Listphilia

A few months ago, we noticed an interesting resource being created with Listphile that details the local history of St. Charles, Illinois. Marlize Schiltz, creator of the list and Information Services Librarian at the St. Charles Public Library, was kind enough to answer a few of our questions with the help of Julie Bunke (Museum Director) and Natalie Gacek (Educator) at the St. Charles Heritage Center.

Please give our readers some background and context on St. Charles, Illinois., from earliest Native American inhabitants, to settlers, to the present.

Prior to the first permanent settlers in 1834, the Potawatomi lived in the area now known as St. Charles. The Potawatomi were members of the Algonquin Nation and had villages spanning parts of Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio. The Potawatomi were removed west of the Mississippi River after the Treaty of Chicago was signed handing over the land previously held by the Fox, Sauk, and Potawatomie tribes to the US government. While waiting for their settlement from the government some of the Potawatomi remained in the area and had interactions with the new settlers, which were friendly according to accounts by the settlers. St. Charles, originally known as Charleston, was mainly an agrarian community when it was first settled. Farms thrived due to the rich topsoil and availability of water from the river and many streams and creeks in the area. Mills also sprang up along the river in the town. St. Charles’ location between Chicago and points west made it a logical location to stop and so multiple hotels and rooming houses were built. Around the turn of the century several manufacturing businesses opened operations in St. Charles and there was a slight shift from the agrarian focus to a manufacturing focus. Between the 1920’s and 1930’s due in part to the inheritance of the Texaco fortune by two St. Charles residents, and coupled with the location of St. Charles along the river and the proximity to Chicago, St. Charles became a resort destination and was known as a cultural and recreational spot. Today, thanks in large part to venues like the Hotel Baker, Arcada Theatre, the Norris Cultural Arts Center and Pheasant Run Resort, St. Charles still maintains it reputation as a cultural and recreational destination in the Chicago-land area.

St. Charles was a stop on the Underground Railroad (Klink’s Wagon House). Can you elaborate on this a bit?

In the time leading up to and during the Civil War there were many residents in St. Charles and Kane County that held strong abolitionist feelings. As a result of this sentiment several local residents and businessmen helped in the hiding of run-away slaves from the south. While there is no absolute documentation as to the specific homes and buildings that were used there are several lists of members of the Kane County Anti-Slavery Society many of whom were from St. Charles so it can be assumed that these men would have done what they could to help.

What is the range of architectural styles represented by St. Charles’ historic buildings?

Greek Revival, Queen Anne (Victorian), Colonial Revival, and Bungalows

You mention that Abraham Lincoln may have slept in Barry House before he was President. Have any other politicians or famous people passed through St. Charles?

During his 1960’s presidential campaign John Kennedy stopped in St. Charles. A group of Nixon volunteers used the marquee at the Arcada Theatre to send him a message reading “We like you better as a Senator Mr. Kennedy”. In addition, the Rainbow Room of the Baker Hotel has drawn many famous entertainers such as Louis Armstrong, Tommy Dorsey, and Lawrence Welk, while audiences packed the Arcada Theatre for performers including Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Will Rogers, and John Philip Sousa. George Burns and Gracie Allen also performed, and actually ended their vaudeville careers at the Arcada.

What role do you think a librarian plays as we enter an age of universal access to information and increasing digitization of our history?

Librarians love new technology and discovering new methods for sharing our great resources! Many libraries have wonderful collections of local historical information and digitization gives us a new way to convert those materials into formats that can be viewed by a much wider audience.

Of course, there are many issues that have to be considered - ranging from copyright to how to protect fragile items during scanning to figuring out the best way to organize and present the data - and this is where Librarians are playing a key role. I (Marlise) was so excited when I found Listphile because it allows us to visually present a portion of our local history in a way that is so helpful! Now, even if you don’t know the official name of a building, you can locate on a map. I also love the fact that people can tag the collection and/or leave comments - facilitating this type of collaboration is another role I think Librarians are increasingly taking on. I hope that we’ll learn all sorts of new information from all those history buffs out there who visit the St. Charles Local History page on Listphile.

We’ve had the ability to use HTML on your lists for a while now. This seemed a reasonable format since a lot of people know HTML and any WYSIWYG editor we may add should work in this mode. But, HTML isn’t very friendly. Paragraph formatting and special characters need too much attention. We fixed this by changing the rules of HTML just a little. Since we needed to filter certain tags we had already started down that road.

