It is generally agreed that the first jigsaw puzzle was produced around 1760 by John Spilsbury, a London engraver and mapmaker.  Spilsbury mounted one of his maps on a sheet of hardwood and cut around the borders of the countries using a fine-bladed marquetry saw.  The end product was an educational pastime, designed as an aid in teaching British children their geography.  The idea caught on and, until about 1820, jigsaw puzzles remained primarily educational tools.  In 1880, with the introduction of the treadle saw, what had previously been known as dissections came to be known as jigsaw puzzles, although they were actually cut by a fretsaw, not a true jigsaw.  Towards the end of the century plywood came to be used.   With illustrations glued or painted on the front of the wood, pencil tracings of where to cut were made on the back.  These pencil tracings can still be found on some of these older puzzles.  Cardboard puzzles were first introduced in the late 1800's, and were primarily used for children's puzzles.  It was not until the 20th century that cardboard puzzles came to be die-cut, a process whereby thin strips of metal with sharpened edges--rather like a giant cookie-cutter--are twisted into intricate patterns and fastened to a plate.   The "die" (which refers to this assembly of twisted metal on the plate) is placed in a press, which is pressed down on the cardboard to make the cut.  The Golden Age of jigsaw puzzles came in the 1920s and 1930s with companies like Chad Valley and Victory in Great Britain and Einson-Freeman, Viking and others in the United States producing a wide range of puzzles reflecting both the desire for sentimental scenes, enthusiasm for the new technologies in rail and shipping and, last but not least, new marketing strategies.  Daniel McAdam  http://www.jigsaw-puzzle.org/jigsaw-puzzle-history.html  If you are a jigsaw puzzle person, try http://www.jigidi.com/

James Palfrey, in his new book BiblioTech: Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google, gives some truly bummer statistics on what’s happening to this beloved institution.  A government report showed that while the nation’s public libraries served 298 million people in 2010 (that’s 96 percent of the U.S. population), states had cut funding by 38 percent and the federal government by 19 percent between 2000 and 2010.  “It seems extraordinary that a public service with such reach should be, in effect, punished despite its success,” writes Palfrey.  Of necessity, he cites these tough economic times as a reason for this “punishment.”  But according to Palfrey, one of the greatest threats to libraries is nostalgia—the way that we, the loving public, associate libraries with the pleasures of a bygone era, and assume that the growth of the Internet is slowly draining libraries of their usefulness.  Read more at http://www.bespacific.com/why-libraries-matter-more-than-ever-in-the-age-of-google/

Before there was Lisbeth Salander or Stephanie Plum, there was V.I. Warshawski.  Sara Paretsky revolutionized the mystery world in 1982 when she introduced V I in Indemnity Only.  By creating a believable investigator with the grit and the smarts to tackle problems on the mean streets, Paretsky challenged a genre in which women typically were either vamps or victims.  Hailed by critics and readers, Indemnity Only was followed by fifteen more best-selling Warshawski novels.  Called “passionate” and “electrifying,” V.I. reflects her creator’s own passion for social justice.  As a contributor to the New York Times and the Guardian newspapers, and a speaker at such venues as the Library of Congress and Oxford University, Paretsky is an impassioned advocate for those on society’s margins.  After chairing the school’s first Commission on the Status of Women as a Kansas undergraduate, Paretsky worked as a community organizer on Chicago’s South Side during the turbulent race riots of 1966.  She has mentored teens in Chicago’s most troubled schools, and works closely with literacy and reproductive rights groups.  http://www.saraparetsky.com/biography/  See Sara Paretsky's blog at http://www.saraparetsky.com/blog/  Paretsky's advice on getting published:  The best guide is How to Get Happily Published by Judith Applebaum.  The advice is good and broad based.  For a simple list of accredited agents—that is, they are members of the Association of Author’s Representatives, which has a canon of ethics, etc.—a person can go to the AAR website, and get a list and some useful advice.  Most agents work with e-requests these days.  If you choose to write a printed letter,  you should send a self-addressed, stamped envelope with a query letter.  However you make your initial pitch, don’t send more than a 2-page summary of your book.  No agent wants to see a book, either in paper or e form, until he or she has decided whether or not to pursue the relationship.  The query letter should include no more than two pages of double spaced text with wide margins, describing the novel.  A number of websites have great advice for writing query letters.  My personal favorite is The Query Shark.  http://www.saraparetsky.com/faqs/

