssaye and published by C. Lévi in Paris. The book was owned by Ludovic Bouland before it was acquired by the Harvard Library in 1934. The book was not confirmed to be bound in human skin until 2014. In 2024, Harvard University removed the skin and placed it in storage due to ethical considerations.
