DIGITAL LIBRARY  CRSReports.com is a free web based repository of Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports.  This digital library is dedicated to hosting an extensive collection of CRS documents.  All information provided by CRSReports.com is publicly available and can be accessed for free without sign-up or registration.  This growing collection of CRS reports is made freely available to policy makers and other users.  https://www.crsreports.com/about

VIRTUAL MUSEUM  A virtual museum is a digital entity that draws on the characteristics of a museum, in order to complement, enhance, or augment the museum experience through personalization, interactivity and richness of content.  Virtual museums can perform as the digital footprint of a physical museum, or can act independently, while maintaining the authoritative status as bestowed by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) in its definition of a museum.  In tandem with the ICOM mission of a physical museum, the virtual museum is also committed to public access; to both the knowledge systems imbedded in the collections and the systematic, and coherent organization of their display, as well as to their long-term preservation.  Find a list of museums online before 2000 including Museum of Computer Art (MOCA) and more recent online museums including Virtual Museum of Canada at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_museum

A U.S. Passport Book is valid for international travel by sea, land or air.  A U.S. Passport Card is valid when entering the United States from Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda at land border crossings or sea ports-of-entry.  It is not valid for international travel by air.  Find details at http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/passports/information/card/Difference-Between-Passport-Book-and-Card.html

A visa (from the Latin charta visa, meaning "paper which has been seen"), is a conditional authorization granted by a country (typically to a foreigner) to enter and temporarily remain within, or to leave that country.  Visas typically include limits on the duration of the foreigner's stay, territory within the country they may enter, the dates they may enter, or the number of permitted visits.  Visas are associated with the request for permission to enter a country and thus are, in some countries, distinct from actual formal permission for an alien to enter and remain in the country.  In each instance, a visa is subject to entry permission by an immigration official at the time of actual entry and can be revoked at any time.  A visa is commonly a stamp endorsed in the applicant's passport or other travel document.  The visa, when required, was historically granted by an immigration official on a visitor's arrival at the frontiers of a country, but increasingly today a traveller wishing to enter another country must apply in advance for a visa, sometimes in person at a consular office, by mail or over the internet.  The actual visa may still be an endorsement in the passport or may take the form of a separate document or an electronic record of the authorisation, which the applicant can print before leaving home and produce on entry to the host country.  Some countries do not require visas for short visits.  Some countries require that their citizens, as well as foreign travelers, obtain an "exit visa" to be allowed to leave the country.  Read more and see graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_(document)

"If a joke needs an explanation, there is no point."  "You are a virtuoso of the virtual."  Bones Never Lie, a novel by Kathy Reichs

Sandra Lynn Brown (born March 12, 1948) is an American bestselling author of romantic novels and thriller suspense novels.  Sandra Brown was born in Waco, Texas, and raised in Fort Worth.  She majored in English at Texas Christian University (TCU) in Fort Worth, but left college in 1968 to marry her husband, Michael Brown, a former television news anchor and award-winning documentarian of Dust to Dust.  After her marriage, Brown worked for KLTV in Tyler as a weathercaster, then returned to the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex area where she became a reporter for WFAA-TV's version of PM Magazine.  Brown started her writing career in 1981 after her husband dared her to.  Since then, she has published nearly 70 novels and had more than 50 New York Times bestsellers. In 2008, she was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane letters from her alma mater, TCU.  Find her bibliography at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Brown

From Sandra Brown:  Several readers have asked why Dent refers to Bellamy as A.k.a. in the novel Low Pressure.  That stands for "also known as" and he uses it as an affectionate nickname since Bellamy wrote her own novel (also with the name of Low Pressure) under a pseudonym.  Early in my career, I wrote under several different names, leading friends to nickname me A.k.a. To this day, more than 30 years later, they still call me that.  https://www.facebook.com/AuthorSandraBrown/posts/10151286369448627

Distance is a noun meaning space between people or things.  Find other interesting uses of distance as a noun:  remote, interval, length, and reserve.  Find uses as a verb:  make someone or something remote and in phrases: go the distance, keep one's distance, within striking distance at

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/distance  Other phrases abound:  time lend distance, distance lends enchantment.

