Wednesday, December 11, 2019


The Duns Scotus Library at Lourdes University in Sylvania, Ohio is named after a 13th century Franciscan scholar.  It has a collection of over 60,000 volumes.  Lourdes University is a member of the OPAL/OhioLINK, a consortium of universities sharing their library resources electronically.  Students are encouraged to use the library for individual study and quiet research.  Four study rooms are available and may be reserved by contacting the library.  Laptop computers are available for check out and can be used on campus.  The second floor of the library contains The Center for Nursing Scholarship.  Search books, journals and more by keyword, title and author.  Start your search now.  https://www.lourdes.edu/academics/library/  The Duns Scotus Library, completed in 1950, home to over 60,000 volumes and over 350 paintings and sculptures, is located on the Franciscan campus, 6832 Convent Blvd, Sylvania, Ohio. 

The terms libel and slander mean a false statement made by one person about another.  In libel, the statement is made in writing.  In slander, the statement is made verbally.  Libel and slander are types of defamation, meaning a statement that damages the reputation of a person or organization.  To qualify as libel or slander, the false statement must be hurtful and cause harm to the other party.  Marianne Bonner  https://www.thebalancesmb.com/defamation-libel-and-slander-462650  Slander has to be spoken.  Each of these words start with s which is a memory aid.

The Key West Literary Seminar is a writers' conference and festival held each January in Key WestFlorida.  It draws an international audience for readings, panel discussions, and workshops.  The Seminar was founded in 1983 by David Kaufelt and his wife Lynn Kaufelt, as a program operated by the Council for Florida Libraries.  The inaugural event, known as the Key West Literary Tour and Seminar, consisted of readings, panel discussions, literary walking tours, and cocktail parties.  This basic format remains unchanged.  In its early years, the Seminar focused on the literary history of Key West, a small subtropical town which has been home to Ernest HemingwayElizabeth BishopWallace StevensRobert Frost, and Tennessee Williams, among others.  Subsequent Seminars have been devoted to broader genres or literary themes.  In 1987, the Seminar incorporated as a 501(c) (3) tax-exempt corporation, run by a board of directors.  Many well-known authors have served on the Seminar's board of directors, including Judy BlumeHarry MathewsJames GleickWilliam WrightRichard Wilbur, and John Malcolm Brinnin.  An honorary board of directors has included popular singer Jimmy Buffett, former First Lady Barbara Bush, and writers Annie DillardRobert StoneAlison Lurie, and Joy Williams.  The Seminar was formerly held at the Tennessee Williams Fine Arts Center at Florida Keys Community College on Stock Island.  Since 1993, events have been held on Duval Street at the San Carlos Institute, a historic building whose construction was partly funded by the Republic of Cuba during the 1920s.  The seminar begins each year with the John Hersey Memorial Address and features a series of receptions at notable Key West locations.  Through their website, the Seminar offers audio recordings of past events, biographies of past and forthcoming speakers, and information about Key West's literary history.  Find Key West Literary Seminar themes by year beginning in 1983 at

The prefix (proto-) means before, primary, first, primitive, or original. It is derived from the Greek prôtos meaning first.  Find examples at https://www.thoughtco.com/biology-prefixes-and-suffixes-proto-373789

True blue, meaning faithful and steadfast, comes from the color of a fabric manufactured in Coventry, England during the Middle Ages.  The cloth had a reputation for having a durable blue dye which resisted fading.  Blue ribbon originally referred to the ribbon worn below the left knee of a fourteenth-century British knight who had been admitted into the Most Noble Order of the Garter.  Read more and see graphics at https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2012/8/4/1116727/-Origins-of-English-Blue

Lydia Davis: Ten of My Recommendations for Good Writing Habits   Adapted from the essay “Thirty Recommendations for Good Writing Habits” in Essays One.  The following are just my personal pieces of advice.  They won’t be the same as someone else’s, and they may not fit your life or practice, but maybe you’ll pick up something useful.  Take notes regularly, observe, revise.  Find more ideas at https://lithub.com/lydia-davis-ten-of-my-recommendations-for-good-writing-habits/

Perhaps, in the far distant back of times, man in his need to somewhat quantify what he had collected to survive (animals or plants or fruits), needed to count, and his own fingers and toes became a good first instrument always available, so that easily got to 20 units.  Obviously a true digital devise, the abacus (plural abaci or abacuses) is a counting frame tool that was used in Europe, China, and Russia, centuries before the adoption of the written numeral system.  Its exact origin is unknown.  Today, it is more of a toy or a curiosity adorning perhaps a furniture in a living room.  Several eminent figures in science contributed to the creation or invention of the slide rule, including Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), condemned by the church of those times.  John Napier de Merchiston (1550–1617), a Scottish mathematician recognized for being the first in defining logarithms, produced the essential concept backing up the slide rule. Sir Isaac Newton (1643–1727) and other prominent scientists, such as Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1885), mathematician, physicist, and astronomer; James Watt (1736–1819), Scottish engineer; and Joseph Priestley (1733–1804), were part of the group, too.  Max Valentinuzzi  https://pulse.embs.org/may-2019/the-slide-rule/

mutograph  noun  A device for taking a series of photographs of successive positions of a moving object, the results being viewed by means of a mutoscope.  Origin:  Late 19th century; earliest use found in Scientific American.  From muto- + -graph  https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/mutograph

Indigenous people believe that volcanoes are living organisms, and with their help the earth communicates with us, showing us their approval (or vice versa).  It so happened that 15 June 2017 year, on the opening day of "Vulcanarium Volcanoes Museum in Kamchatka", several Kamchatka volcanoes revived at once.  At first Shiveluch threw the ash column at a height of 9000 meters, apparently giving his consent and taking a new volcano into his big family.  Following him, on the same day, he threw out the ashes of the Klyuchevskaya volcano, and the next day--the Nameless Volcano.  Two not indifferent, creative people, enthusiasts, lovers of Kamchatka--Samoilenko Sergey Borisovich and Alena Alexandrovna--made great efforts to do something similar and close to real volcanoes.  Sergey Borisovich--the founder of the Museum, was born and raised in Kamchatka.  There are two museums in Kamchatka that tell in detail about volcanoes:  KGBU Kamchatka Regional Joint Museum (Local History) and the Scientific Museum of the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.  The Scientific Museum of the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology is a laboratory, a unit that holds a unique volcanological collection, invaluable to scientists, but which can share it only with a small number of people.  https://www.eastrussia.ru/en/material/vulkanarium-na-kamchatke/

WORD OF THE DAY for December 10  gylany  noun  social system based on equality of women and men.  December 10 is Human Rights Day, recognized by the United Nations to emphasize the importance of human rights and to commemorate the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first global enunciation of such rights, on this day in 1948.  Wiktionary

Merriam-Webster:  Non-binary pronoun 'they' is word of year   The US dictionary also recently added a new definition of "they", reflecting its use as a singular personal pronoun for non-binary people.  Searches for "they" on Merriam-Webster's website were 313% higher this year than they were in 2018.  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50735371

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2195  December 11, 2019 

No comments: