In Spain and Portugal the carob tree survives only on their Atlantic coasts.  Throughout the Mediterranean region, it is grown only in the warmest areas near the coast, and the neighboring islands--Cyprus, Crete, Sicily, Sardinia and Majorca.  Producers in the Bari region of Italy on the Adriatic coast have long exported the pods to Russia and central Europe.  Prince Belmonte in the Province of Salerno, Italy, was a leading influence in the 19th century in the use of the carob as an ornamental and avenue tree and in the planting of thousands for reforestation of the slopes of the Appenines.  Spanish missionaries introduced the carob into Mexico and southern California.  In 1856, 8,000 seedlings, from seed brought in from Spain by the United States Patent Office, were distributed in the southern states.  More seeds came from Israel in 1859.  Many carobs were planted in Texas, Arizona, California and a few in Florida as ornamental and street trees.  Seeds privately imported from Dalmatia were planted in California in 1873.  In the Mediterranean region, peasants have virtually lived on the pods in times of famine, but the tree is valued mostly as providing great amounts of pods as feed for livestock, as it is also in the State of Campinas, Brazil.  Imported pods used to be regularly sold by street vendors in the Italian section of lower New York City for chewing.  In the early 1920's, there was much promotion of carob culture in California, especially allied with the development of arid lands, and there was a flurry of activity in producing "health food" products from imported pods.  Some of these products are still sold today, especially as substitutes for chocolate.  Dr. J. Eliot Coit, of Vista, California, led in the study of the carob and wrote extensively on its potential improvement as a crop and its utilization.  Non-fleshy and bean-like, the carob would not be generally regarded as a fruit, in the food-use sense, except for its sweetness.  To many people it is familiar only by name as "St. John's Bread", in allusion to the "locustsz" which, according to the Bible, sustained St. John the Baptist in the desert, and the "husks" which tempted the hungry Prodigal Son, though "no man gave unto him."  The word "locust" was originally applied to the carob tree; later to migratory and other grasshoppers; and the name is attached to a number of other leguminous trees with pinnate leaves and oblong pods (Gleditsia, Hymenaea, Parkia, Robinia).  The carob tree is called carrubo in Sicily, carrubio in Italy, algarrobo in Guatemala, alfarrobeira in Brazil.  Julia F. Morton  https://hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/carob.html

“Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.”  “All words are pegs to hang ideas on.”  “A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs, jolted by every pebble in the road.”  Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887)  https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/425221.Henry_Ward_Beecher

Indian French Toast is an eggy bread from Kolkata, where street vendors set up their street food stalls in the business district at noon each day.  Collectively they will feed the hundreds of workers who pour out of their offices in search of tasty nourishing foods—this simple snack is filling and super delicious.  Find recipe at https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/indian-french-toast excerpted from One Pot Feeds All by Darina Allen © 2020

The Library of Congress’s card catalog was a relatively new invention in 1913.  Up until that era, libraries had organized their collections any way they saw fit.  The Library used the same classification system it inherited from Thomas Jefferson in 1815 for 84 years, which divided the collection into three main categories—Memory, Reason, and Imagination.  Jefferson had based this model on a classification schema of Sir Francis Bacon, and translated Memory to mean history, Reason to mean philosophy, and Imagination to mean fine arts.  The Library made additional modifications, so that there were 44 subcategories covering everything from pastoral poetry to ecclesiastical law, but the general system was in use until 1899.  By that time, librarians like Melville Dewey and the Boston Anathaeum’s Charles Cutter were advocating for standardized card catalogs across all libraries but the Librarian of Congress at the time, Ainsworth Spofford, resisted, insisting that a library’s organization was subjective.  Spofford was known for his near photographic knowledge of the Library’s towering collection, but the Library’s antiquated systems meant that using the collection was difficult for patrons.  Dewey and Cutter hoped that subject-based card catalogs would democratize information for users, since they were easier to produce, update, and browse.  In fact, during the French Revolution, catalogers tried to use playing cards to create a library system precisely due to their accessibility.  The Library of Congress finally went the way of the French in 1901.  The Justice Department already had an organizational schema for their files on suspects, which J. Edgar Hoover was introduced to at the Alien Enemy division.  But as head of the Radical Division, Hoover was able to refine this system based on his library cataloging days.  In place of book titles and authors, Hoover created a card-based organizational system for all things “subversive.”  Each of Hoover’s cards had its own code and list of possible affiliations, so that he could easily pull files on any radical and cross-reference them with other individuals, organizations, and publications.  While FBI literature has denied Hoover took inspiration from the Library of Congress, historian Kenneth Ackermann notes that his catalog looks much like the Library’s card catalog.  Hoover himself wrote in a 1951 letter that the Library “gave me an excellent foundation for my work in the FBI where it has been necessary to collate information and evidence.”  By 1921, Hoover had amassed 450,000 cards and had dedicated staff to maintain them.  Hoover’s clerk days also taught him how to hide information away.  He realized that if he mislabeled a card with the wrong classification number, or a librarian shelved a book in the wrong location a library patron would barely, if ever, be able to find it in the Library’s vast collection—a tactic he would consistently riff on throughout his career.  Since the FBI is a government agency, any official documents that passed through its Central Records Division are theoretically subject to the review of various entities, like the Justice Department, and discoverable in certain situations, like during trials.  By misfiling and mislabeling more scandalous information, Hoover could make it hard for any overseeing agency to discover what he was really up to.  When the future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter opposed the Palmer Raids, Hoover filed him away under the group “National Popular Government League” a coalition of lawyers that had opposed the raids.  Much like the former Librarian of Congress Ainsworth Spofford navigating a towering collection, only Hoover knew how to find Frankfurter among thousands of names.  Alana Mohamed  https://lithub.com/how-j-edgar-hoover-used-the-power-of-libraries-for-evil/

