The book sculptor @_freetofly_ amassed more than 600 followers during her time on Twitter. While we avidly waited for news of the Book-Birds, we stocked a virtual library and shouted about why LITERACY IS FREEDOM.
I'm beginning to wonder if @_freetofly_ has magical powers! She and her Book-Birds have created a whole new community of people, sharing a love of Libraries, Books, Words, Ideas... and even working together to grant wishes!
A plaintive tweet from @AllisMcD wished for a Book-Bird to fly to Dunfermline's Carnegie Library.
@NellieJean braved the hordes in the Book Tent in Edinburgh and - as if by magic - rescued a beautiful Book-Bird to bring to the library in Dunfermline!
Here she is! A Humming Bird!
(photograph courtesy of @NellieJean)
Dunfermline Library
Fife’s biggest and busiest library is situated
in the historic part of Dunfermline, next to the Abbey and Abbot House. It
opened on 29 August 1883, making it the first Carnegie library in
the world.
Dunfermline Carnegie Library is a SPICe Library – Scottish Parliament
Information Centre. In 1881, Carnegie
took his family, including his 70 year-old mother, on a trip to the United
Kingdom. They toured Scotland by coach, and enjoyed several receptions en
route. The highlight for them all was a triumphal return to Dunfermline, where
Carnegie's mother laid the foundation stone of
the Dunfermline Library for which he donated the funds.
Andrew Carnegie's Dictum:
- To spend the first third of one's life getting all the education one can
- To spend the next third making all the money one can
- To spend the last third giving it all away for worthwhile causes
Sheena saw a parallel between Andrew Carnegie and the Book-Bird who will live in Dunfermline's Carnegie Library:
Dunfermline’s Humming Bird
The Ruby-Throated Hummingbird is found in New York
from May to September.
Andrew Carnegie is buried in Sleepy Hollow
Cemetery, North Tarrytown, New York.
This weaver’s son from Fife
Aged 13 was a little bobbin
boy
Changing spools of thread in a
Pittsburgh mill
A pocket dynamo, he flashed
through coloured skeins
Of rainbow threads, a
lightning hummingbird
The hummingbird likes certain
curious flowers
The bouncing bet, the jewel weed
amongst them
But this particular bird liked
books as well
This rags to riches lad o pairts loved learning.
A constant borrower from
libraries
He sipped the nectar of
knowledge on the wing
From weaver’s hut in Fife, to
Caisteal Sgiobail
Gaelic for Fairyland, the
world of myth
The King of Steel migrated
back and fore
Across the ocean, bearing the
fruits of his labour
The Aztecs valued hummingbirds as talismen
Emblem of vigour, energy and
work. This sturdy
Fife-born specimen, his
earthly travails over,
Roosts now beneath a simple
Celtic cross
Rockefeller, Astor, lie nearby
him,
Washington Irving, Chrysler,
all now grass
Even tycoons, like summer
storms, soon pass.
© Sheena Blackhall, 2013