Listphile’s HTML rules:

Supported tags: a, br, hr, p, tt, b, i, sub, sup, pre, blockquote, q, em, strong, dfn, code, samp, kbd, var, cite, abbr, acronym, dl, dt, dd, ul, ol, li. You must use close tags. For example, HTML allows “<ul><li>one <li>two</ul>” but Listphile requires “<ul><li>one</li> <li>two</li></ul>”.

Don’t escape special characters. The correct HTML for “Jack & Jill > Hill” is “Jack & Jill > Hill”. On Listphile, just use “Jack & Jill > Hill” and Listphile will do the right thing. The &, <, and > tags are available if you need them.

Listphile will turn linefeeds into paragraph structure. You don’t need to wrap paragraphs in <p></p> tags. Just leave a blank line, by pressing return twice, to separate your paragraphs. A single linefeed (pressing return once) will be converted to a <br>. If you prefer manual control, just wrap everything in <p> tags the way you want and we won’t process your linefeeds.

There are three places you can use rich text. The list description, item comments, and any multi-line text field such as the item description. Have fun.

Listphile member luftyluft has created one of the more idiosyncratic and fun lists on Listphile: The Dude Abides. Indulge us in a romping interview with luftyluft as he elaborates his love for all things Lebowski.

What inspired you to create The Dude Abides and what the hell is this list all about?

I’ve always liked movies and stories that are quirky or a little off-key in their comedic style. I think The Big Lebowski falls in those genres and was one of those movies that I liked after watching the first time, even though I didn’t really know why. I think its one of those movies where if you’re not put out by the eccentricities you invariably end up watching again at some point just to try to get a better handle on the characters and what exactly is going on with the plot. That’s where the fans get hooked - picking up on the genius in the subtleties in the characters and their interactions. As I’ve gotten older and wiser, I’ve also tuned in to the underlying political references and social metaphors that are artfully woven in.

I’ve been meaning for some time to create my own sort of shrine to the movie. I’d love to see a Lebowski Encyclopedia or Directory so that all of the urban achievers out there will have somewhere to go whenever they feel that darkness is washing over them. Seeing as how I’m one of the laziest guys in Los Angeles County (which puts me in the running for laziest worldwide), the only way it will ever happen is with help from others. When I came across Listphile, my thinking on this whole case became much less clouded. Listphile provides a simple, easy to use platform for collaboratively collecting information. Thus, The Dude Abides was born. The initial content is a hodge podge of “Cliff Notes” style breakdowns of memorable scenes, trivia, and links to a few Lebowski sites of interest. My vision is for the list to become a comprehensive reference of all things Lebowski - movie facts, trivia, commentary, symbolic references, character analysis, etc. I’m curious to see what connections other people make between aspects of the movie and the great human comedy itself. The collaborative nature of the site should also bring together people who share a common interest in the movie.

How many times have you watched The Big Lewbowski?

I imagine I’ve watched it several times per year over the last several years. Sometimes after a long week it just seems like the appropriate thing to put on to unwind with. Probably something about the way The Dude encounters people and situations of all types and always seems to stay true to himself. I’ve also heard rumors of a party game where you partake in whatever The Dude happens to be accommodating himself with in the current scene - be it a Caucasian, an oat soda, or a J.

Can you tell us about The Big Lebowski cult following on the web
and beyond? Do people get together in person to appeciate The Dude?

There is an entire world of Lebowski out there on the web. I’ve seen sites devoted to everything from movie quotes, essays, merchandise, games, and poetry. One can become an ordained priest in “Dudeism” at www.dudeism.com. There are a number of clever movie mashups on YouTube such as The Big Lebowski - the F****** Short Version (rated R). Over the last several years groups have people have managed to come together for Lebowski Fests. I have not the pleasure of attending one yet but hope to soon. In fact, the next one is on Oct. 12-13. Apparently some of the Lebowski Fest attendees have even compiled a book and it made the LA Times Bestseller list - I’m a Lebowski, You’re a Lebowski: Life, The Big Lebowski, and What Have You. I hope that my Listphile list can both complement the book and extend the legend of The Dude.

Anne Zelenka over at GigaOM just posted an interesting rumination on a shift that she says is happening. She posits that we are undergoing a transformation from an Information Age, where knowledge workers work in more formal organizations of people (read: corporations) on proprietary projects with desktop software for money to a Connected Age where individuals or ad hoc groups of people work in bursts of discontinuous productivity on projects with open business models for attention, rather than money.

