Court libraries and librarians in all 12 regional circuits are playing a leading role in two of the federal Judiciary’s most critical management initiatives:  reducing building space and containing personnel and other costs.  Funding for library spaces, subscription and purchase budgets, and staff positions all have faced sharp cuts.  Under a new staffing formula, 254 circuit library positions were authorized nationally in FY 2015, compared with 335 positions in FY 2014. That is a 24 percent fall in just one year.  Similarly, court libraries are playing a significant role in a national Judiciary effort to cut building space 3 percent by 2018.  Closures of 10 library facilities have been approved or completed in seven circuits.  These include library spaces in Tacoma, Wash.; Wichita, Kans.; Mobile, Ala.; Baton Rouge, La.; Miami; Toledo, Ohio; and New York City; as well as a library annex in Tulsa, Okla.  Major space reductions were identified in 11 circuits, including space cuts of 40 percent or more in Spokane and Las Vegas.  The D.C. Circuit reduced its library from two floors to one, and the Eleventh Circuit, headquartered in Atlanta, saved $250,000 annually by closing a law library in Miami.  In the Third Circuit, which includes Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and the Virgin Islands, libraries are giving up 22,000 square feet—one-third of the circuit’s entire space-reduction goal.  To ensure that the libraries maintain essential services, the U.S. Courts Library Program, which brings together all 12 circuit library systems, is implementing a five-year strategic plan.  It calls for repurposing reduced spaces and positions to accommodate changing technology and research processes. The library program also is using data to assess and reimagine services and collections.  And in response to library closures, digital services and tools are being developed to accommodate library users who may be in another court or another state.  According to “Beyond Books – Today’s Court Library,” a document that outlines changing library functions, court librarians already have many evolving roles.  They train court professionals to make effective use of databases and presentation tools; negotiate contracts with legal research services; test and in some cases develop software applications; produce news summaries; and monitor social media for threats against judges.  And in keeping with their traditional function, the librarians still help judges and law clerks with complex research. 

http://www.uscourts.gov/news/2015/12/21/court-libraries-adapt-deep-cuts-changing-technology

There is one thing we know for sure about Chicken Tetrazzini:  it was named for famed Italian opera soprano Luisa Tetrazzini.  Everything else is up for grabs--including whether to use chicken, turkey, or salmon.  Luisa Tetrazzini (1871-1941), called “The Florentine Nightingale,” was a world-renowned opera star who was a favorite of San Francisco audiences.  Chefs often named dishes for prestigious clients at their restaurants.  But just what chef she inspired remains in doubt.  One theory has the chef at the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York City, Mr. Pavani, creating the dish to honor Luisa Tetrazzini’s January 1908 New York debut singing Violetta in La Traviata.  Although the Knickbocker no longer exists, one can still find a locked door at the Times Square subway station platform with the name Knickerbocker above it, where at one time a stairway led from the subway up to the lobby of the hotel.  A few historians claim that master French chef George Auguste Escoffier invented Chicken Tetrazzini, but it is not mentioned in his cookbooks.  Some sources say that a recipe for Chicken Tetrazzini appears in the Christian Science Monitor in October 1908, and in the Chicago Tribune in 1911.  Various other people claim their relatives invented it at the turn of the 20th century.  Supporting San Francisco’s claim to the recipe is James Beard, who believes that the dish was created at the Palace by Chef Ernest Arbogast.  Susan Saperstein  Read more at http://www.sfcityguides.org/public_guidelines.html?article=346&submitted=TRUE&srch_text=&submitted2=&topic=Food  See also http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/tetrazzini_chicken_tetrazzini_turkey_tetrazzini_spaghetti_tetrazzini/

Recipes for Chicken Tetrazzini:  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/chicken-tetrazzini-recipe.html and http://www.marthastewart.com/343648/chicken-tetrazzini