What’s the difference between a salad and a composed salad?  From the French “salade composée,” a composed salad is simply salad arranged on a plate rather than tossed in a bowl.  In summer, it shows off the intense, irresistible vegetables, herbs and fruits of the season—but can also have rich components like cheese, eggs, toasted nuts and smoked fish or meat.  With a loaf of (preferably grilled) bread, it is a meal in itself.  Lay them out on one vast platter (the prettier choice) or on individual plates (faster).  Ingredients can be arranged in loose stripes or wedges, or be artfully distributed around the platter.  Julia Moskin   http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/05/19/dining/composed-salad-recipes-and-ideas.html

Peter Lovesey (b. 1936), also known by his pen name Peter Lear, is a British crime fiction writer.  His first novel Wobble to Death (1970) featured Sergeant Cribb, a Victorian-era police detective based in London.  His other series feature Peter Diamond, a modern-day police detective in Bath, Bertie (Prince of Wales), and Inspector Hen Mallin.  Read an interview with Peter Lovesey at http://at-scene-of-crime.blogspot.com/2012/08/an-interview-with-peter-lovesey.html  See also http://peterlovesey.com/

Lists of beach books  http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/beach-books  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106983620

2015 Summer Reading List from the Association for Library Service to Children  http://www.ala.org/alsc/2015-summer-reading-list 

Sapper was the pseudonym of Herman Cyril McNeile (1888-1937).   McNeile was educated at Cheltenham College and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1907.  He went to France in 1914 when World War I broke out and he saw action at both the First and the Second Battle of Ypres where he displayed considerable bravery, was awarded the Military Cross and was mentioned in dispatches.  His first known published work was a series of short war stories based on his own experiences, and published under the name 'Sapper' in the Daily Mail and in the magazine 'The War Illustrated'.  These stories were immediately successful and later sold over 200,000 copies within a year when subsequently republished in book-form.  He began the series for which he now best remembered, that of Hugh 'Bulldog' Drummond in 1920 and thereafter he wrote 10 novels featuring his eponymous hero.  The public took to Drummond and McNeile had great financial success.  The first book was adapted for the stage and produced, to great success, at Wyndham's Theatre during the 1921-1922 season with Gerald du Maurier playing the main character.  There were 26 films made of his books.  As well as Drummond, he wrote about Ronald Standish but the majority of his work was short stories that were published in various popular monthly magazines and continued to earn him good money.  See a list of Sapper's books at http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/370972.Sapper

The Oxford English Dictionary announced on May 3, 2015 it is going to include the gender-neutral honorific "Mx."--pronounced "mix"--to represent transgender people and people who don't want to be identified by gender, reports the Sunday Times of London.  Although the idea of replacing the traditional honorifics "Mr.," "Mrs." and "Miss," and the later "Ms.," with the gender-neutral "Mx." seems a wholly contemporary development, OED assistant editor Jonathan Dent in the announcement Sunday said the first recorded use of Mx. was discovered in a 1977 issue of "Single Parent," an American magazine.  “The early proponents of the term seem to have had gender politics as their central concern [and] saw the title as one which could sidestep the perceived sexism of the traditional ‘Mr.,' ‘Mrs.’ and ‘Miss,'” Dent told the Sunday Times.  Perhaps more surprising than the idea that single parents were proponents of an honorific associated with gender activists like trans performer Mx. Justin V. Bond, who's been using "Mx." for years, is the fact that U.K. banks and government agencies are already giving customers the "Mx." option.  Barbara Herman  http://www.ibtimes.com/mr-mrs-or-mx-oxford-english-dictionary-adopts-gender-neutral-honorific-1907977

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1307  June 8, 2015  On this date in 1789, James Madison introduced twelve proposed amendments to the United States Constitution in the House of Representatives; by 1791, ten of them were ratified by the state legislatures and became the Bill of Rights; another was eventually ratified in 1992 to become the 27th Amendment.  On this date in 1906, Theodore Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act into law, authorizing the President to restrict the use of certain parcels of public land with historical or conservation value.