 

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, often simply called Cervantes, (1547-1616)   The year 2015 marks the 400th anniversary of the publishing of the second volume of Miguel de Cervantes’ novel “Don Quixote.”  Both volumes were published by Francisco de Robles, volume I in 1605 and volume II in 1615.  Early on, the work was recognized as an important literary offering.  There was a French translation of the work by 1618, and an English version by 1620.  Since 1617, both volumes were published as a single work.  Cervantes lived in Madrid from 1606 to 1611.  During this period, he worked on volume II of Don Quixote as well as his Novelas Ejemplares and the poem Viaje del Parnaso.  Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” has inspired other works throughout the centuries:  programmatic symphonic music (Richard Strauss), a Baroque orchestral suite (Telemann), opera (Massenet) and ballet (Marius Patipa).  The musical “Man of La Mancha” was also inspired by the novel; it premiered in 1965 on Broadway and ran for more than 2,000 performances.  http://www.press-citizen.com/story/entertainment/go-iowa-city/2015/06/13/opinion-don-quixote-anniversary-novel/71128024/

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)  Shakespeare’s Globe theatre is to mark the 400th anniversary of the bard’s death by turning London’s South Bank into a huge pop-up cinema showing 37 new films--one for each of Shakespeare’s plays.  Some 2.5 miles (4km) of the Thames path between Westminster Bridge and London Bridge will be given over to 37 screens placed in order of when the play was written.  Although each film will only run for 10 minutes--repeated on a loop throughout 23 and 24 April--viewing the entire collection would take over six hours, not counting coffee breaks and walking from one screen to the next.  The new scenes will be filmed on location:  Hamlet will be shot in Elsinore (Helsingør) in Denmark, Cleopatra in front of the Pyramids in Egypt, and Romeo and Juliet in Verona in Italy.  Maev Kennedy  http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/nov/19/a-film-for-each-play-to-mark-400th-anniversary-of-shakespeares-death

A Muse reader serves the Feast of the Seven Fishes (Festa dei sette pesci), also known as The Vigil (La Vigilia), an Italian celebration of Christmas Eve.  When a colleague of hers said she substituted two "fish" for the traditional, our reader changed her own meal to nine "fish."    Menu:  (1) SURPRISE FISH!  (Goldfish crackers) (2) Shrimp cocktail (3) Tuna (4)   

Anchovies (5) Smoked Salmon (6) Stuffed Squid (7) Eel  (8) Baccala (cod fish) (9) SURPRISE FISH! (Swedish fish--chewy candy)    

The old year now away is fled, the new year it is enterèd; Then let us all our sins down tread, and joyfully all appear.  See five verses of The Old Year Now Away is Fled sung to the tune of Greensleeves at http://www.lukehistory.com/ballads/oldyear.html

May you greet the new year with fresh eyes and fresh ears.       

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1402  December 31, 2015  On this date in 1696, a window tax was imposed in England, causing many householders to brick up windows to avoid the tax.  On this date in 1879, Thomas Edison demonstrated incandescent lighting to the public for the first time, in Menlo Park, New Jersey.

On December 28, 2015, President Barack Obama signed into law a ban on tiny plastic particles used in personal cosmetic products that scientists say are polluting U.S. lakes, rivers and the oceans.  The bipartisan "Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015," (H.R. 321), passed by the U.S. House on Dec. 7, "prohibits the manufacture and introduction into interstate commerce of rinse-off cosmetics containing intentionally-added plastic microbeads."  The tiny plastic beads, about the size of a pen-tip, have been shown to filter through municipal wastewater treatment plants after consumers rinse them down the drain while using soaps, toothpaste and other products that contain them.  The House bill was co-sponsored by U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St Joseph, and Rep. Frank Pallone, D-New Jersey.  The Senate approved the bill Dec. 18.  The law will phase microbeads out of consumer products over the next few years, starting with a ban on manufacturing the beads in July 2017, followed by product-specific manufacturing and sales bans in 2018 and 2019.  Garret Ellison  http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2015/12/obama_signs_ban_on_microbead_p.html

Degas and the Dance until January 10, 2016  Toledo Museum of Art   Little Dancer of Fourteen Years, on loan from the Clark Art Institute of Williamstown, Massachusetts, occupies center stage in this exhibition that revolves around Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas (1834-1917), one of France’s leading Impressionists.  Originally modeled in wax in 1880-81, the 38-inch tall figure was cast in bronze in 1919-21 and depicts Marie van Goethem, a student in the Ballet School of the Paris Opéra.  Ten other works by Degas on the subject of ballet, including bronze sculptures and paintings, will be shown.  Among them are TMA’s bronze Study in Nude of Little Dancer Aged Fourteen and pastel The Dancers, as well as important works on loan from the Museé d’Orsay in Paris, the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the National Gallery of Art and The Phillips Collection, both in Washington, D.C.  The exhibition is presented in celebration of The Toledo Ballet’s 75th annual performance of “The Nutcracker” and will include a section of memorabilia and costumes from the ballet.  http://www.toledomuseum.org/exhibitions/degasandthedance/  Find sonnets of Edgar Degas in a library near you.  See sample search using the zip code 43606 (and link to more information about Edgar Degas) at http://www.worldcat.org/title/huit-sonnets-dedgar-degas/oclc/2274539