Murgatroyd is an English surname.  Its etymology, according to one source, is as follows:  in 1371, a constable was appointed for the district of Warley in Yorkshire.  He adopted the name of Johanus de Morgateroyde, or literally:  Johanus of Moor Gate Royde or the district leading to the moor.  Another source says the place name means Margaret's road.  In Norse, the Royd meant "Clearing" (as in a forest).  Although Moorgate in London was a gate with the road to the moor passing through, in Yorkshire, Gate (again from Norse) means street, so Moor Gate Royd would be "A clearing in the forest on the road to the moor".  The name is also used in the favorite catchphrase of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon character Snagglepuss – "Heavens to Murgatroyd!"  See list of fictional characters at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murgatroyd  See also https://amac.us/lost-words-childhood/  Thank you, Muse reader!

Eilean Shona is a tidal island in Loch Moidart, Scotland.  The modern name may be from the Old Norse for "sea island".  The pre-Norse Gaelic name, as recorded by Adomnán was Airthrago or Arthràigh, meaning 'foreshore island'.  It was leased to writer J. M. Barrie in the 1920s, who used it as a summer holiday retreat for himself, his foster sons Michael and Nicholas Llewelyn Davies, and a few of their friends.  It was here that he wrote a screenplay for the 1924 film adaptation of Peter Pan.  Other isles in the loch include Riska Island, Eilean an Fhèidh and Eilean Tioram.  The peninsula of Shona Beag is accessible from the mainland by a short causeway at low tide.  Eilean Shona is one of 43 tidal islands that can be walked to from the mainland of Great Britain and one of 17 that can be walked to from the Scottish mainland.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eilean_Shona

America’s public libraries have led the ranks of “second responders,” stepping up for their communities in times of natural or manmade disasters, like hurricanes, floods, shootings, fires, and big downturns in individual lives.  Internationally, the Milton Public Library in Ontario, Canada, has partnered with Inksmith, an education technology company, to print face shield headbands for PPE masks.  The Billings, Montana, public library is 3-D printing face masks for health care workers.  The McMillan Memorial Library in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, is 3-D printing masks for the community.  The Cedarburg Public Library in Wisconsin is 3-D printing masks for the fire department.  The Oakland, California, library has repurposed bookdrops to collect new, packaged masks.  In Ohio, the Toledo Lucas County Public Library system has offered its vehicles to those delivering food supplies.  The Birmingham Public Library in Alabama has a list of valuable links, including one that shows exactly where to get tested and includes details of hours, location, and necessity for call-ahead appointments.  The Columbus, Ohio, library informs the community about blood drives by one of their partners, the American Red Cross.  Before they closed, the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System had placed a dedicated computer in each branch to help people complete their 2020 census forms online.  Now, the library’s Nick Brown described to me how they have pivoted to virtual programming to keep the interest strong and the completion rates high—this in a county that was determined to be undercounted by 30 percent in the 2010 census.  In Anchorage, Alaska, the city’s emergency operations system has moved into the Loussac Library building, with its ample space and robust Wi-Fi connectivity.  Deborah Fallows  Read more at https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2020/03/public-libraries-novel-response-to-a-novel-virus/609058/

The Pony Express was a mail service delivering messages, newspapers, and mail using relays of horse-mounted riders that operated from April 3, 1860 to October 1861 between Missouri and California in the United States of America.  Operated by Central Overland California and Pike's Peak Express Company, the Pony Express was a great financial investment to the U.S.  During its 18 months of operation, it reduced the time for messages to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to about 10 days.  Many people used the Pony Express as a communication link.  It also encouraged catalogues to be created, allowing people to buy goods and have them brought by horse to the customers.  It became the West's most direct means of east–west communication before the transcontinental telegraph was established (October 24, 1861), and was vital for tying the new U.S. state of California with the rest of the United States.  See graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pony_Express

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2250  April 3, 2020