Welcome to the 2013 Library
Design Showcase, American
Libraries magazine’s annual celebration of new and newly renovated
libraries. These libraries are shining examples of innovative architecture that
addresses user needs in unique, interesting, and effective ways. See pictures, specifications and descriptions
at: http://www.americanlibrariesmagazine.org/article/building-future
2013 AIA / ALA Library Building
Awards
To encourage excellence in
the architectural design and planning of libraries, the American Institute of
Architects and the American Library Association/Library Administration and
Management Association created this award to distinguish accomplishments in
library architecture. See all 2013
awards at: http://www.aia.org/practicing/awards/2013/library-awards/
Sunrise: A Song
of Two Humans, also known as Sunrise,
is a 1927 American silent film directed by German film director F. W.
Murnau. The story was adapted by Carl
Mayer from the short story "Die Reise nach Tilsit" ("A Trip to
Tilsit" by Hermann Sudermann).
Sunrise won an Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Production at the
first ever Academy Awards ceremony in 1929.
In 1937, Sunrise's original negative was destroyed in a nitrate
fire. A new negative was created from a
surviving print. In 1989, this film was
deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by
the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in their
National Film Registry. In a 2002
critics' poll for the British Film Institute, Sunrise was named the
seventh-best film in the history of motion pictures. In 2007, the film was chosen #82 on the 10th
anniversary update of the American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Movies
list of great films. Sunrise is one of
the first with a soundtrack of music and sound effects recorded in the then-new
Fox Movietone sound-on-film system. This
is a melodrama with characters called The Man, The Wife, The Woman from the
City, The
Maid, The Photographer, The Barber, The Manicure Girl, The Obtrusive Gentleman,
The Obliging Gentleman, and The Angry Driver rather than names. See 1:35 video at:
Sept. 27,
2013 When Nina
Davuluri was crowned Miss America earlier this month, most of the news centered on
the fact that she is the first winner of South Asian heritage. Or, for those savvy in ethnic-identity
matters, she's the first "desi" Miss America. "Desi" as a noun or adjective has
become the typical way for people of South Asian ancestry to identify members
of their diaspora. With South
Asian-Americans like Ms. Davuluri achieving more prominence in popular culture,
"desi" will no doubt become a more widely known buzzword as well. The word comes from Hindi, with roots in
ancient Sanskrit. It originally referred
to someone or something native to a certain country, or "desh." Ben Zimmer http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304713704579095112813176666.html?mod=lifestyle_newsreel
Throughout his life, books were vital to
Thomas Jefferson's education and well-being. When his family home Shadwell burned in 1770
Jefferson most lamented the loss of his books. In the midst of the American Revolution and
while United States minister to France in the 1780s, Jefferson acquired
thousands of books for his library at Monticello. Jefferson's library went through several
stages, but it was always critically important to him. Books provided the little traveled Jefferson
with a broader knowledge of the contemporary and ancient worlds than most
contemporaries of broader personal experience. By 1814 when the British burned the nation's
Capitol and the Library of Congress, Jefferson had acquired the largest
personal collection of books in the United States. Jefferson offered to sell
his library to Congress as a replacement for the collection destroyed by the
British during the War of 1812. Congress
purchased Jefferson's library for $23,950 in 1815. A second fire on Christmas Eve of 1851,
destroyed nearly two thirds of the 6,487 volumes Congress had purchased from
Jefferson. Through a generous grant
from Jerry and Gene Jones, the Library of Congress is attempting to reassemble
Jefferson's library as it was sold to Congress. Although the broad scope of Jefferson's
library was a cause for criticism of the purchase, Jefferson extolled the
virtue of its broad sweep and established the principle of acquisition for the
Library of Congress: "there is in
fact no subject to which a member of Congress may not have occasion to
refer." Proclaiming that "I
cannot live without books," Jefferson began a second collection of several
thousand books, which was sold at auction in 1829 to help satisfy his
creditors. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jefflib.html
The Potomac River is the fourth largest river along
the Atlantic coast and the 21st largest in the United States. It runs over 383 miles from Fairfax Stone,
West Virginia to Point Lookout, Maryland and drains 14,670 square miles of land
area from four states and Washington DC. The Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake Bay and affects more than 6 million people who live within the Potomac
watershed, the land area where water drains towards the mouth of the
river. George Washington envisioned the nation's
capital as a commercial center as well as the seat of government. He chose to establish the “federal city” along
the Potomac River because it already included two major port towns: Georgetown andAlexandria. "Potomac" was one of two Algonquin
names for the river forming the northern boundary of Virginia, and it meant
"great trading place" or "place where people trade." The Potomac's common spelling through the 18th
century was "Patowmack." An
earlier spelling was "Patawomeke." The spelling of the name was simplified over
the years to "Potomac". http://dc.about.com/od/communities/a/The-Potomac-River.htm See Potomac Watershed Profile at: http://fergusonfoundation.org/trash-free-potomac-watershed-initiative/potomac-river-watershed-cleanup/watershed-resources/
In the year 1572, Ugo Boncompagni became Pope Gregory
XIII and there was a crisis of the calendar - one of Christianity's most
important dates was falling behind with respect to the seasons. Easter, which
is based on the date of the vernal equinox (the first day of Spring), was being
celebrated too early in the month of March. The cause of this calendrical confusion was
the over 1,600 year-old Julian calendar, established by Julius Caesar in the
year 46 BCE. Julius Caesar took control
over the chaotic Roman calendar, which was being exploited by politicians and
others with the haphazard addition of days or months. It was a calendar horribly out-of-synch with
the seasons of the earth, which are the result of the rotation of the earth
around the sun. Caesar developed a new
calendar of 364 1/4 days, closely approximating the length of the tropical year
(the time it takes the earth to go around the sun from the beginning of spring
to the beginning of spring). Caesar's
calendar was normally 365 days long but included an extra day (a leap day)
every four years to account for the extra one-quarter of a day. The intercalary (inserted into the calendar)
day was added prior to February 25 each year.
Pope Gregory XIII issued a papal bull, "Inter Gravissimus" on
February 24, 1582 that established the Gregorian calendar as the new and
official calendar of the Catholic world. Since the Julian calendar had fallen ten days
behind over the centuries, Pope Gregory XIII designated that October 4, 1582
would be officially followed by October 15, 1582. In Great Britain, Parliament
legislated the change to the Gregorian calendar (by this time simply called the
New Style calendar) in 1751 after two unsuccessful attempts at change in 1645
and 1699. They decreed that September 2,
1752 would be followed by September 14, 1752. Britain needed to add eleven days instead of
ten because by the time Britain changed, the Julian calendar was eleven days
off the Gregorian calendar and tropic year. This 1752 change also applied to the American
colonies of Britain so the change was made in the pre-United States and
pre-Canada at that time. Alaska didn't change calendars until 1867, when it
transferred from a Russian territory to a part of the United States. In the
era after the change, dates were written with O.S. (Old Style) or N.S. (New
Style) following the day so people examining records could understand whether
they were looking at a Julian date or a Gregorian date. While George Washington was born on February
11, 1731 (O.S.), his birthday became February 22, 1732 (N.S.) under the
Gregorian calendar. The change in the
year of his birth was due to the change of when the change of the new year was
acknowledged. Recall that prior to the
Gregorian calendar, March 25 was the new year but once the new calendar was
implemented, it became January 1. Therefore, since Washington was born between
January 1 and March 25, the year of his birth became one year later upon the
switch to the Gregorian calendar. (Prior
to the 14th century, the new year change took place on December 25.) http://geography.about.com/od/culturalgeography/a/gregorian_2.htm
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