This thinking is consistent with what we’re trying to build with Listphile. Please let us know how we can do it better. And thanks to Anne for pointing out something that seems so obvious in hindsight, but is not necessarily so until someone like her has the acuity to collect her thoughts and publish them.

Listphile member traeregan recently posted a complete set of images of the fabled T206 White Border Tobacco Card Set. We couldn’t resist satisfying our curiosity for more information about this gorgeous gallery of 523 images. What follows is a brief interview with Trae.

Can you give some background about the T206 White Border Tobacco Card Set?

Please let me begin by saying I am no expert on this subject by any stretch. I am simply a T206 enthusiast who enjoys learning about all that the set has to offer. I will share what I know below, but this will only be a brief introduction. New information and discoveries are still popping up all the time!

T206 White Border Baseball Cards were produced by the American Tobacco Company over a three year period from 1909 to 1911. The T206 set is nicknamed “The Monster”, and it definitely lives up to it! Most hobbyists assume a T206 set to be “complete” at just over 520 cards. This excludes the “Big Four”, those being Wagner, Magie (Magee spelling error), Plank, and Doyle ( N.Y. Nat’l). Among these cards are 389 Major Leaguers and 134 Minor Leaguers. Taking into account the possibilities of over 520 different player poses on the fronts, and 16 different advertisement backs, there are thousands of permutations of cards to complete a “set”.

The 16 different tobacco manufacturers that advertised on the back of the cards, in alphabetical order, are: American Beauty, Broad Leaf, Carolina Brights, Cycle, Drum, El Principe De Gales, Hindu, Lenox, Old Mill, Piedmont, Polar Bear, Sovereign, Sweet Caporal, Tolstoi, Ty Cobb, and Uzit. Piedmont and Sweet Caporal are by far the most common back advertisers, with the remaining backs ranging from semi-scarce to extremely scarce.

For many collectors, vintage and otherwise, there is 1909-11 T206 White Border set, and there are all other sets. The set is one of only a handful that is recognizable to those outside the “hobby”, as it contains the most valuable of all cards: the legendary Honus Wagner, of which the finest example known last traded hands at $2.8 million. Several things draw collectors to T206. First and foremost, it can be a challenge to both the novice and the experienced collector alike. Whether collecting “fronts”, “backs”, Hall-of-Famers, team sets or otherwise, the possibilities are endless.

How did you come to be interested in the T206 set to the degree that you set up a website devoted to it, as well as this large gallery on Listphile? Do you personally own any T206 cards, or know anyone who does?

I had an interest in baseball as a kid. I played as a pitcher until I was 13. I also collected 70’s, 80’s and 90’s cards during that time. I am not really into any mainstream sports anymore. I was aware of T206 as a kid (only because of the Honus Wagner card), but couldn’t afford them. I was through my first year of college in 2001 when I decided to start collecting again. I was just looking for a hobby to keep me busy outside of school and work. I started out on eBay buying a few 50’s and 60’s cards. To broaden my knowledge I began searching for websites on the subject of vintage baseball cards. I came across a site fittingly titled “Net 54 Vintage Baseball Card Forum” where I posted a few questions about some cards I had picked up. What I didn’t know is that the cards these collectors considered vintage were much older than the ones I had. They were into what are referred to as “pre-war”, or cards issued primarily Pre-WWII. One fella sent me a scan of a T206 card he had for sale (image at bottom) and it was the first time I had ever really payed attention to them, the artwork on the T206 cards just captivated me. I bought the card from him, soon after sold all of the post-war cards I had and dove head first into the T206 set.

I have been collecting them for around 6 years at the time of this writing. I have bought and sold or traded approximately 600 cards since 2001. I currently own a few, including the first one I ever purchased, but seem to always shift my collecting focus to the point where the cards come and go quite often. It’s very easy to lose sight of your goals with the set because of it’s huge scope outlined above.

Through my ongoing efforts to organize the set online, I have met and know many T206 collectors. Although one man, Mr. Ted Zanidakis, really sticks out in my mind. He has the largest T206 collection I know of. In recent years he has been tackling a “master set” one tobacco advertiser at a time. He has already completed a couple of them, but there’s no telling how many cards he has overall. I believe he’s been collecting T206 for more than 30 years now, with some amazing hobby achievements along the way.

