All posts by Kirsten Hostetler

History never looks too kindly on second place. Neil Armstrong rolls off the tongue as the first man to walk on the moon, but most people hesitate at Buzz Aldrin. Mack Robinson came from a famously athletic family–older brother to Jackie Robinson–and broke the 200-meter world record in the 1936 Olympics. Of course his name is merely the answer to an obscure trivia question as he didn’t win the gold, second only to Jesse Owens. Charles Darwin is so closely associated with evolution and natural selection that his name literally serves as a synonym for the theory.

A blinking cursor on a blank screen. 137 million objects, 8.2 million digitized items, illustrations and photographs, artifacts and first editions, spanning 19 institutions, 9 research centers, and hundreds of years. Where to begin? It didn’t begin earlier this summer when I started working as the marketing intern at the BHL, and it didn’t begin earlier this year when I originally applied for the position. It probably didn’t even begin when I enrolled in the University of Washington’s master of library and information science iSchool. For the sake of argument, I’d say the beginning for me was when I was 6 years old and took my first trip to Washington, D.C.

Ophidiophobia is the irrational fear of snakes–those slithering, scaly reptiles that have been cast as the archetypal villain throughout history. Their unnatural movements and eerily flexible jaw joints do nothing to lessen their evil reputation.

It’s been called the drink of civilization. The beverage that reflects the entire history of the Western world in one gulp. A small berry has sparked revolutions, genocide, imperialism, innovation–and yet is still able to satisfy the standard caffeine craving every morning. Coffee is a powerful concoction, serving as inspiration for most activities before lunch, and, this week, it also serves as inspiration for the Book of the Week, “Coffee; its history and also its remarkable growth in the world of commerce.” Most people would easily be able to pick a coffee bean out of a line up, but finding the coffee in nature might be more difficult.

The North Sea—at least according to Walter Wood—was awash in blood and fish.