In 1991, Suzanne Collins began her professional career writing for children’s television.  She worked on the staffs of several Nickelodeon shows, including the Emmy-nominated hit Clarissa Explains it All and The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo.  For preschool viewers, she penned multiple stories for the Emmy-nominated Little Bear and Oswald.  She also co-wrote the Rankin/​Bass Christmas special, Santa, Baby! with her friend, Peter Bakalian, which was nominated for a WGA Award in Animation.  Most recently she was the Head Writer for Scholastic Entertainment’s Clifford’s Puppy Days,and a freelancer on Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!  While working on a Kids WB show called Generation O! she met children’s author and illustrator James Proimos, who talked her into giving children’s books a try.  Thinking one day about Alice in Wonderland, she was struck by how pastoral the setting must seem to kids who, like her own, lived in urban surroundings.  In New York City, you’re much more likely to fall down a manhole than a rabbit hole and, if you do, you’re not going to find a tea party.  What you might find...? Well, that’s the story of Gregor the Overlander, the first book in her five-part fantasy/​war series, The Underland Chronicles,which became a New York Times bestseller. Her next series, The Hunger Games Trilogy, is an international bestseller.  The Hunger Games has spent over six years to date on The New York Times bestseller list since publication in September 2008, and has also appeared consistently on USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists.  In September 2013, Suzanne released a critically acclaimed autobiographical picture book, YEAR OF THE JUNGLE, illustrated by James Proimos.  It deals with the year she was six and her father was deployed to Viet Nam.  Her first picture book, WHEN CHARLIE MCBUTTON LOST POWER, about a boy obsessed with computer games, was illustrated by Mike Lester and came out in 2005.  Her books have sold over 87 million copies worldwide.  http://www.suzannecollinsbooks.com/bio.htm  Suzanne Marie Collins was born on August 10, 1962 in Hartford, Connecticut, to Jane and Michael Collins, a U.S. Air Force officer who served in the Vietnam War.  As the daughter of a military officer, she and her family were constantly moving.  She spent her childhood in the eastern United States.  Collins graduated from the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham in 1980 as a Theater Arts major.  She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree from Indiana University in 1985 with a double major in theater and telecommunications.  In 1989, Collins earned her M.F.A. in dramatic writing from the New York University Tisch School of the Arts.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Collins

CGI has two different meanings:  Common Gateway Interface and Computer Generated Imagery.  The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a set of rules for running scripts and programs on a Web server.  It specifies what information is communicated between the Web server and clients' Web browsers and how the information is transmitted.  In the computer graphics world, CGI typically refers to Computer Generated Imagery.  This type of CGI refers to 3D graphics used in film, TV, and other types of visual media.  Most modern action films include at least some CGI for special effects, while other movies, such as a Pixar animated films, are built completely from computer generated graphics.  http://techterms.com/definition/cgi

The Dag Hammarskjöld Library at the United Nations—named after the secretary general who died in 1961—doesn't make the news very often.  Meant to be used by the professional Secretariat staff of the UN and by national delegations, it stores documents and publications from the UN and related organizations, as well as a raft of other books and materials on international relations, law, economics, and other UN-relevant topics.   Even the UN's library has a social media presence now, and recently it tweeted the 2015 publication that got checked out the most frequently.  The book in question isn't a UN document—it's a doctoral thesis from the University of Lucerne, Immunity of Heads of State and State Officials for International Crimes, by Ramona Pedretti, pursuing the question of when heads of state and other government officials can be charged in foreign courts.  Generally, she explains, there are two forms of immunity in international law from which heads of state can benefit.  Immunity ratione personae prevents incumbent Heads of State from being subjected to foreign criminal jurisdiction," Pedretti writes.  "In contrast, immunity ratione materiae protects official acts, i.e. acts performed in an official capacity on behalf of the State, from scrutiny by foreign courts."  She concludes that immunity ratione personae is absolute, and thus that domestic courts in one country can't indict the sitting leader of another nation, whereas ratione materiae can be invalidated for defendants who've left office—as happened with the arrests of the Nazi fugitive Adolf Eichmann by Israel and Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet by Spain.  Basically, Pedretti is arguing that incumbent heads of state can't be charged and prosecuted by a foreign court, whereas past heads of state can.  http://www.vox.com/2016/1/6/10724560/un-library-war-crimes  Thank you, Muse reader!

Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2015-2020  http://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1406  January 11, 2016  On this date in 1908, Grand Canyon National Monument was created.  On this date in 1935, Amelia Earhart became the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California.