December 22, 2017 The
purpose of libraries has always been a hub for information. Our need for information has not changed just
the way we receive the information has.
Five years ago Forbes published an article asking this very question,
“Will Public Libraries Become Extinct” (https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2012/10/02/will-public-libraries-become-extinct/#2d5f14b3693c)
and the answer in the article was yes, in fact the prediction was that we would
see a decline within 5 years and within 15 years, poof they will be gone. Just 5 years prior to this prediction the Pew
Research Center released a study that indicated that “Libraries drew visits by
more than half of Americans (53%) in the past year for all kinds of purposes,
not just the problems mentioned in the survey.
And young adults in tech-loving Generation Y (age 18-30) led the
pack. Compared with their elders, Gen Y
members were the most likely to use libraries for problem-solving information
and in general patronage for any purpose.
Furthermore, young adults are the most likely to say they will use
libraries in the future when they encounter problems: 40% of Gen Y say they would do that, compared
with 20% of those above age 30 who say they would go to a library.” (http://pewresearch.org/pubs/677/in-search-of-solutions) We have seen a surge in
library usage since this study as libraries helped people everywhere during the
“Great Recession” and continue to be not only valid but thriving. Why is
this? Libraries are way more than books,
they are vibrant community centers with programs and activities full of life,
discovery, and excitement. Today’s
libraries are places people are engaging and learning about new technology from
3D printers and virtual reality to coding and robotics. In addition to this discovery and excitement
libraries are a resource for finding employment, obtaining new skills, and yes
still a great place to find a good book.
Library Directors everywhere are implementing ways that are helping
millions of people throughout the world everyday and are doing it in
unimaginable ways. They are helping people and communities financially,
socially, and environmentally.
Librarians roles have expanded from helping us find information to
helping us sort through the onslaught of information to find what is valid for
our purposes. The Urban Libraries
Council released a study “Making Cities Stronger” which “finds that
the return on investment in public libraries not only benefits individuals, but
also strengthens community capacity to address urgent issues related to
economic development.” (https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/46006/1001075-Making-Cities-Stronger.PDF) Well it has been five years and while
economic recessions did reduce funds in some areas for the operation of
libraries just when communities needed them the most they are back and stronger
than ever. Not because libraries are a
political decision but because libraries really are an economic decision to the
vitality and growth of the social and economic health of our communities. While libraries are great places to be and
many communities are funding new and inspiring places others are still
providing these great resources and experiences despite their lack of inspiring
spaces and in some cases hardly any spaces. While some libraries have it all many don’t
have the needed space to provide the community with their full potential of
social, economic, and recreational investments that are proven to give a strong
return of investment on our society.
Benjamin P. Hardy
The most typical cheese of Alsace in the
northeast of France is Munster or Géromé.
This is one of the three oldest cheeses of France. It is made on both sides of the Vosges
Mountains. Alsatians call it Munster from the word Monastère, or monastery. Lorrainers call it Géromé, a deformation of
the name of the city Gerardmer which in the fifteenth century became a very
important market for cheese and was the source of its manufacture in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries. Today,
it is produced in seven departments in the Valley of Munster via traditional
methods specified by prescribed standards and has had its AOC (Appellation
d’origine contrôlée) since 1969. Munster
is a cow’s milk cheese; with a soft interior and a washed rind. Usually it is 13 to 19 cm in diameter, 2.4 to
8 cm in height, weighs between 450 g to 1.5 kg and has a fat content of 45% in
dry matter. There is a special type
called Petit-Munster, Little Munster or Petit Munster Géromé, Little Munster
Géromé, which is 7 to 12 cm in height and 120 grams. Amongst the regional specialities that have made
Alsatian cooking famous, choucroute or sauerkraut is, without a doubt, the most
well-known. High vitamin C it is finely
chopped, sour and crunchy, and one of the favourite dishes of Alsatians. Since the 18th century it has been flavoured
with juniper berries, elder, dill, sage, savoury, fennel, chervil, parsley or
horseradish. A text from the 16th
century stated that choucroute was a dish for Sunday and was best with sausage
or a piece of pork rib. One of
the most popular monuments in France, Haut-Koenigsbourg Castle was built in the
12th century and occupies a very strategic position overlooking the main valley
to watch over the wine and wheat routes to the North and the silver and salt
routes from West to East. It was reduced
to ruins by the Swedes but in 1899, when Alsace was under German rule, Kaiser
Wilhelm II rebuilt to become a museum. http://domaines-terroirs.com/journeys-in-france/alsace/
Caesura, a mixed-used building developed by Jonathan Rose Companies, is a project of
New York’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development. This newly
constructed building at 280 Ashland Place, on a former parking lot diagonally
across from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, is 12 stories and has 123 units, including some of
the smallest legal rentals in the five boroughs. Its 34 market-rate micro apartments are no
more than 384 square feet and come with space-saving furnishings by Resource
Furniture that allow tenants to leave
their futons behind. Caesura’s
most unusual feature, though, is a lending library, open to all tenants, with
three dozen items including a porcelain dinner service for 12, a ladder, a
sewing machine, a guitar with amp and an ice-cream maker. The developer, described the collection as
“common goods,” a means of reducing consumption and clutter while having access
to products one might otherwise splurge on.
