A GOOGLE HAND OF WHICH ANDY WARHOL WOULD BE PROUD.

Dr. Boli continues his unusual hobby of collecting librarians’ hands from Google Books, although he hastens to explain that the collection process does not require the detachment of the hand from the librarian. Sometimes the scanner reads the hand as a color illustration and attempts to balance the colors correctly. Sometimes it fails.

Comments

  1. John says:

    Are those things on the fingers for the prevention of disease?

    • Dr. Boli says:

      It is standard procedure to wear them while scanning books for Google Books; one rarely sees a Google hand without them. Dr. Boli believes they are meant to protect the pages from the common ailments caused by finger oils; but it is also possible that they are specified by the project’s artistic director for the sake of a pleasing color contrast.

  2. I figured they are there to make it easy to turn page after page after page without having to repeatedly lick your fingers to moisten them. In other words, both to protect the pages from a potent mix of saliva and skin oil, and to protect the librarian’s skin from drying out due to the paper wicking away all their skin oils.

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