blogis librorum. A blog about books. Rare books.

As every collector of rare books and documents knows, one of the biggest barriers to collecting is preservation. The effect of time, dust, light, and moisture in the environment on paper and parchment can often lead to discoloration and degradation. Care must be taken to protect delicate books and documents from being slowly destroyed by age and the elements.

This is no different for historical documents, whose caretakers endure great pains to preserve history's most important works. In the case of the Constitution of the United States, the National Archive enlisted an unlikely source to help preserve one of America's most notable documents: NASA.

Jane Goodall is the world’s foremost expert in chimpanzees. Born on April 3, 1934, she spent 45 years studying wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania. In addition to being honored as Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, she was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace in 2002. She has received many awards, including the French Legion of Honor, the Medal of Tanzania, the Kyoto Prize, and the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. Yet, not only did Goodall make lasting contributions to science and environmentalism, she led a fascinating life. Learn twenty interesting facts about Jane Goodall below:

Edwin Aldrin Jr, better known as Buzz Aldrin, is perhaps one of America's best known explorer heroes. In 1969 he became one of the first men to walk on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission. He has served as one of the most prominent faces of NASA for many years, inspiring generations of people to go into the fields of aerospace and astronautics through his outspoken advocacy for space travel and exploration.

Even after Aldrin's retirement from NASA, he has continued to further knowledge of the importance of understanding space as a writer, authoring eleven books for a variety of age groups, including Footsteps on the Moon; The Return, Look to the Stars; Welcome to Mars: Making a Home on the Red Planet; and most recently, 2016's No Dream is Too High: Life Lessons From a Man Who Walked on the Moon. Though we all know Buzz Aldrin the astronaut and Buzz Aldrin the writer, here are some lesser-known facts about one of NASA's biggest names.

On July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 crew left Kennedy Space Center and entered the Moon's orbit. On July 19, after spending a full day in lunar orbit, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr. boarded the lunar module. It was not an easy decent to the surface of the Moon, but when they landed, they made history.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing! On July 20, 1969, NASA successfully landed the Apollo 11 astronauts on the moon. Eight years earlier in 1961, President Kennedy kicked the Space Race into overdrive when he called for more efforts and resources to be put into the space programs with the goal of reaching the moon by the end of the decade. July 16, 1969, found Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins boarding the Saturn V rocket at the Kennedy Space Center and being launched into Earth’s orbit. After three days Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon in Eagle, the mission’s lunar module. They spent two and a half hours outside of Eagle exploring the surface, taking samples and photographs, and planting the American Flag. On July 24, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins splashed down off Hawaii, marking the end of the Apollo 11 mission.

Today is National Science Day! We’re excited, and perhaps you are wondering why. We are, after all, in the business of books—collecting, selling, and writing about them. Indeed, we share with you who wins the Nobel Prize in Literature, not who wins the Nobel Prize in Physics or Chemistry or even Medicine. But that’s not to say we don’t love science! As a matter of fact, we love it when books and science intersect, which happens quite often. Today, we’re focusing our attention on five of our favorite rare science books. If you, like us, have an affinity to books of scientific importance or would like to build a collection surrounding this topic, read on!

Edwin Aldrin Jr, better known as Buzz Aldrin, is perhaps one of America's best known explorer heroes. In 1969, he became one of the first men to walk on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission. He has served as one of the most prominent faces of NASA for many years, inspiring generations of people to go into the fields of aerospace and astronautics through his outspoken advocacy for space travel and exploration. Even after his retirement from NASA, he has continued to further his belief in the importance of understanding space as a writer, authoring eleven books for a variety of age groups, including Footsteps on the Moon, The Return, Look to the Stars, Welcome to Mars: Making a Home on the Red Planet, and most recently, 2016's No Dream is Too High: Life Lessons From a Man Who Walked on the Moon. Though we all know Buzz Aldrin the astronaut and Buzz Aldrin the writer, here are some lesser known facts about one of NASA's biggest names.

Dame Jane Morris Goodall DBE, more affectionately known as Dr. Jane, is the world’s foremost expert on Chimpanzees, a United Nations Peace Ambassador, and an inspiration to budding ethologists the world over. Since making the discovery that chimps make and use tools while studying their behavior in the field more than half a century ago, she has become one of the most recognizable and beloved figures in the global scientific community. A few years back, we penned a post titled Ten Facts You Should Know About Jane Goodall. Here are ten more facts about her you may find of interest.