New Advocacy Site

One of my colleagues recently came across this library advocacy site and thought it would be a good thing to share.

I agree!

This is courtesy of Library and Information Science News.

Want to keep up on what's happening with efforts around the country to help save libraries? There's a great new site for that, appropriately named Save Libraries. Their motto is "When one library is in trouble, ALL libraries are in trouble." This project is being run by Lori Reed and Heather Braum. They can’t do this alone and are looking for additional help creating and maintaining the content on this site.



Save Libraries is a grassroots effort to compile information about libraries in need of our support. Save Libraries will aggregate information about current advocacy efforts, archive advocacy efforts, and provide links to resources for libraries facing cuts. The project began barely two weeks ago, and is already attracting attention.

Please email us at savelibs (at) gmail (dot) com for questions, comments, or concerns. Please tag your Web content with savelibraries to make it easier for us to find and collect it.


Kudos to none other than our own Blake Carver and LISHost.org for donating hosting for this site and getting WordPress up and running within minutes. This site is dedicated to advocacy for libraries–getting the message out about why libraries are important.


We’re looking for advocacy information, testimonials from patrons and staff, photos, videos, anything to help save our libraries. Please pitch in!! Use the tag savelibraries or #savelibraries on Twitter. If you would like to contribute to this site please email savelibs@gmail.com.

Keith Richards...Librarian!

This truly has to be one of my favorite stories.

Keith Richards, the grizzled veteran of rock’n’roll excess, has confessed to a secret longing: to be a librarian. After decades spent partying in a haze of alcohol and drugs, Richards will tell in his forthcoming autobiography that he has been quietly nurturing his inner bookworm.



He has even considered “professional training” to manage thousands of books at his homes in Sussex and Connecticut, according to publishing sources familiar with the outline of Richards’s autobiography, which is due out this autumn. He has received a reported advance of $7.3m for it.


The guitarist started to arrange the volumes, including rare histories of early American rock music and the second world war, by the librarian’s standard Dewey Decimal classification system but gave up on that as “too much hassle.” He has opted instead for keeping favoured volumes close to hand and the rest languishing on dusty shelves.


To read more, go to the American Library Association's web site www.ala.org.

Supporting Your Library

As I write this column, your library is preparing to hold its first signature fundraising event on April 22nd to benefit the Palm Harbor Library Endowment Foundation. Like other non-profit organizations, we too are looking for ways to raise revenue beyond our traditional means. Not surprisingly, this is primarily due to declining property values which has impacted your library over the past three years. The repercussions will be more severely felt this coming fall as we begin our new fiscal year on Oct. 1st. There will be more on that in a future column.
In the meantime, the library has developed ideas (and are looking into others) to lessen the expected financial shortfall. Here’s where you can help out:


Naming Rights


Palm Harbor Library has been developed a plan to name library areas and other physical properties. Some highlights of the new policy include:


1) Donors (individuals, corporations, etc.) may choose a major service area within the library, a meeting or conference room or a landscaped area.


2) All donors who contribute will be recognized with appropriate name signage for that underwritten area.


3) Each naming right has a life span of five years. At the end of the term, the current donor will be given first right of refusal before it is offered elsewhere.


4) Contributions may be paid over the five year period with minimum annual payments.


5) Proposals for naming rights should be submitted to the Library Director and should contain specific information in support thereof.


To date, we have been able to rename three areas. They are “The E. W. Martin Conference Room” and two “ExxonMobile Study Rooms”. To receive pricing information, just contact me directly at gene@phlib.org.




Friends Giving Tree


This long standing fundraiser is clearly seen on two walls as you walk into the library’s lobby. To purchase a “leaf”, it is $100. To purchase a “stone”, it is $1,000. It can be either as a memorial or as an honorarium. All monies support the Palm Harbor Friends of the Library which in turn support various library activities.


NAME YOUR DAY!


Palm Harbor Library has developed a new program entitled “Name Your Day”. The purpose is to celebrate an individual at the library on a particular day for a fee.


Here are some highlights of this new service:


1) The fee is $50 for one day of service.


2) The day can be any day during normal library operating hours.


3) All applications are to be submitted to the Library Director for approval.


4) Services for one day will include the following:
     - name(s) on library road sign


     - name(s) on one bookplate of book of choice


     - name(s) on all library electronic signs


     - name(s) listed on library’s website and the Library Director’s blog


     - name(s) on “Name Your Day” certificate


     - one reserved parking space




FOUNDATION BOARD


At one time all libraries used card catalogs. Well, like so many other things, they had their moment in the sun. Or did they? Instead of throwing ours away, we used the furniture piece to house material but also we took the front piece with the handle of each draw and placed it with others on a large board. For a donation of $500, you can now have a name inscribed, either as a memorial or as an honorarium on the front draw piece of your choice! Be a part of the library’s history and help with its future.


I do appreciate how your taxes support the library but indeed we will fall short this year of what you have come to expect. I ask you today to look towards your library and think how else you can support it. There are some wonderful opportunities here.

We're More than Just Books!

Nearly one-third of Americans age 14 or older – roughly 77 million people – used a public library computer or wireless network to access the Internet in the past year, according to a national report released today. In 2009, as the nation struggled through a recession, people relied on library technology to find work, apply for college, secure government benefits, learn about critical medical treatments, and connect with their communities.
The report, Opportunity for All: How the American Public Benefits from Internet Access at U.S. Libraries, is based on the first, large-scale study of who uses public computers and Internet access in public libraries, the ways library patrons use this free technology service, why they use it, and how it affects their lives. It was conducted by the University of Washington Information School and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.


Low-income adults are more likely to rely on the public library as their sole access to computers and the Internet than any other income group. Overall, 44 percent of people living below the federal poverty line used computers and the Internet at their public libraries.


To read further, go to the American Library Association's web site, www.ala.org.

Emerging Leader

What a way to end Women's History Month with a notice about an emerging leader in the library profession. 

The New Members Round Table (NMRT) is announcing that Janel White, Broadcast Librarian at National Public Radio in Washington, D.C., is the recipient of a $1,000 scholarship to sponsor her participation in the American Library Association’s Emerging Leaders Program.


White applied to participate in the Emerging Leaders program out of a desire to give back to ALA, the library community, and her patrons. “ As a librarian, it is my duty to not only serve my patrons but also the field of library science by constantly evolving, overcoming challenges, exploring new ideas and contributing to the profession,” says White. “Attending both the mid-winter and annual meetings as well as networking with my peers as part of this program will prove to be an invaluable experience for me in fostering further techniques of critical inquiry, developing the willingness to examine complex issues and improving my ability to communicate effectively.”


To read further, go to the American Library Association's web site, www.ala.org.

Women's Roles in WWII

Perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions about women laborers in the wartime industry is that, before the war, they were all housewives unfamiliar with work outside the home. It is true that approximately 5 million women who entered the labor force between the years 1940 and 1944 were first-time workers, many of them married, white, middle-class women responding to government recruitment campaigns directed at homemakers. Still, in total, some 19 million women worked for wages during the war years. Roughly three-quarters of these women had known wage work before World War II; the war industries provided lots of sought-after employment for the many women who had been laid off during the years of the Great Depression, and offered career opportunities, higher wages, and new challenges for the millions in low-paying or mundane positions.

