JFK LIbrary looks at birth in Space.

By Thomas J. Morgan

Journal Staff Writer

On July 20, 1969, astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission left the first human footprints on the lunar surface. In this photo, Neil Armstrong and the lunar landing module, the Eagle, are reflected in Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin’s visor helmet.

BOSTON — A new exhibition at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum offers a glimpse at the birth of the Space Age as the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing approaches.

It was Kennedy’s vision that started the ball rolling when in 1961 he made it a national goal to land a man on the moon within the decade and return him safely to Earth.

It took only eight years for two astronauts to step onto the surface of the moon, a period packed with scientific achievements.

The exhibit, “Moon Shot — JFK and Space Exploration,” features an early spacesuit from the Mercury missions and three prototype drawings of gear for the 1965 Mercury Atlas-9 mission.

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Take me out to the... library?

This is the Cubs' year

The team may be hovering around the middle of the National League Central standings, but they're No. 1 at the Oak Park Public Library, where Stephen Green, the team's official photographer, has an exhibit of player portraits, and behind-the-scenes and Wrigley Field photos called "Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field" on display.

It's part of a larger baseball exhibit, which includes the National Baseball Hall of Fame inspired "Pride and Passion: The African-American Baseball Experience," a traveling exhibit for libraries. "Pride and Passion" runs through June 3, but baseball fan John Allen will continue celebrating the contributions of African-Americans in baseball with a film festival that runs through June 28.

Walking into the library gallery, a visitor might think they've stepped into the Cubs' locker room. The largest portrait, a snarling manager Lou Piniella, could make a visitor step back, but the eyes of Geovany Soto peering out from behind his catcher's mask draws them in.

"They're artsy and soulful," said Green, an Oak Park resident. "I wanted to give insight to the players instead of just generic headshots."

Green's favorite photo shows a double rainbow over Wrigley Field after a rain delay last year. It's representative of the feeling surrounding the Cubs and their winning ways before the playoffs last season, he said.

"It was one of those serendipitous moments you get after being there all the time," he said. "We all bought into the idea this was going to be a special season for us."

A lifelong Cubs fan who grew up in Wilmette and took the El to Wrigley Field many a summer day, Green still feels capturing moments at the ball park is a magical experience.

"Just being able to walk onto the field is still a privilege to me," he said.

Allen, another Cubs fan, is just as passionate about the history of baseball.

A girls softball coach at Oak Park-River Forest High School and a teacher of film studies and African-American studies at Trinity High School, he'll host a film festival focused on the African-American experience. Allen will provide a synopsis of each film and will foster discussion of the events depicted in the films.

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Handwritten Bible a decade-long undertaking

COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. —

No one expected it to be easy, but no one expected it to be this hard either.

Almost a decade ago, the first word was written in The St. John’s Bible, the first handwritten and illuminated Bible in 500 years commissioned by a Benedictine monastery.

In 2000, after two years of preparation, calligrapher Donald Jackson wrote the initial verse of the Gospel of John. (Jackson, senior scribe to Her Royal Majesty’s Crown Office in the House of Lords, used a goose quill on calfskin vellum.)

As the $5.5 million project passes the halfway point, with five of the seven planned volumes completed, 2,414 lines of text remain to be written. The project is expected to be completed by the end of next year.

“This whole process has caused us to rediscover the Bible in a different way ... that every book of the Bible is interrelated with each other ... and we want this visually to capture that,” said the Rev. Michael Patella, chairman of the theological committee for The St. John’s Bible.

AP

The Rev. Michael Patella, OSB, turns to the ornate illumination for the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes in a bound copy of the Heritage Edition of the St. John's Bible at the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library in Collegeville, Minn. The book is the first handwritten and illuminated Bible in 500 years commissioned by a Benedictine monastery. Kimm Anderson/St. Cloud Times

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Afghan gov't destroys books it says insult Sunnis

By AMIR SHAH and HEIDI VOGT – 21 hours ago

KABUL (AP) — The Afghan government quietly dumped more than 1,000 Shiite texts and other books from Iran into a river after a local governor complained that their content insulted the country's Sunni majority.

The move appeared to be an attempt by President Hamid Karzai's U.S.-backed government to smooth over a potential thorn in relations between the Muslim sects.

But instead of burying the issue along with the books at the bottom of the Helmand River, the government was facing condemnation Wednesday from Shiite leaders after news leaked a month after the dumping.

"It is a humiliation for all Shiites," said Mohammad Akbari, a prominent Shiite member of parliament. He said a joint commission of Sunni and Shiite leaders should have reviewed any complaints about the books.

Merchants who'd ordered the books for shops in Kabul said there was nothing offensive about their content and that they were destroyed simply because of prejudice against Shiites, who make up about 20 percent of the population.

The dispute highlights the continuing tension between Sunnis and Shiites in Afghanistan despite efforts by the government to preach tolerance across the sectarian divide.

Shiites were persecuted under the largely Sunni Taliban regime that ruled the country until the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. Since then, the two sects have settled into an uneasy coexistence, with the post-Taliban constitution giving Shiites the right to create some laws that apply only to them.

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Libraries in the Prescott area are good recyclers of books.

Libraries in the Prescott area are good recyclers of books.

Sharon Seymour, Prescott Public Library's lead librarian in Adult Services, said when they take out-of-date, worn or damaged books off the shelves, they offer some to smaller libraries in the county, and give others to the Prescott Friends of the Library for their ongoing and special book sales.

She said they throw the heavily damaged books into the Lions recycling bin.

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UMich first to sign up under Google Books settlement terms

The University of Michigan has signed up as the first library to participate in Google's book-scanning project under the terms of Google's proposed settlement with library groups.

Google and UM have been working together since 2004 on digitizing the university's library collection, but the Google Book Search settlementwould allow Michigan to offer its books online as part of a subscription, or in some cases for free. The settlement has drawn reported attention from the government as well as library groups worried over the costs associated with access to such a large digital library amassed by a single company.

In exchange for participating in the project, however, Google plans to subsidize the cost of the university's subscription to the digital library. Michigan was also able to negotiate the right for future participants to review the cost of the institutional subscriptions from time to time. "If they determine that prices are too high, University of Michigan and other participating libraries who sign these collective terms can challenge the prices through arbitration, and Google will be required to work with the (Book Rights) Registry to adjust the pricing accordingly," the university said on its Web site.

CNET NEWS 

Rare Book School 2009

2009 Course Schedule

In 2009, Rare Book School will offer about 25 five-day, non-credit courses in January and from June through August, held at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville (June - August), the Walters Art Museum and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore (January), at the Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington, DC (October), and at the The Grolier Club in New York City (November). The tuition for each RBS course is $895. For information on this year's tuition, as well as other related costs, please visit the Travel & Accommodations page of this website.

A MORE COMPLETE, hard-copy version (PDF) is available here (last updated 14 May 2009). Please note that the list below is not as comprehensive as this hard-copy version. See below for information about frequency of course offerings.

The Next Age of DiscoveryBy ALEXANDRA ALTER

By ALEXANDRA ALTER

In a 21st-century version of the age of discovery, teams of computer scientists, conservationists and scholars are fanning out across the globe in a race to digitize crumbling literary treasures.

Ancient Manuscripts In a Digital Age

View Slideshow

Wayne Torborg

Some manuscripts are in poor condition, like this worm-eaten, 17th-century Christian Arabic Book of Hours from Balamand Monastery, Lebanon.

In the process, they're uncovering unexpected troves of new finds, including never-before-seen versions of the Christian Gospels, fragments of Greek poetry and commentaries on Aristotle. Improved technology is allowing researchers to scan ancient texts that were once unreadable -- blackened in fires or by chemical erosion, painted over or simply too fragile to unroll. Now, scholars are studying these works with X-ray fluorescence, multispectral imaging used by NASA to photograph Mars and CAT .....read on

Launch of Occasional Nuggets

Launch of Occasional Nuggets

Dear fellow bibliophiles:

I am pleased to announce the launch ofOccasional Nuggets, a modest but gratifying serial publication of bookish interest, each issue of which is intended to “bring to light a gem from the special collections of the Providence Public Library.”

Our first issue (Spring 2009) features a set of four Japanese fairy tales written by Lafcadio Hearn and printed in Tokyo from 1898-1904, on crêpe-paper and bound in silk thread in the Japanese (accordion) fashion. The issue begins with a short introduction on Hearn’s life and career, and a reprinting (including a few scans of the original illustrations) of one of the tales—The Boy Who Drew Cats, in which a young and sensitive boy is saved by his art. Also included is a bibliography of books by Hearn in special collections, and suggestions for further reading.

Digging for Darwin

Dozens of people return overdue books to the Boston Public Library every day. Probably only one person, however, has ever walked in holding a book that had been missing for 80 years. Please salute Julie Geissler, the New Hampshire resident who stunned library staff members by showing up unannounced one day in 2001 to return a rare first-edition copy of Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species,” one of the most famous books ever written.

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Sacred Places on Campus: The Power of the Library

Steven Bell, Associate University Librarian, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA -- Library Journal, 5/14/2009

As someone who appreciates the intersection of design and user experience,  the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Architecture Issue (May 1, 2009) is a must-read for me. Taking in the photos of the newest campus buildings is inspiring, but there’s always an article or two that reminds me how fortunate we academic librarians are to be a part of the inspiring architecture woven into the fabric of campus culture. 

One article in particular resonated with me because it articulated the special feeling we associate with visits to other campuses, marveling at their buildings and understanding their design.