The Rise of Sneaker Culture until February 28, 2016  Toledo Museum of Art explores the athletic shoe from its origins in the mid-1800s to its current place in high-fashion.  This traveling exhibition, organized by the American Federation of Arts and the Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto, is the first exhibition in the United States to present a comprehensive survey of the sneaker’s complex design, history, and immense cultural significance. The Toledo Museum of Art is the only Ohio venue for this show.  http://www.toledomuseum.org/exhibitions/the-rise-of-sneaker-culture/

Newsmakers 2015:  The year’s new words by Aaron Hutchins  http://www.macleans.ca/society/newsmakers-2015-the-years-new-words/

2015 has been a huge year for space exploration with some unprecedented findings by Matthew Dunn   http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/2015-has-been-a-huge-year-for-space-exploration-with-some-unprecedented-findings/news-story/6e47b7ee242f85a6ee60ece8ee4d917f

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO WOOLWORTH'S?   July 18, 1997  The Woolworth Corporation said yesterday that it would shutter all 400 of its remaining five-and-dime stores, closing the book on a 117-year history of a store that offered lipstick, diapers and a milk shake at a discount all under one roof.  The store closings were widely expected and indeed encouraged by Wall Street.  But they underscore how much American retailing has changed in the last two decades as its oldest icons--Montgomery Ward, the Sears, Roebuck catalogue and now Woolworth--have faded or died.  Clever, strong-willed merchants have been replaced by computer systems, and American shoppers no longer have time to linger over a grilled cheese sandwich at a store lunch counter.  Among discount stores, Woolworth is only the last, if the most prominent, victim of larger and stronger competitors like Wal-Mart and Target, which offer more selection, quicker checkout and often lower prices.  Kresge long ago became Kmart, Ben Franklin has been folded into Wal-Mart and hundreds of local chains have faded into the collective memory of a nation warmly nostalgic for old stores but not willing to shop in them.  The Woolworth stores will be closed in stages; the first to be closed will be in metropolitan New York by the end of the year.  ''Woolworth was 100 years ago what Wal-Mart is today,'' said Robert Sobel, a professor of business history at Hofstra University.  ''First, there were dry goods stores, then they were called variety stores and every town had something like that.  But all the chains disappeared because there was no need for them.  What would Woolworth sell that you couldn't buy somewhere else?  You can get eyebrow tweezers at a drugstore.''  The original store, the Great 5 Cents Store, was opened in 1879 by Frank Woolworth in Utica, N.Y., where its first sale, a five-cent fire shovel, was made.  That same year, he opened the mother of all Woolworth stores in Lancaster, Pa.  The next year he added 10 cents to the name and prices.  The empire grew with its sales of mustache cups, egg whips, pie plates and flour dredges.  Woolworth dominated the discount sector for the early half of the century.  But the postwar exodus to the suburbs soon created pressures, as shoppers left behind Woolworth's and other Main Street stores for malls and larger stores on highways.  More recently, Woolworth was eclipsed by large-format stores that offered more merchandise, and squeezed the retailer's prices.  At the same time, Woolworth, like many other retailing companies, became obsessed with expansion, adding a bunch of specialty stores, some of them successful, many of them not.  Jennifer Steinhauer  Read more at http://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/18/business/woolworth-gives-up-on-the-five-and-dime.html

Ellsworth Kelly, one of America’s great 20th-century abstract artists, who in the years after World War II shaped a distinctive style of American painting by combining the solid shapes and brilliant colors of European abstraction with forms distilled from everyday life, died on Decmeber 27, 2015 at his home in Spencertown, N.Y.  He was 92.  Mr. Kelly was a true original, forging his art equally from the observational exactitude he gained as a youthful bird-watching enthusiast; from skills he developed as a designer of camouflage patterns while in the Army; and from exercises in automatic drawing he picked up from European surrealism.  He was living in France during the heyday of Abstract Expressionism in New York and only distantly aware of art in the United States.  When he returned to America in 1954, he settled on what was then an out-of-the-way section of Manhattan for art, the Financial District, and had little interaction with many of his contemporaries.  The result was a deeply personal and exploratory art, one that subscribed to no ready orthodoxies, and that opened up wide the possibilities of abstraction for his own generation and those to come.  Born in Newburgh, N.Y., on May 31, 1923, Mr. Kelly studied painting at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston after his discharge from the Army in 1945.  But his formative years as an artist were in Paris, which he had visited briefly during World War II, and where he returned to live in 1948 with support from the G.I. Bill.  Read extensive article by Holland Cotter at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/28/arts/ellsworth-kelly-artist-who-mixed-european-abstraction-into-everyday-life-dies-at-92.html?_r=0  See picture and description of Ellsworth Kelly's 20-foot tall steel shaft Untitled in the Toledo Museum of Art's Sculpture Garden at http://classes.toledomuseum.org:8080/emuseum/view/objects/asitem/176/33/invno-desc?t:state:flow=23be7dc0-756e-4dce-80ec-4bb87041114f