To read further, see www.shmoop.com.

And the Awards Keep Coming

Well-known librarian, educator and tireless reading advocate Nancy Pearl has been selected the winner of the 2010 Margaret E. Monroe Library Adult Services Award, an honor administered annually by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA).
The Monroe Award honors a librarian, library and information science researcher or educator who has made a significant contribution to library adult services. Pearl has an extensive career in librarianship and most recently was, until August 2004, the executive director of the Washington Center for the Book at Seattle Public Library. During her time there, she expanded readers’ advisory services beyond the library walls with the establishment of the One Book/One City reading event, which became a model for similar events now held around the country. Since 1993, Pearl has also taught readers’ advisory and genre literature courses at the University of Washington’s ISchool.

To read further, go to the American Library Association's web site, www.ala.org.

Women in Colonial America

Marie Daucks was a twenty-five year old widow when she signed up to go to Jamestown. Barbara Burchens was just seventeen and unmarried when she decided to travel across the ocean. They were among the 57 'maids' sent to Jamestown by the Virginia Company in 1621 in an effort to raise morale and improve the quality of life in the struggling colony.
It was not the first time the company had tried to do something about the gender imbalance in the colony. But earlier efforts had met neither success nor approval; too few women were sent, the men complained, and even by Virginia's standards they left a lot to be desired. So this time around, the company was more selective in its recruitment. The young women had to present letters of recommendation—letters which spoke to their character and domestic skills. As a result, the women who made the trip were far from the most desperate of England's poor. Among the 57 women sent in 1621 were eight with ties to the English gentry; another twelve were the daughters of artisans. Ranging in ages from 15 to 28, with an average age of twenty, these women could not be classified as destitute. But they were united by a certain disadvantage—virtually all were economically vulnerable. The group included only two widows, but there were numerous orphans and several young women that had recently lost their fathers. While not the most desperate of London's poor, the girls and women who decided to go to Jamestown faced an uncertain future in England.

To read further, go to www.shmoop.com.

Women Muckrakers & Reformers

Women played an integral role in the Progressive movement. Longstanding social traditions held that women were uniquely predisposed to maintain the moral center for their families. They were supposed to be purer, less vulnerable to temptation than men; especially since men were supposed to go to work in the vice-infested public sphere, while wives remained cloistered within the moral bastion of the home. Since women were also deemed responsible for raising children, they assumed the role of teachers and guardians of Christian virtues and values. Though these same religious teachings implied that women should be obedient wives and subservient individuals, ironically, they also provided a socially acceptable venue in which females could assume an active role in public life. That is, women could transgress traditional gender roles in the name of safeguarding other, more sacred traditions like Christian piety and social morality. In the long term, Progressive women were successful on several counts, but in their success lay unimagined troubles and complications

For more, read on at www.shmoop.com.

Another Librarian Does Well

Mara Dabrishus, a reference librarian at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and a librarian at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, put lasting images from a childhood spent following racing to good use and beat out an award-laden field of finalists to win the ninth biennial THOROUGHBRED TIMES Fiction Contest in her first attempt.


Dabrishus’ story “Whirlaway” was selected as the best of the 62 stories submitted for the contest. Dabrishus earns $600 for winning the 2010 contest.

For the complete story, see the American Library Association's web site  at http://www.ala.org/.

COSWL Celebrates National Women’s History Month

During the entire month of March, the Committee on the Status of Women in Librarianship (COSWL) will recognize and celebrate women’s historic achievements with National Women’s History Month. The observance also provides an opportunity to honor women within our families and communities.



National Women’s History Month traces its origins back to March 8, 1857, when women from New York City factories staged a protest over working conditions. International Women’s Day was later observed in 1909. In 1981, the U.S. Congress designated the second week of March National Women's History Week, and in 1987 Congress expanded it to a month-long observance.


COSWL was established by the ALA Council on July 23, 1976, to officially represent the diversity of women’s interests within ALA and to ensure that the Association considers the rights of the majority (women) in the library field.

For further information, go to the American Library Association's web site, www.ala.org.

Another Award Winner

 Michèle V. Cloonan, dean and professor of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College, is the recipient of the 2010 Paul Banks and Carolyn Harris Preservation Award. The award, consisting of $1,500 and a citation, sponsored by Preservation Technologies, L. P., recognizes the contribution of a professional preservation specialist who has been active in the field of preservation and/or conservation for library and/or archival materials. The award will be presented on Sunday, June 27, at the ALCTS Awards Ceremony during the 2010 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.


Cloonan's academic and practical accomplishments represent a long, diverse and extremely active career dedicated to promoting preservation in practice, theory and graduate- and doctoral-level education. Since she began her career in 1974, Dr. Cloonan’s major accomplishments include: her extensive research and publications, which form a major contribution to the literature of the profession; her incomparable influence and leadership in the field of preservation education and curriculum development for preservation in library science programs nationwide; and her active role as a leader in preservation organizations and efforts, a testament to her commitment to the profession.

For more information, go to the American Library Association's web site, www.ala.org.

Early Women Patriots

"When Parliament passed duties on tea, among other items, in the Townshend Act of 1767, female Patriots banded together to support and uphold the colonial boycott. American newspapers praised the ladies who sipped coffee or local herbal teas in place of the British imports. Poetesses sent their verses to the local gazettes in order to express their heartfelt devotion to the cause and their determination not to submit to the fastening of "Chains upon my country."144 In North Carolina, 51 women signed an agreement in October 1774 declaring their "sincere adherence" to Congress's resolves and pledging to do "every thing as lies in our power" to support the "publick [sic] good."145 These women proclaimed their patriotism while simultaneously declaring their intention—and even their right—to participate in the traditionally male realm of public policy."
 
To read more about this fascinating part of our history, go to www.shmoop.com.

Female Poet of the Day- Anne Sexton

You could think of Anne Sexton as Betty Draper: beautiful, smart, and deeply, deeply unhappy. Like our favorite Mad Men heroines, Sexton was a model as a young woman, married early, and tried her hardest to be happy as a housewife. Like Betty, though, Sexton quickly realized that a that pretty little home in the 'burbs wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Her poetry lays bare all of the ways that her life has been punctuated by mental illness and circumscribed by rigid definitions of what a woman "should" do or think or believe.
Sexton's name is right up there with a handful of other poets as one of the most-read poets of the twentieth century. Her name gets also gets coupled with Sylvia Plath's just about all the time. Maybe it's because they both killed themselves. Maybe it's because they both wrote in the twentieth century. Here at Shmoop, though, we like to think that it's because they both explored the complicated role that women played in the mid-twentieth century.

Funny thing is, Sexton tends to get a bad rap from critics – both when she first published and, well, now. Apparently her no-holds-barred emotional tell-all makes some people a little bit uneasy. Maybe it's the fact that her confessional style isn't disguised by ornate turns of phrase or any of the formal tricks that so many poets tend to have up their sleeves. Maybe it's just that we all tend to get a bit weirded out when someone we've never even met starts spilling serious dirt.


