The Great Outdoors - and Libraries

    Those who work in many university libraries are no longer much interested in the gathering and collecting of books, particularly those which are printed. The stacks are being removed and the spaces are now often simply auditoriums to which students can go to watch their screens. I have suggested before that it might be better for the librarians if they collected something - see, for example, "Libraries As Cabinets of Curiosities." It would also likely be better for the students since surely the collection of just about anything would be more interesting than a gathering of students looking at their laptops. Well, maybe not, but at least the librarians would have something to do and the place could legitimately be called a "Library."

Utah State University's Outdoor Recreation Archive

  Utah State's ORA is a good example of an interesting collection and the purpose of it is explained in the mission statement:
  "The mission of the Outdoor Recreation Archive is to document the history of the people, products, and brands of the outdoor industry through unpublished documents, published materials and audio/visual materials. We strive to make those materials widely accessible to the public, including Outdoor Product Design and Development students, academics, enthusiasts, industry (including marketing and design), and others with interest in the history of outdoor gear."

  Catalogues are collected and while students might not be interested in the older ones, they may be attracted to the more recent examples. 

 

   There are also posters, and periodicals ranging from the Atlantic Coast Kayaker to Washington Trails. 
   Even the books would attract browsers, for example: Life Lived Wild: Adventures at the End of the Map; Mountain Girl: From Barefoot to Boardroom and A Mountaineer's Life. 

  Click on the link provided above to examine the collection. I noticed when looking through the ORA books that they had a copy of Simple Fly Fishing. That reminded me of the collection of "Angling Books" held by the Western Libraries and Harvard, Princeton, the University of Alberta and UBC also have a lot of books about fish and fishing. Perhaps some libraries will continue to be interesting places to visit.

CANCON - A Camping Collection That is not Campy
  For a Canadian outdoor collection, visit Trent University in Peterborough. In the Trent University Archives they have gathered, since 1968, books about camping, brochures and pamphlets about camps, as well as the magazines and newsletters they produced. If you want to read a digitized version of Canadian Camping, you can, without actually going to Peterborough. 
  Since 1925, Camp Tanamakoon in Algonquin Park has operated a summer camp for girls. It is likely that this book in the Trent collection would be both interesting and useful: Camp Tanamakoon, 1925-2024 : a collection of stories from Alumni to celebrate 100 years!

   If libraries are repositories rather than sheds for students, perhaps both the Aesthetes and the Hearties and the Athletes and the Arties will continue to be attracted to them.

Post Script: 
  If you are interested in literature relating to the outdoors and forests and streams and mountains, check the university library near you. While they may not have a special archival collection, they may be able to offer access to related material. For example, EBSCO offers a digital archive of over 1,000 issues of Outdoor Life Magazine, from 1898 to 2010. (Not all libraries can afford such purchases or repurchases and use may be restricted.)



The Bonus:  
  One of the largest "outdoor" libraries is available to you over the internet. Visit: Biodiversity Heritage Library  It contains thousands of titles, including: Forest and Stream. The birds above are found in the BHL.

FLAGS: Don't Fly Them!

    

   I thought I might begin with a softer title rather than the one above and considered, “Let’s Fly the White Flag of Surrender,” but even the colour ‘white’ is controversial these days. There has been both a lot of flaunting and flouting about flags and enough red flags have been raised to let us know that flags now symbolise mainly disunity. They are currently used as a way for signalling values, the way semaphore was developed  for sending messages, but the values being transmitted often differ and are not well received by some who see them. The flag poles have become performative poles and, like statues, flags should be removed. 

   As an admirer of “free speech” (another divisive subject) I will add that I am only calling for their elimination in displays by government entities. As a private citizen you should be able to  fly whatever flag you wish, at your own risk, or if your condo manager permits it,  and you should  even be able to desecrate the flags of others as the Canadian Charter allows. Too much time and effort is devoted to the issue of flag flying and most of the efforts expended by even the most well-meaning and righteous are counterproductive. 

Vexillography is Vexatious

   While there are arguments over flags here in Ontario, proof about the energy spent on flags (not to mention false ones) is found in this article: “This is Utah’s New Flag - and Here’s Why More States are Mulling Designs,” (Washington Post, March 25, 2023), which is where I learned the word, “vexillography” and its variants. There are a lot of vexillologists who care deeply about flags for aesthetic reasons and there are many citizens who do so for political ones. The Utah flag was selected by a committee from 7000 choices and not everyone was happy with the final one. A compromise was made to allow the old flag to be flown over the new one in the Capital and on holidays and still there is a referendum to overturn the new flag law. 

   The legislators in many other states are spending hours debating the designs for new flags for both artistic and ideological  reasons. People, images, colours, etc. now are being removed or changed to make room for ones more acceptable. This is a global phenomena as this headline indicates: “New Zealand Spent $17 Million on a Failed Flag Referendum. Now It Wants Australia to Change Its Flag Instead.” Note the word - “FAILED.”

   Here in Ontario, one community has been shamed because their solution to fly only government flags was unacceptable to some who want to fly their own. Although that does not seem to be an unreasonable arrangement, perhaps it is better just to eliminate them all. Even the government flags are likely to be attacked at some point, just as the statues were. (As this is being written,  other symbolic artefacts are being altered: religious imagery is being removed from the Canadian Crown and replaced with fleur-de-lis for maple leafs and a snowflake; and whether the King’s likeness will be on our bills or the Fathers of Confederation on our passports is being considered.)

   While the number of ardent vexillologists may not increase, the diverse number of people wanting to display their own flags certainly will. To consider just one ‘category’, here are some of the other flags now related to the Pride one, the displaying of which, caused the dispute here in Ontario: PRIDE FLAG - GENDERQUEER FLAG -  GENDERFLUID FLAG -  PROGRESS PRIDE FLAG - LESBIAN PRIDE FLAG - TRANSGENDER PRIDE FLAG - BISEXUAL PRIDE FLAG - PANSEXUAL PRIDE FLAG - INTERSEX PRIDE FLAG. If you don’t believe me, or want to bone up on flag lore before a PRIDE MONTH, see: “”What Do the Colors of the Rainbow Flag Mean? A History of How the Flag Came to Be,” Olivia Munson, USA Today, April 28, 2023 or, “Diverse Gender Identity Flags: Learn the Genderqueer, Nonbinary, Gender Fluid Pride Flags," Clare Mulroy, USA Today, April 28, 2023.

      Patriotism is now mostly personal and civic pride has been replaced by the heraldry of DEI, which seems to have served only to increase divisiveness and exclusion. 

Sources:
   Apart from those provided, there will be one. A search about "flags" generally yields results that relate to controversies over them. I will provide a rather benign example which simply shows how long flag arguments have been raised.