Can you shed some light on the printing and coloring process that makes these early baseball cards so vibrant and unique-looking?

This is one of the more mysterious topics about the set. Unfortunately, I have not formed my own theory, nor do I know enough to speak intelligently about it.

Please point us to a few of your personal favorites.

Ty Cobb (red portrait)
Wildfire Schulte (front view)
John Titus (The only guy with facial hair in the entire set!)

If you would like to learn more about the T206 set please visit Trae’s website at http://www.t206.org Trae also has a Flickr set that shows his T206 displays. This includes a 24″x36″ framed litho of Honus Wagner, and number framed and matted fronts and backs that look great when they are displayed in a matrix.

A list simply called Linux made it all the way to the front page of Digg today. It all started when someone talked about large scale Linux deployments worldwide in a thread at Slashdot. This resulted in a thread commentor creating this list and suggesting that other Slashdotters contribute to the collaborative effort. The list gained a handful of entries, then was posted to Digg. It’s a (growing) map of mass deployments of Linux around the work, and includes links to news articles such as this one about how every computer in every school in Russia will have a Russian Linux OS installed by 2009.

Embedding is now enabled on Listphile. What this means is that any list, atlas or database on Listphile can now be embedded on any website. This is really cool because it greatly expands your reach when you create a list.

Imagine spending the time to put together the beginnings of a helpful resource, and then let people share and distribute it across the web by inserting it into their sites. Everyone still comes back to a central place to made adds and edits (Listphile), but suddenly your list is portable and has a very wide potential reach. This will encourage collaboration, and get your list/atlas/database under more peoples’ noses. Here’s the Open Surf Atlas:

It’s a pretty simple affair: in the right margin of the main page for every list on Listphile, you will see an area that contains the embed code. It’s just like YouTube. Grab the code snippet, and paste it into your blog or website.

One big caveat: this will not work on blogs that are hosted on someone else’s server (i.e. listphile.wordpress.com, blogname.blogger.com, blogname.blogspot.com, etc.) because these hosted blog sites sanitize this kind of code. If you control your server, however, or have your own website, this should not be an issue.

This first release is pretty cool, however we hope to add lots of helpful controls that will allow you to change height, width, colors, font sizes and colors, layout, etc. For now, the embedded list will display as map, list or thumbnails depending on the default setting for that list. And if you feel like peeking under the hood, you can actually control a lot more by tinkering with the parameters in the embed code (height, width, rows, border). Enjoy, and as always, please send us feedback.

If you are like most human beings, you probably like words, and use them quite a bit each day. Wordie.org, a website created by my friend and cohort John McGrath, is a site made for logophiles everywhere. The site is super fast and fun to use, and it has a growing, vibrant community of smart folks who create lists of words, and do all sorts of other interesting things. In the words of Wordie:

“Wordie is for talking about language. Start by making lists of words: practical lists, words you love, words you hate, whatever. See who else has listed the same words, add citations and comments, and discuss. Try checking out a random word.”

Wordie is a lot of fun, it’s easy to use, and making a list of words is a snap. Hats off to you John.

Listphile launched, with little fanfare, on Monday night of last week. We wanted to have a quiet first day, then announce the site to the world. On Tuesday, Mashable got wind of our existence and posted this review of Listphile, which we thought was a pretty good start. Then, shortly after, TechCrunch’s Duncan Riley did a write up, and traffic started to pick up a bit more. Numerous other blogs picked up on our existence, and Demo Girl even did a cool screencast of Listphile which was probably more cogent than my ramblings ;)The best thing about all of this if, of course, the people these blog posts brought to the site, and the amazing variety of lists that were promptly thrown into the mix. Now we regroup, fix bugs and work on a few top priority features (read: embeddable lists in your site).

Over here at Listphile World Headquarters (aka my garage) we are breathless from launching the site and a bunch of activity stemming from some nice blog activity. Thanks for coming by everyone, and special thanks to those of you who have joined and started adding to and creating lists. More on the blogosphere in a bit…For now, I want to highlight a list that is quickly proving to be a helpful resource. It’s the wushu instruction: north america atlas created by xiongnu_lohon. Xiongnu has even taken the additional step of announcing this resource to the wushu community in a forum on the MartialTalk website. This is so cool, and just the kind of use for Listphile that we envisioned when we cooked this thing up. Thanks for taking the time and effort, xiongnu lohon. Our hats off to you.