Whatever it is, "Her Kind" is quintessential Sexton – so if you're not sure whether you're a Sexton fan or foe, this poem is a good litmus test. It's the sort of poem Sexton's known for: deep emotions, straight-speaking, and a healthy dose of social critique.


Published in 1960, "Her Kind" was part of the collection To Bedlam and Part Way Back. For those of you who haven't kept up with your nineteenth-century history, "Bedlam" was the nickname for one of London's most notorious mental institutions. We're guessing that Sexton chose to reference Bedlam in the title of her first collection because, as it turns out, she began writing while spending time in a mental institution. Choosing to describe her collection as a trip "part way back" to mental health allowed Sexton to shock her readers even as she confessed her ongoing depression and sense of social alienation.


So: is Sexton making literary bank off of her own misery? Or is she just trying to find a public voice for issues which no one seems to want to talk about? Well, that's up to you…

Courtesy of Shmoop.com

And a Little More About the Women's Movement in America

Americans were slow to apply their egalitarian principles to women; for decades after the Revolutionary War, few people in this nation founded on the principle that "all men are created equal" challenged the fact that women possessed few political or legal rights. But during the 1830s, women in the abolitionist movement discovered that even forward-thinking male reformers believed that women should take a backseat to men, and the women's movement was born.
Advocates of women's rights held their first convention at Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. Participants in the convention nursed varying agendas—property rights, divorce reform, increased educational opportunities, and even dress reform were all among the objectives activists pursued. Only a minority shared Elizabeth Cady Stanton's belief that women should concentrate on winning the right to vote. But by the end of the century, women's suffrage had become the centerpiece of the women's movement.


After ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment finally gave women the right to vote in 1919, the movement made only minor progress. The Equal Rights Amendment, drafted in 1923, was buried in congressional committee as the Great Depression and World War II consumed Americans' attention.


But in 1963, Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique, sparking the modern women's movement. This new movement failed to achieve one of its greatest objectives: ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. Still, it made enormous progress by fighting employment discrimination, advancing educational opportunities, and protecting reproductive rights.

Courtesy of Shmoop.com

How it All Got Started

History of Women’s History Month

By Kay Ann Cassell and Kathleen Weibel

"How Recognition of Herstory Got Started"

The roots of National Women’s History Month go back to “Women’s History Week,” first celebrated in Sonoma County, California, in 1978. This public celebration was scheduled around March 8, International Women’s Day, long celebrated in socialist countries, but not in the U.S. despite the fact that the first International Women’s Day was held in the United States in 1909 honoring a women’s garment workers strike of the previous year.

In 1980 President Jimmy Carter issued a Presidential Proclamation declaring the week of March 8, 1980, as the first National Women’s History Week and women’s history celebrations were quickly adapted in many communities and organizations. In 1981, the unlikely combination of Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and then–Rep. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) cosponsored a joint congressional resolution proclaiming a national Women’s History Week. Six years later, Congress expanded the celebration to the entire month of March; the National Women’s History Project, which spearheaded the creation of National Women’s History Month and coordinates annual themes, celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2010.

The United Nations began celebrating International Women’s Day on March 8, 1975, during the U.N. International Women’s Year and encouraged member states to establish a similar day on a date appropriate to their traditions. Celebration of International Women’s Day has extended to over 60 nations, although not always on the same date. To sample some of these celebrations, explore the over 900 programs listed for 2009 at the International Women’s Day website, a “service to women around the world wanting to share and promote their IWD activity, videos, opinions, and ideas” provided for free since 2001 by Aurora, a British marketing company.

Another Award Winner

The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) is announcing that Olivia Marie A. Madison, dean of the library, Iowa State University, is the recipient of the 2010 Margaret Mann Citation presented by its Cataloging and Classification Section (CCS).
The award will be presented on Sunday, June 27, at the ALCTS Awards Ceremony during the 2010 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. The Mann Citation, recognizing outstanding professional achievement in cataloging or classification, includes a $2,000 scholarship donated in the recipient’s honor by OCLC, Inc. to the library school of the winner’s choice. Ms. Madison has chosen the University of Missouri School of Information Science & Learning Technologies, Library Science Graduate Program to be the recipient of this year’s scholarship award.


Madison is recognized for having exercised decisive leadership in the development and management of cataloging throughout a long and distinguished career. She has served as both secretary and chair of the Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA), where she played a key role in the ongoing development of the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules. As a long-standing member of IFLA’s Standing Committee of the Section on Cataloguing, Olivia served two two-year terms as chair of the Study Group on Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records. (These terms were interrupted by a two-year term as chair of the Standing Committee of the Section of Cataloging.) The work of this group has been broadly influential in shaping the development of several international cataloging codes including Resource Description and Access (RDA). More recently, Ms. Madison served as co-chair of the Library of Congress’s Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control. The conclusions of this diversely constituted group are likely to have widespread effects on the future of cataloging at the Library of Congress, nationally and internationally.


The Margaret Mann Citation Jury is pleased to honor Ms. Madison for her dedication, persistence and exemplary cataloging expertise that has helped direct high-level groups with difficult charges toward extremely productive outcomes.


The Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) is the national association for information providers who work in collections and technical services, such as acquisitions, cataloging, collection development, preservation and continuing resources in digital and print formats.

Women's Studies Award

Cindy Ingold, women and gender resources librarian at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has been selected as the 2010 winner of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Women’s Studies Section (WSS) Career Achievement Award. The award, sponsored by ABC-CLIO, honors significant long-standing contributions to women’s studies in the field of librarianship over the course of a career.


A cash prize of $1,000 and a plaque will be presented to Ingold at the WSS Program at 8 a.m. on June 28 during the 2010 ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.


“Cindy has continuously demonstrated significant contributions and dedication to Women’s Studies librarianship, including her extensive service to WSS and ACRL, as well as her exemplary publications,” said Diana King, chair of the WSS award committee and associate librarian at the UCLA Arts Library. “These include her co-editorship of “Women’s Studies: A Recommended Bibliography” (2004), co-editorship and article contribution to a special issue of Library Trends on “Gender Issues in Information Needs and Services” and numerous other publications and presentations.


“Her work to successfully move an under-utilized departmental library into an integrated and circulating collection was also particularly cited in her nomination, as were her notable efforts in outreach to students and faculty in Women’s Studies and LGBT Studies programs.”


Ingold received her B.A. in History and her M.A. in English from Western Illinois University. She earned her M.A. in Library Science from the University of Missouri.


ACRL is a division of the American Library Association, representing more than academic and research librarians and interested individuals. ACRL is the only individual membership organization in North America that develops programs, products and services to meet the unique needs of academic and research librarians. Its initiatives enable the higher education community to understand the role that academic libraries play in the teaching, learning and research environments.

New Teen Editor

Throughout "Women's History Month" I'll be highlighting women from various fields of interests. (Of course there'll be a heavy emphasis on librianship!).

Today, I introduce you to a young lady who's taking on some new editorial reins. 

