AP Stylebook announces changes to use of Internet and Web  Effective June 1, 2016 with the launch of the new AP Stylebook, the word internet will be written in lowercase.  Per another tweet – “Also, we will lowercase web in all instances – web page, the web, web browser – effective June 1.”  http://www.bespacific.com/ap-stylebook-announces-change/

Most Americans believe libraries do a decent job of serving the education and learning needs of their communities and their own families.  A new survey by Pew Research Center shows that 76% of adults say libraries serve the learning and educational needs of their communities either “very well” (37%) or “pretty well” (39%).  Further, 71% say libraries serve their own personal needs and the needs of their families “very well” or “pretty well.”   Read 46-page report at http://www.pewinternet.org/files/2016/04/PI_2016.04.07_Libraries-and-Learning_FINAL.pdf

The National Trust for Historic Preservation is partnering with Howard University to breathe new life into the school’s Founders Library.  The nonprofit organization has named the library a national treasure, a designation that ensures that the group will work to preserve the character of the historic building.  The trust is helping the university develop a renovation strategy to repurpose underused spaces in the library and add research technology.  Perched atop a hill overlooking Howard’s campus, Founders opened in 1939 as the largest and most extensive research facility at a historically black university.  The four-story Colonial Revival was designed by African American architect Albert I. Cassell, who, Frederick said, was inspired by Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were debated and adopted.  Congress appropriated $1 million for the construction of the library, which was the most expensive building on a college campus at the time.  Although Founders has been primarily used as a library, it served as the home of Howard’s law school from 1944 to 1955.  During that time, Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall used the site to craft the legal strategy at the heart of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case that desegregated the nation’s public schools.  Founders houses the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, one of the world’s largest repositories of historical records documenting the global black experience.  The center has first editions of preeminent African American books, including titles by Zora Neale Hurston, and it is home to the papers of singer, actor and activist Paul Robeson, as well as those of Harlem Renaissance-era philosopher and critic Alain Locke.  Danielle Douglas-Gabriel  https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/howard-universitys-founders-library-named-a-national-treasure/2016/02/29/75fd4f4e-df28-11e5-8d98-4b3d9215ade1_story.html

Michael Kenji Shinoda was born on the 11th February 1977 to Muto and Donna Shinoda. He and his brother Jason, whom Mike calls Jay, were raised in Agoura Hills, California.  From very early on Mike developed his artistic skills, when the family went out for dinner and Mike would finish his meal early he would be given napkins to draw on to keep him quiet rather than disrupt the other diners.  His mother also arranged piano lessons for Mike when he was three/four years old, he started with classical music for the first 12 or so years and then moved onto hip hop, learning loops and hooks.  Mike has mentioned that he felt awkward at school and found it difficult to fit in with his ethnicity being half Japanese, half American, he has joked that kids often thought he was Latino.  “My family was interned and I learned that some of my relatives were taken to the Santa Anita racetrack to live in horse stalls before they were taken to the camp” in California .  “It was the story of your typical Japanese-American family during that time, but a lot of people don’t know about it.  I had a hard time getting the story out of my family because they don’t like to talk about it.  But when I heard it, I knew I had to put that story out there.”  Mike also produced and sang on a Cypress Hill song, Carry Me Away which features on their album Rise Up.  In addition to this he also contributed a chapter to the book On Gratitude, which is a collection of chapters written by celebrities on the theme of gratitude.  In 2010 Mike was honored at the East West Players 44th Anniversary Visionary Awards for his work in the arts and performing arts.  “I don’t concentrate on raising awareness of Asian Americans, it’s just what I do, it’s simply me” – Mike at the East West Players 44th Anniversary Visionary Awards  http://mikeshinodaclan.com/mike/biography/

Kenji - Fort Minor | Japanese Internment  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BJjo0BCbGo  3:51

April 23, 1616 is recorded as the death date for two literary masters:   English playwright William Shakespeare and Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes.  William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes don't have much in common, although they lived in the same era, greatly influenced following generations, and are both regarded as virtuoso writers.  Life dealt the writers different cards--clearly less favorable in the case of the Spanish novelist.  The English bard was born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon.   Miguel de Cervantes is 17 years Shakespeare's senior:  He was born in 1547 in Alcala de Henares, a town near Madrid.  Shakespeare attended his home town's renowned grammar school, where he was taught Latin and the basics of rhetoric and poetics.  Cervantes, from a family of impoverished nobility, studied theology at the University of Salamanca.  William Shakespeare never went to university. In fact, seven years of his late youth are completely undocumented.  In 1592, 28 years old at the time, he emerged again, alluded to as an upstart by playwright Robert Green, which has led scholars to believe that by then, Shakespeare was relatively well known.  He certainly was a member of the "Chamberlain's Men," a renowned actors group that changed its name to "King's Men" during the reign of King Jacob I.  From that point on, Shakespeare made a huge splash with his plays and novellas.   Cervantes and his brother were taken prisoner by Ottoman pirates in 1575. Their father offered up his entire fortune and their sister's dowry as ransom, but only Miguel's brother was set free, while Miguel was held as a slave by the Ottoman Sultan's governor of Algiers for five years.  He tried to flee four times and was finally ransomed by Trinitarians in 1580.  Legend has it that Cervantes only survived his attempts to escape because the governor was impressed by the man's courage and because he hoped for a handsome ransom.  His first--and unsuccessful--play, "Los Tratos de Argel," reflected what Cervantes went through during his years as a prisoner in Algiers.  Success continued to elude him, however, so in order to pay his bills, the Spaniard again enlisted as a soldier in 1580.  Unlike Shakespeare, who was a very successful author and businessman, Cervantes was never able to support himself with his writing.  Shakespeare co-owned first the Globe Theatre, and later the more exclusive Blackfriars Theatre--and made a fortune that allowed him to live in the second-largest house in his hometown.  Cervantes, on the other hand, had a temporary job as a purchasing agent for the Spanish navy and landed in prison again in 1597-98 and in 1602.  That's where he started writing his literary masterpiece, Don Quixote--the story of "The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha."  Don Quixote, a parody of the chivalric romances popular in the 16th century, was an immediate hit.  But it didn't make the novelist a rich man:  Cervantes sold the rights for an unknown sum to his publisher.  Centuries later, in 2002, a group of 100 top international writers voted the novel "the most meaningful book of all time" in a poll organized by editors at the Norwegian Book Clubs in Oslo.  Don Quixote is actually regarded as the birth of the genre of the novel in literary history.   Shakespeare left London for his hometown Stratford a few years before he died at the age of 52.  Cervantes, though innocent, was embroiled in a murder trial.  It's not clear whether he served a prison sentence or not, but in 1605, Cervantes published the first volume of Don Quixote, to be followed by volume two 10 years later.  The death date recorded for both Shakespeare and Cervantes is April 23, 1616.  Shakespeare was buried at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford.  Cervantes' remains vanished in a mass grave, to be identified many centuries after his death, in 2015.  The initials M.C. on a casket, and the wounds on his chest and hand were clues to the identity of the bones.  The Spanish author actually died 10 days earlier than his English contemporary--the countries used different calendars back then.  England used the Julian calendar, while Spain had already adopted the Gregorian calendar.  http://www.dw.com/en/shakespeare-and-cervantes-two-geniuses-and-one-death-date/a-19203237

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1460  April 25, 2016  On this date in 1917, Ella Fitzgerald, American singer-songwriter and actress, was born.  On this date in 1959, the Saint Lawrence Seaway, linking the North American Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, officially opened to shipping.