The Soft Kitty song was first introduced in Season 1 of The Big Bang Theory, in the eleventh episode titled The Pancake Batter Anomaly.  It has subsequently been sung on seven more episodes.  Poet Edith Newlin wrote the lyrics for 'Warm Kitty' in 1937.  And now her daughters Margaret Perry and Ellen Chase believe they are owed compensation.  And they're demanding that CBS pay up.  The lawsuit was filed in Manhattan December 28, 2015.  At this time, Warner Bros., who produces the show, has declined to comment.  Willis Music purchased the book (written by Laura Pendleton MacCarteney) the song appeared in nearly 80 years ago.  They claim that they properly and legally licensed the song to Warner Bros, for the TV series.  Performance rights organization ASCAP lists Warner-Olive Music (a subsidiary of the Warner Music Group) as the song's publisher.  This suggests that the rights were transferred from Willis Music.  The key legal issue in this case, which will see it move forward, is whether or not the publisher acquired the rights to the songs contained in the book when they secured the rights to the book.  If they did not, Newlin's daughters may have a legal leg to stand on.  But if the publishing company did acquire the song rights when obtaining the book, the two woman stand to lose.  Especially since most publishing agreements have the songwriter assign their copyrights of the lyrics to the publisher.  The case will essentially come down to the wording of the contract.  The question is whether or not Newlin assigned the copyright of her song to the book publisher when she gave MacCarteney the right to publish her song in the book.  If she did, then MacCarteney would have had the right to transfer the copyright to Warner Bros. for use in the show.  If not, the poet's heirs maybe entitled to any profits from the use of said song, including merchandising dollars.  B. Alan Orange  http://movieweb.com/big-bang-theory-sued-soft-kitty-song/

LeBron James on turning 31 December 30, 2015:  "The stuff that I was doing back when I was 18, 19, 20 doesn't even compare to the life that I have now and what I like, what I enjoy, I don't want those days back," he said.  "I'm happy where I'm at.  I feel good." http://www.cleveland.com/cavs/index.ssf/2015/12/lebron_james_on_turning_31_tod.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1401  December 30, 2015  On this date in 1813, British soldiers burned Buffalo, New York.  On this date in 1919, Lincoln's Inn in London, England admitted its first female bar student.

FOUNT OF WISDOM OR FONT OF WISDOM  Fount is a poetic form of fountain.  The expression “fount of wisdom” immediately makes me think of this quotation from Alexander Pope:  A little learning is a dangerous thing;  Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring

fount:  1. a. A spring or source of water issuing from the earth and collecting in a basin, natural or artificial; also, the head-spring or source of a stream or river. 

font:  1. “basin,” O.E. font, from L. fons (gen. fontis) “fountain”  2. “typeface,” 1683, from M.Fr. fonte, fem. pp. of fondre “melt”.  So called because all the letters were cast at the same time.  (In England usually fount.)  Since even a “font of type” can be spelled as a “fount of type” in England, I don’t think that any hard and fast rule can apply.  Image and pronunciation can probably be allowed to prevail.  Do you see the figurative source of wisdom or information as a welling spring of water, or as a filled basin?  Are you saying the word with the /ow/ sound of fount or the short o of font?  I’ll stick with fount, but I’d hesitate to fault the speaker/writer who goes with font.  Maeve Maddox  http://www.dailywritingtips.com/fount-of-wisdom/  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierian_Spring

Find quotes (learning as a dangerous thing, fools rush in where angels fear to tread, and to err is human) from Alexander Pope's Essay on Criticism at http://poetry.eserver.org/essay-on-criticism.html

Julia Child’s Best-Ever Brownies  http://thisweekfordinner.com/2010/04/01/julia-childs-best-ever-brownies/