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Another World Instead

Another World Instead
William Stafford Peace Symposium

Portland, Oregon
May 14-16, 2009 

Sponsored by: William Stafford Archives & Northwest Writing Institute, Lewis & Clark College, 
Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission, Friends of William Stafford, First Unitarian Church, 
Northwest Film Center, and The Lamb Foundation. Poster drawings by Barbara Stafford-Wilson.

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Walcott Withdraws From Poetry Professor Election

LONDON — This month dozens of academics at Oxford Universityreceived anonymous packages. Each contained photocopied pages from a book describing decades-old allegations of sexual harassment against Derek Walcott, the Nobel Prize-winning poet.

more

Printing machine will make rare books instantly available

Readers will be able to print out bound versions of rare books on demand with a new machine being set up by Blackwell, the publisher.

The Espresso Book Machine, as Blackwell has called it, will be able to access a digital archive of more than 400,000 publications.

Rather than having to order a copy and wait weeks for it to arrive, the photocopier sized 'EBR' will print and bind books on the spot at Blackwell's branch in Charing Cross, London.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturevideo/?bcpid=3887194001&bctid=22405099001

Page Turners

Institutions are giving students greater access to rare books and manuscripts, opening a new chapter in higher education

 

The pages of ancient books and manuscripts can reveal all manner of surprising or obscure information, from long-forgotten practices and secrets to the mundane details of everyday life in the 14th century. Some scholars have likened leafingthrough ... such treasures to exploring an Egyptian tomb.

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Grand slam for Latino history

BASEBALL: Cal State San Bernardino lands an archive and exhibit showing the sport's importance to Mexican Americans.

Mariachi bands played, families picnicked and cars sometimes provided the lighting during amateur and semi-pro Sunday baseball games that galvanized Mexican-American communities throughout Southern California during the early to middle 20th century.

Preserving that spirit -- along with baseball's importance as an assimilation and political tool for Mexican-Americans -- is the aim of "Latino Baseball History Project: The Mexican-American Experience," an archive and traveling exhibit that will now be housed at Cal State San Bernardino.

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Which Is The Best?

'Ball Four' Remains Best Baseball Book

By DOM AMORE

May 5, 2009

I got my copy of the new A-Rod book on Monday, and have begun to read. It'll take some time to get through it, but it got me thinking ...

So many books about baseball have come and gone, but after nearly four decades, that old, dog-eared paperback in the back of my closet, the one with the cover falling off and several inside pages hanging loose, is still the best baseball book ever: "Ball Four."

When it came out in 1970, Jim Bouton's tell-all book caused quite a stir. CommissionerBowie Kuhn, in what was not one of his finer moments, called the pitcher on the carpet over various parts of the book.

The furor died down, but the appeal of that book never did. The characters drawn by Bouton, the officious GM, the paunchy, lovable manager and the players from all backgrounds playing pranks on one another, are enough to make anybody long to be a part of that wild traveling circus that is a major league baseball team, even for one summer.

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Dan Volkmann, collector of rare books, dies

Dan Volkmann spent 39 years collecting a complete first-edition set of Californiana books called the Zamorano 80 - a feat accomplished by only three others.

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Book sale thanks its lucky stars for celestial atlas gift

By Ian Swanson

HEAVENS above. Organisers of the annual Christian Aid book sale at St Andrew's and St George's Church were delighted to discover an 1822 celestial atlas compiled by Scottish amateur astronomer Alexander Jamieson among the volumes donated.

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Libraries Ask Judge to Monitor Google Books Settlement

Three groups representing libraries, including the American Library Association, the largest such group in the United States, have asked a federal judge to exercise “vigorous oversight” over a class-action settlement between Google, authors and publishers.

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Stacy Erickson's Birthday!

100 Million in 100 days for Bush Library at SMU

Even with the recession, former President George W. Bush is off to a quick start in fundraising $300 million for his presidential library and policy center in Dallas.

As TIME reports, Bush has raised $100 million in 100 days. That's the same amount that former president Bill Clinton hoped to raise in a year--and fell short because of a pardon scandal, according to the magazine.

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Why Book Critics Go On for Inches

I sometimes wonder why quality publications spend a lot of column inches on a book they think is terrible. One gets the message in the first two paragraphs. It's like the reviewer wasn't content with killing the beast but then had to chop it up into hamburger.

—Marv Atkins, St. Petersburg, Fla.

Once you kill the beast, you may as well make hamburger. The critic has, after all, presumably read the whole book, sometimes with mounting fury at the waste of his or her diminishing time on earth.

Read On. 

US judge pushes back Google book settlement hearing date

AP Published: April 29, 2009, 10:56

New York: The US federal court overseeing Google Inc.'s settlement over its book-scanning programme is giving authors four more months to opt out of the deal and review its potential pitfalls.

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