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), will launch the Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults in fall 2010. The association named Jessica Moyer, a doctoral candidate at the University of Minnesota, as the journal’s editor.


The Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults will be an online research journal, disseminating research of interest to librarians, library workers and academics who focus on library service to young adults, ages 12 through 18. It will serve as the official research publication of the association,publishing annotated lists of recent research from YALSA’s Research Committee, Henne Award–winning research and papers from YALSA’s biennial Young Adult Literature Symposium. For more information on the journal, visit http://tinyurl.com/yalsaresearchjournal. Submission guidelines will be posted in spring 2010.


“I'm really excited about the chance to work with YALSA and promote research on teens and library services,” said Moyer. “As a proponent of digital literacy I'm especially pleased to see YALSA creating an online-only journal. I see so many exciting possibilities for this format.”


Moyer is an experienced YALSA member who has served on the division’s publications committee and presented at multiple conferences. She is the author of “Research-Based Readers’ Advisory” (ALA Editions, 2008) and co-editor of “The Readers’ Advisory Handbook” (ALA Editions 2010). She also served on the editorial boards of Reference & User Services Quarterly, Reference Books Bulletin and Evidence Based Library and Information Practice. Her dissertation focuses on teen reading in print, e-book and audiobook formats.

Women's History Month!

In celebration of National Woman’s History Month, Palm Harbor Library will once again be holding its annual public recognition of women who have made significant contributions to improve the quality of life in the Palm Harbor community.
This is the seventh year where we have an opportunity to thank four women for their efforts in making the Palm Harbor a better place to live and grow. They need not be from Palm Harbor. It is their achievements that are important.


Women who were previously recognized include the following: Janice Banther, Chamber of Commerce President/CEO Connie Davis, Citizen of the Year Winona Jones, Palm Harbor Library founder Jeannette Malouf, Assistant Library Director Lois Eannel, Commissioner Susan Latvala, community leader Irene Rausch, Middle School teacher Susan Terry, library Foundation President Irene Finger, Jessica Collier, former Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce Sharon Lamm, Kristy Patterson, Deputy Sheriff Kris Gilmore, Pegoty Lopez, Dana Brandon, community activist Sharon Pikulinski, former Downtown Palm Harbor Main Street President Leslie Klein, Susan Senger, Palm Harbor Rotary President Mona Johnson, former County Commissioner Sallie Parks and community activist Dawn LaCross. Wow!


We have now selected our new honorees and their photographs and brief biographies are on display at the library throughout the month of March. The celebration will be held on Monday evening, March 29 at 6 PM.


Let’s recognize and applaud these women who have made Palm Harbor a place you can really call “home”.

Book Review

As my last blog for "Black History Month", I like to give you my take on the 2004 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, "The Known World" by Edward P. Jones.

This historical novel takes place in antebellum Virginia, just a few short years before the Civil War. Although it addresses the well known issues of the day it also focuses in on the one issue many of us may know little about. It speaks to that small group of free African-Americans who owned slaves.

The main character, Henry Townsend is a black plantation and slave owner. His free parents who bought him his freedom never owned slaves themselves and made their living by woodmaking. Henry on the other hand, who was raised during several of his teen years by his former master William Robbins, sees the benefit of owning slaves because how this  "property" would bring him prestige in Manchester County. The novel is populated with what seems like a cast of thousands but each individual is intricately entwined with one another fullfilling a vision Jones is trying to explore.

This novel is not for everyone. It uses several literary techniques that is certainly not mainsteam reading and there are those who would even argue that Jones' way of writing is stilted, awkward and uneven. Yet he won the Pulitzer. Why?

There is depth to this novel regarding race relations and some chracterizations that are fully realized. It may not flow (some would say it's not even a novel but a bunch if vignettes) but there are some passages that are truly deserving of your time.

Next month, my blogs will center on Women's History Month! 

 

New Book on African-American Children's Author Virginia Hamilton

The legacy of Virginia Hamilton, described as “America’s most honored writer of children’s literature,” continues through the efforts of her husband, poet and anthologist Arnold Adoff, who spoke exclusively with American Libraries during February’s observance of Black History Month.

Hamilton, who died February 19, 2002, wrote more than 40 award-winning books. Through those books, her scores of speeches worldwide, and in essays for prominent magazines and journals, Hamilton helped to bridge cultures and generations. Hamilton was the first African American to win the American Library Association’s Association of Library Service to Children’s John Newbery Medal, the first children’s author to win a MacArthur Foundation Genius Award, and one of only a handful of Americans to win the international Hans Christian Andersen Medal.


A new book, Virginia Hamilton: Speeches, Essays, and Conversations (Blue Sky Press/Scholastic, February 2009), co-edited by Adoff and Kacy Cook, gives us Hamilton’s voice throughout her career—from her first nationally published essay in 1971 to her final speech at a children’s book festival in 2001. Adoff discussed the book, the creation of the new ALA Coretta Scott King–Virginia Hamilton Award for LifetimeAchievement, and his life with Virginia Hamilton with >AL Associate Editor Pamela A. Goodes.


What will readers experience as they delve into the new publication? They’ll see a side of Virginia Hamilton that they’ve never seen before from her collections of folk tales, her novels, or picture books. There are 33 pieces in the book out of a total of probably more than 150. From the beginnings and the early ’70s until suddenly before her death, you have Virginia in all of her various intellectual and literary emphases. Virginia thought of herself as an African‑American woman, an African‑American novelist, an American woman and novelist, and a mother as well as a biographer of [Paul] Robeson and [W. E. B.] Du Bois. There isn’t a subject—from race to gender to raising children to having a nutty poet for a husband—that she never sought to deal with in one way or another.

She received the McArthur Genius Fellowship and she really was a true genius. I knew that when I first met her in 1958 when nobody was using that word; we were all trying to break in. But she had such attention to thought and detail. It’s a side that hasn’t been presented before even if you were lucky enough to see her Newbery acceptance speech or something like that.


Can you tell us what you consider to be the most interesting, relatively unknown piece about her that’s in this book? The piece that is the most fun is one that we worked on together that’s a conversation. The two of us would occasionally go out and present. And there was a real juggling act, a real balance between husband/wife, African American/Jewish American, novelist and poet, and even New Yorker and Midwesterner. We’d go out and we would highlight the differences between poetry and prose and the differences between the way we viewed raising kids and the way we viewed the work assets that we did—or in my case didn’t—have.


America still isn’t working. I’m not a believer in the easy labeling of the post‑Obama presidency as a post-racial era. America has a long, long way to go. And America still has what William Faulkner called the “sin of slavery.” And race isn’t taken as seriously as it should be. People forget that regardless of your cultural or racial background, you have other aspects of your relationship.


We never collaborated on a book, for example, because we couldn’t agree on how to cook chicken or how to make string beans. And that had as much to do with our cultural background as it did with our skin color. So that’s a fun one.


Is this a book that should be on the shelves of every library, whether it’s public school, academic, or special? Absolutely. It gives you a window into an intellect and it gives you a window into the soul of a major literary figure of the 20th century. It opens up African‑American literature to all professionals—librarians, teachers, and graduate students. And it opens up African‑American literature to students as well. But it also opens up youth literature far beyond children’s literature.


