Dec. 12, 2014 Benjamin
Franklin’s Philadelphia printing shop made plaster molds from pressed sage
leaves to create metal stamps for marking foliage patterns on Colonial
currency. The distinctive contours of
leaf spines, stems and veins were meant to thwart counterfeiters, and Franklin’s
workers managed to keep the casting technique a secret that has puzzled modern
scholars, too. James N. Green, the
librarian at the Library Company of Philadelphia (founded
by Franklin in 1731), had wondered for the last two decades if any of
Franklin’s actual metal leaf-printing blocks for the bills survived. He had concluded that if one of these
castings ever did emerge, it would be “a really sensational discovery,” he said
in an interview last month. Such a
discovery has been made in a vault at the Delaware County Institute of
Science in
Media, Pa. Jessica Linker, a historian
who is studying early female botanists, recognized the sage leaf patterns on
one of Franklin’s metal blocks when the institute staff opened the box it was
stored in. The block is now on loan to
the Library Company, which is planning to exhibit it with related printing
equipment and currency. Its three
parallel sage leaves match images on Franklin’s 1760s shilling notes for
Delaware’s government; the bills bear the slogan “To Counterfeit is
DEATH.” Hardly any early American metal
printing blocks survive; most were melted down into raw material for new
type. Fragments dating to the 1600s have
been excavated at Harvard Yard,
and early-19th-century metal letters surfaced at the construction site for the Museum of the American
Revolution in Philadelphia. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/12/arts/design/how-franklin-thwarted-counterfeiters-.html?src=twr&_r=0
French phrases used in
English Find
definitions for À
la carte, À la mode, Art déco, Art nouveau, Au gratin, Au
pair, Avant garde, C'est la vie, Chaise longue, Cordon
bleu, Déjà vu, Papier mâché, Petit four, Pied-à-terre, and many others. Also link to Latin
phrases used in English at http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/french-phrases.html
The lede
(that’s how journalists spell it) is the first paragraph of any news
story. It’s also the most
important. The lede must accomplish
several things: give readers the main
points of the story; get readers interested in reading the story; accomplish
both “a” and “b” in as few words as possible.
Journalists use the five “W’s and the H”
– Who, What, Where, When, Why and How.
Find an example of a lede in 20 words at http://journalism.about.com/od/writing/a/writingledes.htm
StoryCorps,
in partnership with the American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs
Office, is accepting applications from public libraries and library systems
interested in hosting StoryCorps @ your library programs. Funded by a grant from the Institute of
Museum and Library Services (IMLS), StoryCorps
@ your library will bring StoryCorps’ popular
interview methods to libraries while developing a replicable model of oral
history programming. Ten selected sites will
receive: a $2,500 stipend for
project-related expenses; portable recording equipment; a two-day, in-person
training on interview collection, digital recording techniques and archiving on
April 8-9, 2015, led by StoryCorps staff in Brooklyn, New York (Note:
Travel and lodging costs will be covered by StoryCorps.); two two-hour planning
meetings to develop a program and outreach strategy with StoryCorps staff
in March 2015; promotional materials and
technical and outreach support; and access to and use of StoryCorps’ proprietary
interview database.
Each library will be
expected to record at least 40 interviews during the six-month interview
collection period (May-October 2015). In
addition, each library must plan at least one public program inspired by the
interviews they collect. Local libraries
will retain copies of all interviews and preservation copies will also be
deposited with the Library of Congress. This StoryCorps @ your library grant
offering represents the second phase of the StoryCorps
@ your library project, following a pilot program in 2013-14. Read more about the pilot libraries at http://www.ala.org/programming/storycorps andhttp://www.storycorps.org/your-library. http://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2014/12/public-libraries-invited-apply-storycorps-your-library
Gilbert Charles Stuart (born Stewart; 1755–1828) was an
American painter from Rhode Island. His best known work, the unfinished
portrait of George Washington that
is sometimes referred to as The Athenaeum, was begun in
1796 and never finished; Stuart retained the portrait and used it to paint 130
copies which he sold for $100 each. The
image of George Washington featured in the painting has appeared on the United
States one-dollar bill for
over a century, and
on various U.S. postage stamps of the 19th century and early 20th century. Throughout his career, Gilbert Stuart
produced portraits of over 1,000 people, including the first six Presidents of
the United States. His
work can be found today at art museums across the United States and the United
Kingdom, most notably the Metropolitan
Museum of Art and Frick Collection in
New York City, the National Gallery of
Art in Washington, D.C., the National
Portrait Gallery in London, Worcester Art Museum in
Massachusetts, and the Museum of Fine
Arts in Boston. Read more and see many pictures at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Stuart
Charles Wright is often ranked as one of the best
American poets of his generation. Born
in 1935 in Pickwick Dam, Tennessee, Wright attended Davidson College and the
Iowa Writers’ Workshop; he also served four years in the U.S. Army, and it was
while stationed in Italy that Wright began to read and write poetry. He is the author of over 20 books of
poetry. In 2014, he was named Poet Laureate of the United States. Read more at http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/charles-wright
100 Notable Books of 2014, the
year’s notable fiction, poetry and nonfiction, selected by the editors of The
New York Times Book Review http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/books/review/100-notable-books-of-2014.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
2014 Notable Children's Books from the American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/notalists/ncb
Best Mysteries, 2011-2014 and lists of best mysteries and mystery awards
“The Big Lebowski” — a film so adored that its most cultlike fans (known as “achievers”)
attend an annual festival in
Louisville in its honor — has finally entered the pantheon of Important Motion
Pictures. The Library of Congress
announced Dec. 17, 2014 that the 1998 Coen brothers classic, along with 24
other cinematic gems of “cultural, historic or aesthetic significance,” has
been selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry, an archive of movies
designated for preservation as national treasures. Established in 1989, the registry now
includes 650 titles, ranging from the sublime (“2001: A Space Odyssey”) to the sublimely ridiculous
(“Duck Soup”). Selected by Librarian of
Congress James H. Billington from hundreds of popular submissions vetted by a
panel of film experts and historians, this year’s honorees include the 1919
silent drama “The Dragon Painter,” featuring Hollywood’s first Asian star,
Sessue Hayakawa, as well as Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning “Saving Private
Ryan” (1998). Michael O'Sullivan
Find list of all films selected for the 2014 National Film Registry at http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/library-of-congress-adds-big-lebowski-24-others-to-national-film-registry/2014/12/16/34bdd516-8548-11e4-9534-f79a23c40e6c_story.html
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1232
December 19, 2014 On this date in
1831, Bernice Pauahi Bishop,
American philanthropist, was born.
On
this date in 1849, Henry Clay Frick,
American businessman, was born.
No comments:
Post a Comment