The Avon River rises from springs in the western suburbs of Christchurch, New Zealand, winds through the city and north-eastern suburbs, and enters the estuary it shares with the Heathcote River.  Christchurch was built on the first extensive area of dry land up the river.  The Avon’s Māori name was Ōtakaro, but it was later named after an Avon River in Ayrshire, home of the Deans brothers, settler farmers.  The river banks, with neat lawns, gardens and trees, add to the city’s English character.  http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/canterbury-places/page-8

Christchurch's Avon River is getting a makeover, saving it from an almost certain death.  The Government will spend just under $100 million on the central city river, bringing it back to life below and above the water.  "The Avon River is dying and we want to bring it back to life," says aquatic scientist Shelley McMurtrie.  The river has always been the life of the city but has in recent years become choked in sand and silt, even more so after the earthquakes.  "Currently we have removed 400 tonnes of sediment from the Avon River and [are] cleaning the bottom of it," says site manager Brent Cations.  The Avon River Precinct is the first of the Government's major anchor projects since the quakes.  It will include a promenade with more walkways for pedestrians and cycle-ways for cyclists.  A boardwalk will even be created under bridges, bringing people back into the central city.  http://www.3news.co.nz/nznews/new-project-aims-to-save-christchurchs-avon-river-2014020417

Anne Perry (born 1938 as Juliet Marion Hulme) is an English author of historical detective fiction.  She was convicted of participating in the murder of her friend's mother in 1954.  She changed her name after serving her sentence.  In June 1954, at the age of 15, Hulme and her best friend Pauline Parker murdered Parker's mother, Honorah Rieper.  Hulme's parents were in the process of separating, and she was supposed to go to South Africa to stay with a relative.  The two teenage girls, who had created a rich fantasy life together populated with famous actors such as James Mason and Orson Welles, did not want to be separated.  On 22 June 1954, the girls and Honora Rieper went for a walk in Victoria Park in their hometown of Christchurch.  On an isolated path Hulme dropped an ornamental stone so that Ms. Rieper would lean over to retrieve it.  Parker had planned to hit her mother with half a brick wrapped in a stocking.  The girls presumed that one blow would kill her but it took more than 20.  Parker and Hulme stood trial in Christchurch in 1954 and were found guilty on August 29 of that year.  As they were too young to be considered for the death penalty under New Zealand law at the time, they were convicted and sentenced to be "detained at Her Majesty's pleasure".  In practice, this sentence meant they were to be detained at the discretion of the Minister of Justice.  They were released separately five years later.  These events formed the basis for the 1994 film Heavenly Creatures, in which Melanie Lynskey portrayed a teenage Pauline Parker and Kate Winslet portrayed teenaged Juliet Hulme.  At the time of the film's release, it was not generally known that the well-known mystery author "Anne Perry" was the grown-up Juliet Hulme; her identity was made public some months after the film had been issued.  See her bibliography, including her series Thomas Pitt, William Monk, World War I and Christmas stories at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Perry

Joseph "Shoeless Joe"  Jefferson Jackson (1888-1951) had a lifetime batting average of .356, third highest in baseball history.  Ted William once said:  "When I was younger, the Red Sox used to stop sometimes in Greenvile, South Carolina--that's Joe Jackson's home.  And he was still alive.  Oh, how I wish I had known that, and could have stopped in to talk hitting with that man."  Read about Shoeless Joe at http://www.shoelessjoejackson.org/joes_story.php and http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/7afaa6b2

Shoeless Joe has been depicted in Eight Men Out, a film directed by John Sayles, based on the Eliot Asinof book of the same name, and the Phil Alden Robinson film Field of Dreams by W. P. Kinsella,  Jackson's nickname was worked into the musical play Damn Yankees.  The lead character, baseball phenomenon Joe Hardy, alleged to be from a small town in Missouri, is dubbed by the media as "Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, MO."  Jackson was also an inspiration, in part, for the character Roy Hobbs in The Natural.  Shoeless Joe is a character in the song "Kenesaw Mountain Landis", by Jonathan Coulton, although the song takes many liberties with the story for comedic effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoeless_Joe_Jackson#Films_and_plays

The nation's first mile of concrete highway was built by the Wayne County Road Commission (Woodward Avenue between 6 and 7 Mile roads in Detroit) in 1909.  See other Michigan firsts from the Michigan Department of Transportation at http://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,4616,7-151-9620_11154-129682--,00.html

M-1, commonly known as Woodward Avenue, is a north–south state trunkline highway in the Metro Detroit area of the US state of Michigan.  The highway, called "Detroit's Main Street", runs from Detroit northwesterly to Pontiac.  The street is one of the five principal avenues of Detroit, which also include Michigan, Grand River, Gratiot and Jefferson avenues.  These streets were platted in 1805 by Judge Augustus B. Woodward, namesake to Woodward Avenue.  Woodward Avenue was created after the Detroit Fire in 1805.  It followed the route of the Saginaw Trail, an Indian trail that linked Detroit with Pontiac, Flint, and Saginaw.  The Saginaw Trail also connected to the Mackinaw Trail, which ran north to the Straits of Mackinac at the tip of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan.  In the age of the auto trails, Woodward Avenue was also part of the Theodore Roosevelt International Highway that connected Portland, Maine, with Portland, Oregon through Ontario in Canada.  It was also a part of the Dixie Highway, which connected Michigan with Florida.  When Michigan created the State Trunkline Highway System in 1913, the roadway was included, numbered as part of M-10 in 1919.  Later, it was part of US Highway 10 (US 10) following the creation of the United States Numbered Highway System.  Since 1970, it has borne the M-1 designation.  The roadway carried streetcar lines from the 1860s until the 1950s; a new light rail line will be added in the future.  See pictures at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-1_(Michigan_highway)  

Read about the Saginaw Trail at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saginaw_Trail

Text of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act

This bill was enacted after being signed by the President on July 22, 2014.

H. R. 803  AN ACT to amend the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 to strengthen the United States workforce development system through innovation in, and alignment and improvement of, employment, training, and education programs in the United States, and to promote individual and national economic growth, and for other purposes.  https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr803/text

Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) summary of library provisions  http://www.ala.org/advocacy/sites/ala.org.advocacy/files/content/advleg/federallegislation/workforce_innovation_opportunity_act_summary.pdf

What was fake on the Internet this week by Caitlin Dewey   

Betty White, Twitter ‘filtering,’ and that photo of Darren Wilson  September 5, 2014  http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/09/05/what-was-fake-on-the-internet-this-week-betty-white-twitter-filtering-and-that-photo-of-darren-wilson/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1188  September 8, 2014  On this date in 1892, the Pledge of Allegiance was first recited.  On this date in 1930, 3M began marketing Scotch transparent tape.