We need more and more specifics of African‑American thought and literary emphases and yearnings for all of the many places in America where we have purposefully, or not so purposefully, re-segregated American schools, libraries, and communities as well as places where young people of color are in large majority.


For example, she used terms that you don’t find on a daily newscast. We tried to eliminate the term “minorities” because we found it very pejorative. Virginia created a term called “parallel cultures,” where people of a variety of cultures live in parallel and that means equal. She coined the phrase “liberation literature” and she talked far more than liberating politically.


In the 1970s when she wrote M. C. Higgins, the Great, she had the giant flag heap of coming down from Sarah’s mountain based on the kind of strip mining that was being done then and teaching today. She wrote books of survival. For young people and adults looking to make sense of the world, books like this, which deal with the various aspects of how we survived in this world, are few and far between.


In light of the newly revised website that you’ve worked on, why is it so important to keep Virginia’s legacy alive to writers, particularly those who happen to be African American? I could be cynical and say all peoples of all kinds keep reinventing the wheel. And I could be less cynical and more sincere in saying that you can’t build a house unless you lay those foundation blocks down. Virginia looked to Richard Wright, Gertrude Stein, Du Bois, and Robeson for her foundation stones. New generations of African‑American writers and parents need to look to a major foundation stone for their young people. That’s why we’ve gone through a great deal of effort to upgrade the website and we will continue. I have also pledged that all of the 120 other pieces will eventually find their way onto the website. Her Newbery Medal acceptance speech for M. C. Higgins, the Great is on the website for free in its entirety just so people can get a sense of how she used language and what some of her thinking was.


Are there specific roles that you believe libraries can play in helping to keep Virginia’s legacy alive? When we first started to publish—Virginia in ’67 and I did an anthology of what we called negro poetry in those days with I Am the Darker Brother in 1968—it was librarians who took us into their hearts and who opened the rest of America up to them; first, to our work, and, secondly, to who we were. If librarians love you, they will love you first and longest, because they see your works first and they know what they can do. They know the power that they have if they can only struggle to keep their doors open and their libraries staffed. They are the repositories of a nation’s greatness and what a nation needs to become great.


Many of my collections of poetry are out of print or “temporarily” out of stock. That’s the way it is with a great deal of children’s literature, adult literature, and particularly poetry. I always tell people sure we can go on eBay and try and buy a copy at some high price but the book will be found in fine libraries everywhere. There’s no question. We are allies. It was the most wonderful thing when I had a letter from the Library of Congress asking us to deposit Virginia’s manuscripts at the Library of Congress, which we happily have done.


How will those materials that you’ve donated to the Library of Congress aid scholars and researchers? There are rough drafts, notes, and revisions. Literary scholars will be able to see, for example, a proof of the anecdote that’s really true when Virginia’s editor said to her after she saw the M. C. Higgins, the Great manuscript: “Well inevitably we can publish it just the way it is, but if you can go back and work on it, you can really make it a superb book.” Six months later, Virginia had nine different versions, particularly of the first opening chapters. She called me into her room and said, “Oh what’s for dinner Arnold? I’m working here. Listen to this. This is version number seven of the opening of M. C. Higgins.


That’s the kind of thing that literary scholars, teachers, and academics have always loved to find. There’s also a progression of thought. They’ll see a young person from a small town in Ohio make her way to the big city and take on major world issues in her fiction and rediscover a great deal of folklore from a variety of places.


Tell us about the upcoming April opening of the Virginia Hamilton and Arnold Adoff Resource Center at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. What will it include and why Wright State? That’s a wonderful thing. Wright State University is seven or eight miles down the road. What I’ve done is to look around the house and say “Well, what will you do with these hundreds of books, particularly African‑American literature and nonfiction various periodicals?” We worked to expand that resource center, which has now expanded itself beyond African- American literature to include women’s studies and Native peoples. People will be able to come in and use some of the materials that we used over 30 years. There will also be programs. Our son, Jamie Adoff, who lives on the other side of town, also writes for young adults. He and I will be doing programs. There will be poetry readings and guest lectures. And young people will be able to come in and sit down and do some research on the computer terminals.


With the financial squeeze on libraries, public libraries, and academic libraries particularly, this expanded resource center will be open to young people as well as institutions of higher education in the whole Miami Valley. Students who go to Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio, for a two‑year degree; students who go where my son graduated from, Central State University in Wilberforce, a historically African‑American college; and students who go to Wittenberg University in Springfield—the whole Great Lakes region—will be provided a resource far beyond the geographic center.


Talk to us about the inaugural Coretta Scott King–Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement announced during ALA’s Midwinter Meeting in Boston. It took years to create and it’s wonderful. Walter Dean Myers, an old dear friend and an extraordinary novelist in his own right for over 40 years, is the first recipient. The committee called me at 7 that morning, 7:30, as they love to do. That’s one of the fun things. We’ll all be there, I think its June 29th on a Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C., to see him get that award as the first recipient.


What’s real different about it is every other year it’s a writer or illustrator and in the intermittent years, the award will be given to a professional in the field. It might be a librarian. It might be a professor. It might be a publisher. Somebody who’s worked hard to encourage, foster, and present African‑American literature to young people around the country.


 
This article has been taken from American Libraries magazine.

And More African-American Titles

Another new release that has garnered praise is Rawn James Jr.'s Root and Branch: Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall and the Struggle to End Segregation.

This title examines the celebrated 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case by profiling the lives of its two principle architects. Charles Hamilton Houston , the first black man on the Harvard Law Review was a brilliant lawyer and teacher, and Thurgood Marshall was one of his students at Howard University. This pair opened the NCAAP's legal office and spent years devising the legal campaign against educational disparity that culminated in the Brown case. Hamilton died before the case was fully developed but Marshall would victoriously argue it and ultimately end up on the Supreme Court himself after breaking the back of the "separate but equal" philosophy of education.  

Bulk of this review was taken from Bookpage Magazine.

More New Titles of African-American Life

Yesterday I talked about the new Nina Simone biography and today I would like to offer you some other new titles in celebration of Black History Month.

reviews by Bookpage Magazine

The Shadows of Youth: The Remarkable Journey of the Civil Rights Generation by Wesleyan University professor Andrew Lewis spotlights the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, established in 1960, whose members were younger and more radical than theuir counterparts in the NAACP and other black organizations. The book shows that the SNCC had a large, nmostly positive impact on the Civil Rights movement, and that its major goals wren't nearly as radical as many claimed.

University of Maryland professor Ira Berlin's The Making of African America: The Four Great Migrations studies four centuries of black relocation to and within America.  Berlin presents what he deems an updated approach to African-American culture, one that doesn't just cover progress from slavery to civil rights, but also incorporates the struggles of more recent black immigrants to the U.S. This title contains its share of controversial views about black culture, but it is thoroughly reserached and well-documented.

More tomorrow.

New Bio of Nina Simone

Continuing my spotlight on "Black History Month", a new biography of jazz siner Nina Simone has just been released and is reviewed below by Booklist Magazine.

