Alice's Adventures Underground

Over at one of my favorite sites, 10engines, James has dedicated the next 24 hours to bookmobiles and the power of local libraries. Local libraries are such an underrated resource its absurd., even in college I have friend who have never checked a book out from the library. Its nothing more than a place to study for most people. Luckily my parents taught their value at an early age when they pointed out the amazing selection of not only books, but music and movies that my small hometown library had. Even now when I'm going home for a weekend I tell my dad to pop down the library and pick up a movie he thinks I might like. At first thought it would seem that the Internet with its instantaneous access to so much media and information would put an end to the power of libraries, as information becomes so much easier to find and most media can simply be downloaded. Luckily for all of us libraries around the world have embraced the power of the web and have began to upload amazing digital collections. These collections are responsible for a ton of the amazing photos found on this blog and on many of the blogs located in my favorites list.

One recent addition to the digital collections of the British Library is the original manuscript of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Originally titled Alice's Adventure Underground, all 91 pages of his work are scanned in great detail for your viewing. Having access to things like this is something that would be so outlandish 10 years ago its mind blowing. Some images from the manuscript are below.