Encoded Memories is an art exhibit coming to the Main Library Gallery in May. Revolving around themes of time, place, and memory, it will feature images showing Oak Park past and present, including historical scenes from the library’s Special Collections. But there’s a twist! The work that will be on display in the second-floor gallery isn’t … Read more
Tucked away in the northwest corner of the Main Library’s third floor are treasures you might not expect to find in a public library. For example, there’s a childhood essay that Ernest Hemingway wrote on lined paper, titled “A Trip to Field Museum.” A baby book that documents the first 18 months of Ernest’s older … Read more
Hundreds of items from the Oak Park Public Library and community partner The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park are now live at the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) as part of the Illinois Digital Heritage Hub. The DPLA serves as a portal for students, teachers, scholars, and the public to search through millions … Read more
A tour group with the Elmhurst History Museum dropped by the library’s Special Collections last week to get a closer look at original architectural drawings from Frank Lloyd Wright’s first published work, the 1910 Wasmuth Portfolio. Oak Park’s Unity Temple, the Robie House in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, and the Winslow House in River Forest are just three of the National Historic … Read more
Genealogists and local history buffs, take note: more photographic treasures telling Oak Park’s local story from the Civil War and beyond will soon be available online, thanks to a grant the library received in October. On the heels of successfully completing its Hacking Hemingway: Cracking the Code to the Vault digital imaging grant, the library … Read more
Last week, we welcomed home two of the oldest items in the library: a pair of Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) volumes containing around 100 photographs and a wealth of information about local veterans who fought in the Civil War. “They’re a great time capsule of veterans from this time period,” said Leigh Tarullo, Curator … Read more
It would have been Ernest Hemingway’s 117th birthday this July. The anniversary did not go unmarked here in Hemingway’s hometown. To skim the surface: In July, the library’s Special Collections team participated in a conference of international Hemingway Society scholars who came to Oak Park. A gala was held at the Main Library to support the home, now a museum, where Hemingway … Read more
Check out students’ six-word stories in the catalog and by see more work by searching Twitter with #HackingHemingway Tweens and teens are digital learners, creators Inspired by old Hemingway family photos digitized earlier this year through a state grant to the library, Oak Park tweens and teens showed “a burst of creativity” in their classrooms and at the library this spring, … Read more
Humanizing history in 140 characters Since February’s release of the first 84 digitized artifacts from the library’s Special Collections and The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park on the Illinois Digital Archives, there’s another place online you may have seen young Ernest, his sister Marcelline, and his mother Grace. Your Twitter feed. As the library … Read more
‘Stunning images, handwritten commentary’ Unprecedented, online access is now available to rare Ernest Hemingway family artifacts from the late 1800s and early 1900s through the Illinois Digital Archives (IDA). Thanks to an $86,900 grant from the Illinois Secretary of State and State Librarian Jesse White, the first 84 digitized artifacts from the Oak Park Public Library’s … Read more
Now online are the first 84 of at least 300 digitized artifacts from the library, The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park (EHFOP), and the Historical Society of Oak Park and River Forest. All artifacts will be uploaded into the Illinois Digital Archives (IDA) in time for the Hemingway Society’s 17th biennial international conference. in Oak Park … Read more