"My baby just cares for, my baby just cares for me..."

Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone.

Cohodas, Nadine (author).


Born in 1933, Eunice Waymon was a musical prodigy, amazing North Carolina churchgoers with her piano playing beginning at age four. Serious, proud, and hardworking, she dreamed of becoming a classical pianist and only began performing her unique blend of classical, gospel, jazz, and pop when she took a nightclub gig to earn money for graduate school. Eunice’s spontaneous invention of her alter ego, Nina Simone, is evidence of her formidable capacity for improvisation, the lifeblood of her world-altering music and the skill that helped her survive the bloody turmoil of the civil-rights era. Cohodas infuses every scene with electrifying detail and penetrating insights into Simone’s struggles as an African American musician of phenomenal talent and exalted ambition. Cohodas provides gripping descriptions of Simone’s indelible music along with profoundly moving accounts of her commanding, increasingly militant, and eventually downright bizarre stage presence. From her regal demeanor to her friendships with James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry, courageous activism, and the tragedies that pushed Simone into mental illness, Cohodas chronicles every turn with precision and empathy. The result is a wrenching story of how racism can undermine even the most ascendant life, and a dramatic portrait of an uncompromising, audacious, and beleaguered musical genius of conscience.

Top 10 Black History Nonfiction for 2010

Now besides the award winners, there were some other great African-American reads especially in the area of non-fiction. Listed below are the top 10 as selected by Booklist Magazine.


The Dandy Dons: Bill Russell, K. C. Jones, Phil Woolpert, and One of College Basketball’s Greatest and Most Innovative Teams. By James W. Johnson. 2009. Univ. of Nebraska, paper, $19.95 (9780803218772). Powered by Bill Russell and K. C. Jones, the 1955–56 NCAA champion University of San Francisco Dons compiled a 60-game winning streak, in the process altering basketball forever.


Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America. By Beryl Satter. 2009. Holt/Metropolitan, $28 (9780805076769). Satter’s inspection of her father’s career helping black Chicagoans keep homes purchased under exploitative contracts is a personal as well as historical study of the national disgrace of housing segregation.


Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ’n’ Roll. By David Kirby. 2009. Continuum, $19.95 (9780826429650).
When Kirby hears America singing, it sounds like Little Richard. Ride along on his high-octane travelogue-cum-meditation on the Georgia Peach, and you’ll second the perception.


“A Long Time Coming”: The Inspiring, Combative 2008 Campaign and the Historic Election of Barack Obama. By Evan Thomas and the staff of Newsweek. 2009. PublicAffairs, hardcover, $22.95 (9781586486075). Real-life stories get no more compelling than this crisply anecdotal chronicle of the campaign and election of the first African American U.S. president.


Mongrel Nation: The America Begotten by Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. By Clarence E. Walker. 2009. Univ. of Virginia, $22.95 (9780813927770); paper, $13.95 (9780813927787). Walker views the complexities of American race relations through the prism of the contradictions between Jefferson’s writings on race and his 38-year relationship with his slave Sally Hemings.


Post Black: How a New Generation Is Redefining African American Identity. By Ytasha L. Womack. 2010. Lawrence Hill, paper, $16.95 (9781556528057). One-size-fits-all definition of black identity is crumbling, Womack says, as burgeoning disparate constituencies (young professionals, immigrants, bi- and multiracials, etc.) impact black America.


Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne. By James Gavin. 2009. Atria, $27 (9780743271431).
Maintaining a classy image through decades of pop-music and racial-climate changes and despite personal insecurities, singer Horne is a mesmerizing icon in Gavin’s pages.


Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson. By Wil Haygood. 2009. Knopf, $27.95 (9781400044979). Haygood compares the achievements of the all-time great boxer with those of three similarly innovative contemporaries of his: poet Langston Hughes, singer Lena Horne, and jazzman Miles Davis.


Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. By Robin D. G. Kelley. 2009. Free Press, $30 (9780684831909). The first full biography of the pianist-composer who cocreated bebop is a landmark of jazz literature that dispels a cloud of myths as it brings Monk alive for his generations of fans.


Up from History: The Life of Booker T. Washington. By Robert J. Norrell. 2009. Harvard/Belknap, $35 (9780674032118). In a more nuanced assessment of the post-Reconstruction leader long disparaged for racial accommodation, Norrell argues that Washington’s strategy was that of the fox rather than the lion.

Coretta Scott King Award

This is my second blog about an African-American award in literature, the prestigious Coretta Scott King Award. This award has grown since its inception in the late 1960s. At its humble inception at the May 1970 dinner gala of the New Jersey Library Association, Lillie Patterson was honored for her biography, Martin Luther King, Jr. Man of Peace. In 1982 the American Library Association recognized the Coretta Scott King Award as an association award. For a more complete history consult two works: The Coretta Scott King Awards Book, From Vision to Reality Edited by Henrietta Smith, American Library Association, 1994 and The Coretta Scott King Awards Book, 1970-1999, Edited by Henrietta M. Smith, American Library Association, 1999.

Here are the 2010 winners:


“Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal,” written by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, is the King Author Book winner. The book is illustrated by R. Gregory Christie, published by Carolrhoda Books, a division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.


Illustrator Award Winner: “My People,” illustrated by Charles R. Smith Jr., is the King Illustrator Book winner. The book was written by Langston Hughes and published by ginee seo books, Atheneum Books for Young Readers.


Author Honor Book: “Mare’s War” by tanita s. davis and published by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

Illustrator Honor Books: “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” illustrated by E. B. Lewis, written by Langston Hughes and published by Disney - Jump at the Sun Books, an imprint of Disney Book Group.


John Steptoe New Talent Author Award:  “The Rock and the River,” written by kekla magoon, is the Steptoe winner. The book is published by Aladdin, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division.


Coretta Scott King – Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement: Walter Dean Myers is the winner of this first-ever Coretta Scott King – Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement. The award pays tribute to the quality and magnitude of beloved children’s author Virginia Hamilton. Myers’ books include: “Amiri & Odette: A Love Story,” published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic; “Fallen Angels,” published by Scholastic Press; “Monster,” published by Amistad and HarperTeen, imprints of HarperCollins Publishers; and “Sunrise Over Fallujah,” published by Scholastic Press.

2010 Zora Neale Hurston Award

This is the season for award giving. You've got your Oscars, Grammmys and Razzies and literature is no exception. In our continuation of celebrating Black History Month, today and tommorow I'll spotlight two awards given to African-Americans for their contribution to African-American literature.



Anthony Loum of the Brooklyn Public Library has been selected as the 2010 winner of the Zora Neale Hurston Award.

Mr. Loum was selected for his work in planning and ensuring the quality of programs delivered by the Brooklyn Public Library in the 2009 Big Read for which Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” was the chosen book. Mr. Loum coordinated with key partners for the use of performance spaces, performers and the materials used and donated for the book discussions, screenings and craft workshops. These programs, which were innovative and targeted a variety of age groups, took place at locations across the city. The programs and events introduced Hurston to a new audience of readers and provided professional development workshops to support the continued reading of Hurston’s works in city schools.


