Wonder why Google’s homepage doodle featured a barcode today?  October 7 is the anniversary of the first patent for a barcode, awarded to Drexel alumni Bernard Silver ‘47 and Norman Joseph Woodland ‘47.

See their patent for a Classifying Apparatus And Method on Google patents.

For more information about N.J Woodland, see this article from the May 8, 2000 Hagerty Library newsletter (pdf).

Thanks to John Wiggins for the tip.

Ellen B. Thompson Pyle, who studied illustration at the Drexel Institute from 1895-99, is the subject of a new exhibition at the Delaware Art Museum.  “Illustrating Her World: Ellen B. T. Pyle,” is on view until January 3, 2010. Can’t make it to Wilmington for the show? Check out the exhibition catalogue in the University Archives.

Drexel alumna Sarah Stolfa has recently published a book of her photographs of patrons of McGlinchey’s tavern in Philadelphia.  Her book, The Regulars is available for your perusal on the Drexel Authors shelf of the Archives reading room (on the Lower Level of Hagerty Library).

See more of Sarah Stolfa’s photographs at this Gallery 339 exhibition, The Regulars Revisited