The building, with interiors designed
by Dattner
Architects, will have a fitness
center, a yoga and meditation studio, a game room with a wet bar, a basement
bicycle room with a tool station and a rooftop garden lounge with plantings by
the landscape design studio SCAPE. A ground-floor space of about 20,000
square feet will be the new headquarters of the nearly 200-year-old Center for Fiction, which is moving
from East 47th Street in Manhattan.
About 3,700 square feet of commercial space will be taken over by
the Mark Morris
Dance Center, which is next door, to be used for rehearsal studios. A yet-to-be-named retail establishment is
also planned. The anticipated move-in
date for residents is February 1, 2018.
Julie Lasky Read more and see
pictures at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/08/realestate/micro-units-that-come-with-a-lending-library.html
GRAND AMERICA HOTEL, SALT
LAKE CITY, UTAH January 5, 2018 In its
28th annual words of the year vote, the American Dialect Society voted for fake
news as the Word of the Year for 2017. Defined in two ways, “disinformation or
falsehoods presented as real news” and “actual news that is claimed to be
untrue,” fake news was selected as best representing the public discourse and
preoccupations of the past year. Fake
news was first considered by the American Dialect Society a year ago in the
voting for the 2016 Word of the Year, but at the time its meaning was
restricted to fictional or embellished stories presented as authentic news,
disseminated for financial gain or for propagandistic purposes. In 2017, however, the meaning of fake news
shifted and expanded, in large part due to its repeated use by President Donald
Trump. “When President Trump latched on
to fake news early in 2017, he often used it as a rhetorical bludgeon to
disparage any news report that he happened to disagree with,” said Ben Zimmer,
chair of the American Dialect Society’s New Words Committee and language
columnist for the Wall Street Journal. “That obscured the earlier use of fake news
for misinformation or disinformation spread online, as was seen on social media
during the 2016 presidential campaign.” “Trump’s version of fake news became a
catchphrase among the president’s supporters, seeking to expose biases in
mainstream media,” Zimmer continued. “But
it also developed more ironic uses, and it spread to speakers of all ages as a
sarcastic putdown.” Fake news was
nominated by the sixth-grade class of Academy I Middle School in Jersey City,
NJ, and voters at the Word of the Year event agreed with their choice. See complete vote tallies at https://www.americandialect.org/wp-content/uploads/2017-Word-of-the-Year-PRESS-RELEASE.pdf
January
16, 2018 A group of divers has
connected two underwater caverns in eastern Mexico to reveal what is
believed to be the biggest flooded cave on the planet, a discovery that could
help shed new light on the ancient Maya civilization. The
Gran Acuifero Maya (GAM), a project dedicated to the study and preservation of
the subterranean waters of the Yucatan peninsula, said the 347-km (216-mile)
cave was identified after months of exploring a maze of underwater channels. GAM director and underwater archaeologist
Guillermo de Anda said the “amazing” find would help to understand the
development of the rich culture of the region, which was dominated by the Maya
civilization before the Spanish conquest. The Yucatan peninsula is studded with
monumental relics of the Maya people, whose cities drew upon an extensive
network of sinkholes linked to subterranean waters known as cenotes. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-discovery/worlds-biggest-flooded-cave-found-in-mexico-explorers-say-idUSKBN1F60CY
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1828
January 17, 2018 On this date in 1994, at 4:30 a.m. Pacific Coast time, an earthquake
struck Southern California. It was
located some 20 miles west-northwest of Los Angeles and centered 1 mile
south-southwest of Northridge. It
registered 6.7 on the Richter scale and caused 44 billion dollars in damage. The event also generated a rock musical
entitled “I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky.” This was a collaboration between the composer,
John Adams, stage director, Peter Sellars, and librettist, June Jordan. The story, told in twenty-five pop songs
accompanied by an eight-piece rock band, is both a love comedy and a social
satire centered on the lives of seven young Americans of varied ethnicities,
all living in Los Angeles at the moment of the Northridge earthquake. The original production played in an extended
five-month tour of Montreal, New York, Edinburgh, Helsinki, Paris, and Hamburg,
and a Nonesuch compact disc recording followed, featuring performances by some
rising stars of the American music theater, including Audra MacDonald. Composers Datebook Thought for Today If you or your parents
are immigrants, know that you are part of a proud American tradition--the
infusion of new cultures, talents and ideas, generation after generation, that
has made us the greatest country on earth. - Michelle Obama, lawyer, First Lady
of the US (b. 17 Jan 1964)
No comments:
Post a Comment