The Zora Neale Hurston Award, which is administered by the Collection Development and Evaluation Section (CODES) of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), recognizes a RUSA member’s significant efforts to promote African American writers and African American literature in their libraries. Through the generous sponsorship of HarperCollins, the award enables the winner to further their professional development so that they can continue to build multicultural collections and serve diverse populations.


Mr. Loum was selected by the 2010 Zora Neale Hurston Award Committee, which includes Chairperson Bergis Jules, Deborah Costa, Charlene Rue, Lucy Lockley and John Lawrence.


The Reference and User Services Association, a division of the American Library Association, represents librarians and library staff in the fields of reference, specialized reference, collection development, readers advisory and resource sharing. RUSA is the foremost organization of reference and information professionals who make the connections between people and the information sources, services, and collection materials they need.

"The Underground Railroad"

Here's another program at the library to celebrate Black History Month.....

Join local author, adventurer, teacher and explorer Rick Rhodes on Friday, February 12, at 2:00 p.m. as he walks you through the history of the Underground Railroad. He has researched the journey of African-Americans from the shackles and chains of slavery in the Old South to a new land of freedom and eventual liberation. Admission is free and both kids and adults are welcome!


Captain Rhodes has more than just a few stories to tell, and his passion to share American History with audiences is infectious! His programs focus on some of the lesser-known historical facts and are enhanced by a multi-media slide show. Rhodes, whom some people call a “History Detective,” has researched and written eight guidebooks. Wherever he’s been, he has engrossed himself in local history, and he has a passion to share this with readers.

Library Kicks-Off Black History Month

Today, the first of February kicks-off Black History Month and your Palm Harbor Library will be celebrating it through various in-house programs. As we go along I'll let you know about each of them as well as highlighting recent African-American literary award winners, events and book reviews such as the Pulitzer Prize winning novel "The Known World".   



We start off the month by asking you to join Palm Harbor Library on Friday, February 5, at 2:00 p.m. for a vocal performance by local singer Angela Filer-Johnson. Enjoy beautiful renditions of everything from gospel music to the blues to Broadway tunes. Admission is free.


Call 727-784-3332, Ext. 3006, for further information. The library is located at 2330 Nebraska Avenue.

Learn Feng Shui from the Expert

Want to learn more about Feng Shui, the ancient Chinese art of placement that explains how our surroundings impact our lives? Join the Palm Harbor Library for a free discussion on Saturday, February 6, at 11:00 a.m. Diane Gallin is back! (Her first lecture, held last October, was very popular.) Gallin will explain how landscape features, design details, floor plans and furnishings in a home or office influence the people who live or work there, and what they can do to make improvements.
Gallin is a Certified Feng Shui Consultant and founder of Wind and Water Feng Shui Consulting. The discussion will be followed by a question-and-answer period. For more information, visit her website at www.windandwaterfengshui.com or contact the library at 727-784-3332, Ext. 3007.

Libraries Contunue to Pitch in for Haiti

Library workers and educators are keeping their sleeves rolled up as they continue contributing to the international effort to provide moral and monetary aid to earthquake-stricken Haiti.
•Boston Public Library’s Mattapan branch, which now houses the city’s resource center for area families seeking contact with Haitian loved ones and ways to help them. Operated by the Mayor’s Office of New Bostonians, the center provides translators, crisis counselors, computers, and international phone lines.


•The Resource Shelf blog, which has compiled a list of resources about the Haiti crisis, including information about the a partnership through February 19 between the National Library of Medicine and the Association of American Publishers to offer free full-text articles from over 200 biomedical journals and over 30 select reference books for libraries and hospitals affected by the earthquake.


•The American Library Association, which has created an information page that includes instructions on how to contribute to the Association’s Haiti Library Relief Fund.


•Volusia County (Fla.) Public Library’s Deltona Regional Library, which has donated use of its new ampitheater for a January 30 concert organized by the Deltona Arts and Historical Society. All donations are designated for the Red Cross.


•Garwood (N.J.) Free Public Library and the Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock, which are giving overdue fines to Haiti relief efforts. Garwood PL has designated UNICEF as the recipient of fines collected through January 30; CALS is donating fines received until February 7 to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.


•Library staff members of Indiana State University, who are holding a silent auction January 28 and donating the proceeds of winning bids and monetary donations to Mountain Top Ministries in Gramothe, Haiti.


At least one heartfelt effort was organized much closer to home: A library in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic—some 90 miles from the devastated Haiti capital of Port-au-Prince—began collecting clothes and toys donated by area residents just after the earthquake hit. “The Dominican Republic is so poor, yet [the people] donated stuff for the Haitian people,” said Williamsport, Pennsylvania, volunteer George Way in the January 21 Williamsport Sun-Gazette. Way, who had traveled to the Dominican Republic with six other Pennsylvanians, was an eyewitness to the generosity.

Do what you can do, give what you can.

Thank you.

"Rabbit Hole" to be Performed @ Your Library

The Showcase Repertory Theater will perform Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire, at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, January 28, and 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, January 30, at the Palm Harbor Library.

In this 2007 Pulitzer Prize Winner, the life of a happy couple is turned upside down when their young son dies in an accident. It is a story of loss, heartbreak and forgiveness told through daily moments and emotional hurdles.


No reservations are required, and a suggested $10 donation will be taken at the door. The library is located at 2330 Nebraska Avenue. For further information, call 727-784-3332, Ext. 3006.

Public Art Commission for Palm Harbor Library

As you are fully aware by now, your public library has been completely renovated. Hooray! There are several new features, expanded services and just an overall brighter environment. The one item though that I have not spoken about is our new outside sculpture.


Approximately two to three years ago, the library approached Pinellas County Cultural Affairs to determine the feasibility of obtaining public art. After a formal presentation and much follow-up discussion, the library was approved with a $50,000 grant to secure a piece of public art work. Shortly afterwards a “Call to Artists” was issued. Eventually 105 applications were received.


After a lengthy review by the Public Art Selection Panel, Michael Cain from New Orleans, Louisiana was selected. He has created a series of totem and relief sculptures in front of the library. Titled "Beyond the Blue”, this artwork is based on the artist’s vision of the library as being a place of knowledge and community story telling.


The artist himself tells his story through colorful symbols and images, including the sea, people, birds, books, maritime flags, and lotus flowers. His story depicts “a quest for knowledge”. The main elements of this installation include three totem-pole-like structures. Each totem conveys its own meaning: totem #1 represents the seeds of knowledge, totem #2 (center) pays homage to the essence of community connection, and totem #3 (including the images on the wall behind the totems) refers to the power of the sea to serve as a symbolic repository of knowledge.


In front of the three totems is an open book (metal) that is mounted to a reading stand. The open page reads “Knowledge is the seed of our own creativity, the foundation that strengthens our community and the landmark that guides our course of action”. Michael Cain believes that this is one of the most important aspects of the sculpture. “When we pick up a book and invest the time in reading it, in a way, the book becomes part of us. There is a continual interplay between people and the written word. The reader gets inspired and then becomes the writer, who, in turn, inspires the next reader, and so on. We all place ourselves in context within the stories that we can relate to.”