Jejune derives from the Latin word jejunus, “empty stomach; fasting”, that has also given us jejunum as the anatomical name for the small intestine (so called because it was said to be always empty at death).  Via French intermediaries it’s also the origin of dinner, it seems from an unrecorded Vulgar Latin verb disjunare (from jejunus plus the negative prefix dis-) hence the meal at which one breaks one’s fast.  The fact that etymologically dinner therefore means “breakfast” is just one of those oddities that happen as language evolves.  When jejune first appeared in English, in the seventeenth century, it had at first this literal meaning of fasting, though it became obsolete within a century.  But almost immediately it took on a figurative sense of something meagre or unsatisfying, or of land that was poor or barren.  It was also soon applied to stuff that was equally unsatisfying to the mind or soul:  “dull, flat, insipid, bald, dry, uninteresting; meagre, scanty, thin, poor; wanting in substance or solidity” as the Oxford English Dictionary has it, trying to turn itself into a thesaurus.  However, at about the end of last century, the figurative sense was taken a step further by adding the idea of something immature or callow, so causing dictionaries to begin to add a subsidiary sense of “puerile; childish; naive”.  People differ in their views about what it means, an insuperable barrier to effective communication.  As the OED has shown, there are plenty of other words to choose from.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-jej1.htm

Anna Mary Robertson Moses (1860–1961), known by her nickname Grandma Moses, was a renowned American folk artist.  Having begun painting in earnest at the age of 78, she is often cited as an example of an individual successfully beginning a career in the arts at an advanced age.  Moses' paintings are among the collections of many museums.  The Sugaring Off was sold for US$1.2 million in 2006.  Moses has appeared on magazine covers, television, and in a documentary of her life.  She wrote her autobiography, won numerous awards and was awarded two honorary doctoral degrees.  Starting at 12 years of age and for a total of 15 years, she was a live-in housekeeper.  One of the families that she worked for, who noticed her appreciation for their prints made by Currier and Ives, supplied her with art materials to create drawings.  Moses and her husband began their married life in Virginia, where they worked on farms.  In 1905 they returned to the Northeastern United States and settled in Eagle Bridge, New York.  The couple had five children who survived infancy.  See a list of her works including Autumn in the Berkshires, and graphics including the 1969 U.S. postage stamp recreating her painting Fourth of July which is in the White House at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandma_Moses  See also http://www.legacy.com/news/celebrity-deaths/article/grandma-moses-glitter-and-jam and http://www.cbsnews.com/news/almanac-grandma-moses/

Born in Eagle Bridge, New York, Will Moses creates paintings that reflect the quiet beauty of this tiny community nestled close to the Vermont border.  Will has created a vivid, delightful miniature world, peopled with villagers who have stepped out of the past to charm us with their simple, everyday pastimes.  As a fourth generation member of the renowned Moses family, painting is a natural tradition for Will, who began painting when he was four years old.  Encouraged by his grandfather, a well-known folk painter in his own right, young Will was allowed to experiment freely with paints.  Forrest K. Moses was totally committed to self-expression and passed this freedom of spirit along to his young grandson.  Stimulated by his grandfather's confident approach, Will developed his own unique style of Americana.  Today, Will continues to carry on the family tradition.  Although his style is reminiscent of that of his celebrated great-grandmother, it is more complex and sophisticated.  Will continues his work illustrating and writing children's books.  Philomel Books/Penguin Books for Young Readers, have now published ten books to date:  Silent Night, The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle, Johnny Appleseed, Mother Goose, Hansel and Gretel, The Night Before Christmas, Will Moses Raining Cats and Dogs, Mary and Her Little Lamb, and Raspberries, a story of misfortune redeemed.  A few of the notable collections where his paintings may be found are those of the White House, The Smithsonian Institution, the New York State Museum, the Bob Hope collection, the Herrick collection, the Bennington Museum and the J.M. Smucker Collection.  https://www.willmoses.com/t/AboutTheArtist

Majority of web traffic goes to these 10 sites  by Sabrina I. Pacifici on December 24, 2015  Today’s “Big 10” Domains via Mozcast Metrics  (1) en.wikipedia.org (2) www.amazon.com (3) www.facebook.com (4) www.youtube.com (5) www.yelp.com (6) www.webmd.com (7) www.walmart.com (8) www.tripadvisor.com (9) allrecipes.com (10) www.foodnetwork.com

