Tag Archives: Carte de Tendre

Carte Blanche

Carte de Tendre of M. de Scudery. (Paris BNF)

Carte de Tendre of M. de Scudery. (Paris BNF)

Okay, so it’s a long time since any of De Scudery’s works were in copyright, but the librarian in me has never been happy about displaying this image of the Carte de Tendre* even though it’s widely available on the net. Who does an image like this belong to, after all? This week, however, I discovered it’s been uploaded to Wikipedia Commons with a note that it’s in the public domain, and so I’ve given in and here it is for all to see.  I’ll be adding it on other pages too, when I get round to the makeover of debutnovelist which after two years is definitely on the cards. So stand by for lots of new links and some general reorganisation. Meanwhile the blog will still be here. At just a year old, it’s only a baby!

I’m hoping the new version will also have direct links to content on Encyclopedia Britannica, which thanks to Phil Bradley I’ve discovered is now available free to ‘regular writers’ on the net. I have filled in my application, so here’s hoping.

*(In case you have forgotten, the Carte plays a starring role in New History which also uses places on the map as chapter headings.)

A Wiki called Culture

Carte de TendreCarte de TendreCarte de Tendre

Google Alerts service continues to throw up the odd item of interest for my Carte de Tendre search. This week it was an entry on Jahsonic, a cross cultural blog, which seems to focus particularly on the erotic or downright sexual. The author tells us that the map is seen as a representation of the female sex organs, which, I suppose, is a point of view. After a brief exchange of comments, he was good enough to add me to his culture wiki. (I have used his image of the Carte pending his permission).

All a bit of a surreal experience, being added to a wiki by someone I met on a blog! But it did give me the satisfaction of editing a real wiki entry in the week when I had a wiki workshop to do at BSU (even if it did get re-edited afterwards!)
Look closely on this entry and you will see I am cross-referenced (possibly an ex-cataloguer’s dream come true?)

Places and Spaces

More wanderings on the web this week. A while ago I signed up for Google Alerts, a good way of finding new stuff on the web. My alert for Carte de Tendre usually throws up sites on a French folk singer, but this week I found myself being notified of my own post - something I found sadly gratifying!
But the mighty Google spider also unearthed Places and Spaces, another website dedicated to all kinds of maps, including concept maps like the Carte, of which they have a very nice image. A couple of emails to the project team failed to obtain copyright clearance to use it here, but I shall persevere, and it turned out my contact also does proof-reading and copy-editing on the side. In the end we didn’t do a deal, but it was fun even not doing business with one Bryan of Indiana University. 

I’ve also been keeping my eye on the Snowboooks Snowblog – for obvious reasons! - which is a lot of fun to read, and think I should start to list the best blogs for and by writers. Not that it hasn’t been done before, but we all like to reinvent the wheel to our own particular design from time to time. A project for a rainy day, I think.