This artwork can be enjoyed both day and night, as it is illuminated by colorful strips of energy-saving LED lights.


The Public Art Selection Panel which helped guide this project was chaired by architect Steve Klar and included: Susan Gehring, Artist; John Toppe, Architect; Lynn Whitelaw, Director, Leepa-Rattner Museum; Lynn Neff, Artist and Public Art and Design Committee Member; Irene Finger, Community Representative; Nedima Ablakovic, County Public Works and myself.


If you would like to learn more about Pinellas County’s Public Art Program, please contact Pinellas County Cultural Affairs at (727) 453-7860, or visit www.pinellasarts.org. For information about Palm Harbor Library please visit our updated website at www.palmharborlibrary.org.

Vaunda Micheaux and Charles R. Smith win 2010 Coretta Scott King Awards

With Black History Month coming up in February, the winners of the annual Coretta Scott King Awards were announced. The winners are Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, author of “Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal” and Charles R. Smith Jr., illustrator of “My People”. These awards honor African American authors and illustrators of outstanding books for children and young adults. Kekla Magoon, author of “The Rock and the River” is the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award winner. The awards were announced at the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting in Boston, and will be presented in Washington, D.C. at the ALA Annual Conference in June.
The Coretta Scott King Book Awards are presented annually by the Coretta Scott King Book Awards Committee of the ALA’s Ethnic and Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table (EMIERT) to encourage the artistic expression of the African American experience via literature and the graphic arts.

“Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal” published by Carolrhoda Books, a division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc. is a biography of a legendary peace officer. Born into slavery in 1838, Bass had a hard life and a strong sense of right and wrong. Bass was one of the most feared and respected lawman in Indian Territory. During his career, he made more than 3,000 arrests but killed only fourteen men.

Vaunda Micheaux Nelson is the author of numerous fiction and nonfiction books for children. In addition to writing books, she has also been a teacher, newspaper reporter, bookseller and children’s librarian.

“The winning title for text was selected because it is engaging, meticulously researched, and offers a riveting account of an unsung African American hero,” said Carole McCollough, Award Jury Chair.

In “My People” written by Langston Hughes and published by ginee seo books, Atheneum Books for Young Readers, Smith’s vibrant sepia photographs celebrate the beauty and diversity of African Americans. The close-ups of illuminated faces filled with jubilant, loving expressions emerge from black backgrounds and capture the spirit of Langston Hughes’ eloquent poem.

“Charles R. Smith Jr. has carefully photographed and selected images that depict African Americans of all ages and hues,” said McCollough.

Charles R. Smith Jr. is a poet and 2008 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Award winner of “Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali.” Smith grew up in California and attended the Brooks Institute of Photography.

Occasionally awarded, the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award affirms new talent and offers visibility to excellence in writing and/or illustrations at the beginning of a career as a published children’s book creator. This year’s winner is kekla magoon for “The Rock and the River,” published by Aladdin, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division. In 1968 Chicago, Sam Childs is living in the shadows of two important people – his father, a civil rights activist working with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his older brother “Stick” who has joined the Black Panther Party. These different approaches to achieving racial equality place Sam between the rock and the river.

One King Author Honor Book was selected: “Mare’s War” by tanita s. davis, published by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

One Illustrator Honor Book was selected: “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes, illustrated by E. B. Lewis, published by Disney - Jump at the Sun Books, an imprint of Disney Book Group.

Members of the 2010 Coretta Scott King Book Awards Jury are: Carole McCollough, Retired faculty, WSU/LIS; Eunice Anderson, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore; Alan R. Bailey, East Carolina University, Greenville, N.C.; Brenda Hunter, Atlanta Fulton Public Library, Retired; Jonda C. McNair, Clemson University, Clemson, S.C.; Martha Ruff, Prince George’s County Public Library, Oxon Hill, Md.; and Robin Smith, Ensworth School, Nashville, Tenn.

The American Library Association is the oldest and largest library association in the world with over 65,000 members. Its mission is to provide leadership for the development, promotion, and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all.

For information on the Coretta Scott King Book Awards and other ALA Youth Media Awards, please visit www.ala.org/yma.

Information courtesy of the American Library Assosication.

"Going Bovine" Wins 2010 Printz Award

Going Bovine,” written by Libba Bray and published by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, has won the 2010 Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) today announced the winner during the ALA Midwinter Meeting, held Jan. 15 – 19 in Boston.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Michael L. Printz Award. The award, first given in 2000, is named for the late Michael L. Printz, a Topeka, Kans., school librarian known for discovering and promoting quality books for young adults. The award is administered annually by YALSA and is sponsored by Booklist magazine.


In “Going Bovine,” Cameron, a sixteen-year-old slacker, sets off on a madcap road trip along with a punk angel, a dwarf sidekick, a yard gnome and a mad scientist to save the world and perhaps his own life.


Libba Bray is the author of the Gemma Doyle trilogy. She lives in New York City.


“Wow. Backwards and forwards, this wildly imaginative modern day take on Don Quixote is complex, hilarious, and stunning,” said Printz Award Committee Chair Cheryl Karp Ward. “The hero’s journey will never be the same after ‘Going Bovine.’”


The committee also named four Printz Honor Books: “Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith” by Deborah Heiligman, published by Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group.


Once Charles Darwin sets his rational mind to marry the religious Emma Wedgeworth, they both must take a leap of faith in order to build a life together.

“The Monstrumologist,” by Rick Yancey, published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing.


Will Henry, orphan and assistant to a monstrumologist, races against time to save his town (and himself) from the anthropophagi, a pod of monstrous creatures who prey on humans.


“Punkzilla,” by Adam Rapp, published by Candlewick Press.


Fourteen-year-old runaway Jamie, homeless and strung out, embarks on a harrowing journey to reach his dying brother.


“Tales of the Madman Underground: An Historical Romance, 1973,” by John Barnes, published by Viking Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Young Reader’s Group.


Karl Shoemaker wants to begin his senior year with a new identity separate from his counseling group, his alcoholic mother and the legacy of his dead father.


Members of the 2010 Printz Award Committee are: Chair Cheryl Karp Ward, Broad Brook Conn.; Priscille Dando, Robert E. Lee High School, Fairfax County Public Schools, Va.; Sally Leahey, McArthur Public Library, Biddeford, Maine; Angela Leeper, University of Richmond, Va.; Teri Lesesne, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas; H. Jack Martin, New York Public Library; Connie Mitchell, Indianapolis; Ann Theis, Chesterfield (Va.) County Library; Snow Wildsmith, Mooresville, N.C.; John Sexton, administrative assistant, Westchester Library System, Tarrytown, N.Y.; and Gillian Engberg, Booklist consultant, Chicago.


For more than 50 years, YALSA has been the world leader in selecting books, videos, and audio books for teens. For more information about YALSA or for lists of recommended reading, viewing and listening, go to www.ala.org/yalsa/booklists.


For more information on the Michael L. Printz Award and other ALA Youth Media Awards, please visit www.ala.org/yma.

Information courtesy of the American Library Assosciation.