http://www.bespacific.com/majority-of-web-traffic-goes-to-these-10-sites/

Writer George Clayton Johnson, who penned early, seminal episodes of the "Twilight Zone" and "Star Trek" and helped conjure the darkly imaginative dystopia of the 1967 novel "Logan's Run," died Christmas Day 2015 at the age of 86 in the San Fernando Valley.  His works included  writing credits on seven "Twilight Zone" episodes in the early 1960s.  "A Game of Pool," from 1961, starring Jack Klugman and Jonathan Winters in a back-from-the-dead billiards contest, and "Nothing in the Dark," aired in 1962, featuring a young Robert Redford as death.  Four years later, in 1966, Johnson went—literally—where no man had gone before, when he penned the first episode of "Star Trek."  That episode—his only writing credit for "Star Trek"—was titled "The Man Trap" and featured Capt. Kirk, Dr. McCoy and a crewman contending with a shape-shifting, salt-hungry vampire on the planet M-113.  Over the course of his career, the author worked on countless other projects—not all of which were in the sci-fi vein.  He published the fictional Las Vegas heist story "Ocean's 11," which inspired the 1960 Rat Pack film of the same name—as well as a George Clooney remake more than 50 years later.  Carolina A. Miranda  http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-et-cam-george-clayton-johnson-logans-run-star-trek-dies-at-86-20151226-story.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1400  December 28, 2015  On this date in 1612, Galileo Galilei became the first astronomer to observe the planet Neptune, although he mistakenly catalogued it as a fixed star.  On this date in 1795, construction of Yonge Street, formerly recognized as the longest street in the world, began in York, Upper Canada (present-day Toronto).  Word of the Day for December 28, 2015:  aptonym  noun  a proper name that aptly describes the occupation or character of the person, especially by coincidence

 “At the crossroads of communities and campuses, libraries of all types increasingly provide access to 3D printing.  In public libraries, 428 branches offer the service, up dramatically from 250 the year before . . .  Anyone seeking to take advantage of the full creative capacity of 3D printing must have at least a basic understanding of how to operate this technology.  Libraries not only provide instruction in how to print a design, but also in how to use a software program to build a 3D model from scratch . . . ”  Charlie Wapner  December 2015 

http://www.ala.org/advocacy/sites/ala.org.advocacy/files/content/3D_Printing_Decision_Maker_Final.pdf

bou·din  also bou·dain   A highly seasoned link sausage of pork, pork liver, and rice that is a typical element of Louisiana Creole cuisine.  [French, from Old French bodine, intestines.]  American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.  Copyright © 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.  http://www.thefreedictionary.com/boudin  Boudin recipe http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/boudin-sausage-recipe0.html

In June 2013, our planned cruise on the Danube River from Passau, Germany to Budapest, Hungary was cancelled due to severe flooding.  See http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2013/06/flooding-across-central-europe/100530/  Watching public television in 2015, I became an armchair traveler watching a program on the area.

The Danube is Europe's second-longest river, after the Volga River, and also the longest river in the European Union region.  It is located in Central and Eastern Europe.  The Danube was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire, and today flows through 10 countries.  Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for 2,860 km (1,780 mi), passing through or touching the border of Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria,Moldova and Ukraine before emptying into the Black Sea.  Its drainage basin extends into nine more countries.  Classified as an international waterway, it originates in the town of Donaueschingen—which is in the Black Forest of Germany—at the confluence of the rivers Brigach and Breg.  The Danube then flows southeast passing through four capital cities before emptying into the Black Sea via the Danube Delta in Romania and Ukraine.  See map, pictures, lists of islands, parks, cities,towns and references in popular culture at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danube

The Hanseatic League, a trading alliance in northern Europe in existence between the 13th and 17th centuries; The Hanseatic (class), synonym for upper-class people of the free imperial cities Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck since mid-17th century after the end of the Hanseatic league; The Hanseatic Parliament, an association of business chambers around the Baltic Sea, founded in the early 1990s.  Find other uses of Hanseatic at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic

The Old Salt Road runs for approximately 100 km from the 1,000-year-old salt town of Lüneberg, Germany, the picturesque shipping town of Lauenburg an der Elbe and Mölln, the town of the folkloric hero Till Eulenspiegel, to the Hanseatic town of Lübeck, gateway to the Baltic Sea.   Although now nothing more than an everyday item, mineral salt was hugely important – and expensive – in the Middle Ages, earning itself the nickname "white gold".  The salt trade in the Middle Ages was closely intertwined with power and wealth and in fact 1,000 years ago, salt was as significant to the economy as natural oil and gas are today.  This is what prompted tradesmen from Lübeck to transport salt from Lüneburg, the most important salt deposit in Northern Europe, to Lübeck along the Old Salt Road.  http://www.germany.travel/en/leisure-and-recreation/scenic-routes/old-salt-road.html  See also White gold:  How salt sweetens our world by Muhammad Adil Mulki at http://tribune.com.pk/story/624196/white-gold-how-salt-sweetens-our-world/ and Salt, the white gold?  at http://www.nbbmuseum.be/en/2007/08/salt.htm

Unlike salt, which can be found or made practically anywhere in the world, black pepper is indigenous only to Kerala, a province in southwest India.  References to pepper appear in Greek and Roman texts, suggesting an ancient trade between India and the West.  As early as 1000 B.C., traders from southern Arabia controlled the spice trade and pepper routes, enjoying a huge monopoly over an increasingly profitable business.  To protect their valuable routes, traders created fantastical stories about the hardships endured in order to procure spices.  What Englishman in his right mind would want to travel around the globe just to be attacked by a dragon guarding a pepper pit?  By medieval times, the middle leg of pepper trade routes was still firmly controlled by Muslim traders, while Italian city-states like Venice and Genoa held a monopoly on shipping lines once the spice reached the Mediterranean.  Pepper was costly to ship—the Silk Road, the most well-known trade route, stretched over 4,000 miles—but was such a desirable spice that Italian traders could essentially set their own prices.  This led to pepper’s status as a luxury item in medieval Europe.  Even today, the Dutch phrase “pepper expensive” refers to an item of prohibitive cost.  Stephanie Butler  http://www.history.com/news/hungry-history/off-the-spice-rack-the-story-of-pepper

Feedback to A.Word.A.Day (shortened words:  1.  jaculate, 2.  cognize 3.  plaint 4.  suage 5.  gratulate)

From:  Julie Johnson   I like this week’s theme.  I heard a report that we have been shortening a lot of our words when we speak.  We say “legit” instead of “legitimate”, “cred” instead of “credibility”, etc.  Some people think it’s a problem, but I say, “Whatev.”

From:  James Hutchinson  The ‘missing’ letters from this week’s words (e-, re-, com-, as-, con-) can be combined to make the words censor cameo, which happens to be the name of a font in which letters are struck through.

The music that can deepest reach, / And cure all ill, is cordial speech.  Merlin's Poem  Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)  Read the whole poem at http://quod.lib.umich.edu/a/amverse/BAD1982.0001.001/1:6.15?rgn=div2;view=fulltext

This Christmas you can experience an event that hasn't happened since 1977 and won't occur again until 2034 – a full moon on Christmas Day.  While the moon will look full when it rises at sunset on Christmas Eve, it won't reach its peak until 6:11 a.m. EST on Christmas morning.  Watch the moon come up--you will feel like it's gigantic.  This is an illusion caused by having the moon near an object such as a tree or house that you can compare it to.  This is the last full moon of 2015, and is called a Full Cold Moon because it marks the start of winter.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/12/25/full-moon-christmas-day-santa-claus/77901840/

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1399  December 25, 2015  On this date in 1815, the Handel and Haydn Society, oldest continually performing arts organization in the United States, gave its first performance.  On this date in 1868, President Andrew Johnson granted  an unconditional pardon to all Confederate veterans.  Word of the Day for December 25:  wintertide  noun  wintertime (archaic)

The White House Library  "Tubs Buckets and a variety of Lumber" cluttered Room 17 of the basement in February 1801, according to the first official White House inventory.  The room served mainly as a laundry area until Theodore Roosevelt's renovation of the ground floor in 1902, when it became a servants' locker room.  In 1935, it was remodeled as a library, and in 1961 a committee was appointed to select works representative of a full spectrum of American thought and tradition for the use of the President, his family, and his staff.  This wide-ranging collection is still being augmented with Presidential papers.  The Library is furnished in the style of the late Federal period (1800-1820) with most of the pieces attributed to the New York cabinetmaker Duncan Phyfe.  This room is not quite 27 feet by 23 feet.  On the west wall you see a neoclassical mantel that came from a house in Salem, Massachusetts.  It dates from the early 19th century and is decorated with grape-leaf swags and bellflower pendants.  On the mantel rests a pair of English silver-plate Argand lamps, a gift of the Marquis de Lafayette to Gen. Henry Knox, Secretary of War in Washington's Cabinet.  Such lamps, named after their Swiss inventor, Aime Argand, were a major innovation; George Washington ordered some in 1790, noting that by report they "consume their own smoke . . . give more light, and are cheaper than candles".  One of the many Athenaeum portraits of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart hangs over the mantel.  Stuart painted three portraits of Washington from life, including the full-length Lansdowne portrait of 1796, owned by the Earl of Rosebery and on loan to the National Portrait Gallery.  Stuart also made copies of the Lansdowne portrait, one of which hangs in the East Room.  Portraits of Native Americans by Charles Bird King flank the east door, and a fifth hangs over the entrance to the corridor.  The Library was completely redecorated in 1962 as a "painted" room typical of the early 1800s and was refurbished again in 1976.  See many pictures at http://www.whitehousemuseum.org/floor0/library.htm

Russian bon bons  http://www.grouprecipes.com/45214/russian-bon-bons.html

musette  noun  1.  a. A small French bagpipe operated with a bellows and having a soft sound. b.  A soft pastoral air that imitates bagpipe music.  2.  A small canvas or leather bag with a shoulder strap, as one used by soldiers or travelers.  Also called musette bag.  American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

musette  noun  1.  (Instruments) a type of bagpipe with a bellows popular in France during the 17th and 18th centuries.  2.  (Dancing) a dance, with a drone bass originally played by a musette.

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003  http://www.thefreedictionary.com/musette

Four-time defending overall World Cup slalom ski champion Marcel Hirscher was extremely lucky to avoid being hit by a camera drone that crashed just behind him as he was racing on an Alpine course in Italy on December 22, 2015.  The international ski federation, known as FIS, took swift action December 23, banning drones from World Cup races “as long as I am responsible … because they are a bad thing for safety,” men's race director Markus Waldner told the Associated Press.  Chuck Schilken  http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-drones-banned-world-cup-skiing-20151223-story.html

20 Beautiful Christmas Poems  https://osr.org/blog/tips-gifts/20-beautiful-christmas-poems/

Clement Clark Moore (1779-1863) was born in a large mansion, on his parents' Chelsea estate that encompassed the area that is now 18^th to 24^th Streets between Eighth and Tenth Avenues in Manhattan.  The house itself was located at what is now Eighth Avenue and West 23^rd Street.  He was the only child of heiress Charity Clarke and Dr. Benjamin Moore, Episcopal Bishop of New York, Rector of Trinity Church, and President of Columbia College.  Moore was educated at home in his early youth and graduated first in his class from Columbia in 1798.  He became a well-known and respected scholar and, typical for an educated person of his period, Moore's publications related to a wide variety of topics such as religion, languages, politics, and poetry. When he wrote A Visit from St. Nicholas in 1822, Moore was a Professor of Oriental and Greek Literature, as well as Divinity and Biblical Learning, at the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church.  Located on land donated by the "Bard of Chelsea" himself, the seminary still stands today on Ninth Avenue between 20^th and 21^st Streets, in an area known as Chelsea Square.  At the age of thirty, he compiled a Hebrew lexicon, the first work of its kind in America.  He was forty-three when he wrote A Visit from St. Nicholas, but it was not until he was sixty-five, in 1844, that he first acknowledged that he was the author of the famous verses by including the poem in a small book of his poetry entitled Poems, which he had published at the request of his children.  He translated Juvenal, edited his father's sermons, wrote treatises and political pamphlets, including his well-known 1804 attack on our third president in Observations Upon Certain Passages in Mr. Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, Which Appear to Have a Tendency to Subvert Religion and Establish a False Philosophy, and was often a contributor to the editorial pages of local newspapers.  He also wrote George Castriot, Surnamed Scanderbeg, King of Albania, which appeared in 1852 and was highly commended at the time.  Despite this scholarship, it was the simple but magical poem about the mysterious Christmas Eve visitor that has kept the memory of Clement Clarke Moore alive.  Although he was embarrassed for most of his life that his scholarly works were overshadowed by what he publicly considered a frivolous poem, Moore will forever be remembered as the person who truly gave St. Nicholas to the world.  Along with members of his family, he is buried in the Washington Heights area of New York City, in Trinity Cemetery at the Church of the Intercession on Upper Broadway at 155^th Street.

http://www.nightbeforechristmas.biz/moore.htm  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Clarke_Moore

For the Time Being:  A Christmas Oratorio, is a long poem by W. H. Auden, written 1941-42, and first published in 1944.  It was one of two long poems included in Auden's book also titled For the Time Being, published in 1944; the other poem included in the book was "The Sea and the Mirror".  The poem is a series of dramatic monologues spoken by the characters in the Christmas story and by choruses and a narrator.  The characters all speak in modern diction, and the events of the story are portrayed as if they occurred in the contemporary world.  Auden wrote the poem to be set to music by Benjamin Britten, but it was far too long for this purpose, and Britten set only two fragments, including one ("Shepherd's Carol") that Auden dropped before the work was published.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_the_Time_Being  For the Time Being:  A Christmas Oratorio by W.H. Auden https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFDrptw28yY  1:27:33  Performance starts at 3:28

Where's the cat?  Like the panda drawing by Gergely Dudás released in December 2015, the owls (and lone cat) "Where's Wally" style drawing contains references to the upcoming holiday with some of the birds wearing festive hats and sporting cheerful bowties.  Rose Troup Buchanan  See both puzzles at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/wheres-the-cat-hungarian-artist-post-follow-up-wheres-wally-style-puzzle-a6785281.html

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1398  December 24, 2015  On this date in 1777, Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, was discovered by James Cook.  On this date in 1818, the first performance of "Silent Night" took place in the church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorf, Austria.