Banned Books Week 2010

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read (September 25 to October 2, 2010) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Booksellers Association; American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; the American Library Association; American Society of Journalists and Authors; Association of American Publishers; and the National Association of College Stores. It is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.

For more information on getting involved with Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read, please see the American Library Association's Calendar of Events and Ideas and Resources. You can also contact the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom at 1-800-545-2433, ext. 4220, or bbw@ala.org.

National Book Festival: Celebrating a Decade of Words and Wonder

The 10th annual National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress, will be held on Saturday, September. 25, 2010, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., between 3rd and 7th streets from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama are honorary chairs for the event. The festival, a celebration of the joy of reading for all ages, is free and open to the public. More than 70 authors, illustrators and poets will be making presentations on the National Mall throughout the day in the Children, Teens & Children, Fiction & Mystery, History & Biography, Contemporary Life and Poetry & Prose pavilions.

The Festival website features numerous video webcasts and audio podcasts. The 2010 poster, shown here, was designed by Peter Ferguson and is available as a PDF download.

BookOpolis 2010: Memory Palaces

Asheville BookWorks, a community resource for print and book arts based in North Carolina, is sponsoring BookOpolis 2010 this September 24-25, 2010. On Friday, the BookOpolis exhibition, with the theme of Memory Palaces, will have its opening reception from 6-9pm. It will feature over 100 artists' books from around the United States and internationally. On Saturday from 12-5pm, visitors can watch demonstrations and participate in activities such as letterpress printing, papermaking, book binding, and printmaking. For a full description of events, visit the BookWorks website.

Throughout the year, BookWooks also sponsors workshops, exhibits, lectures, and other events, such as the Edible Book Festival. BookWorks is a valuable resource for all those with an interest in the book arts, providing "space, equipment and technical support for artistic exploration, collaboration and the sharing of knowledge."

Note: The BookOpolis 2010 poster, shown here, was screenprinted by Philip Bell and is available for purchase at the event.

Call for Papers: American Association for the History of Medicine

The American Association for the History of Medicine (AAHM) invites submissions in any area of medical history for its 84th annual meeting, to be held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 28 through May 1, 2011. The Association welcomes submissions on the history of health and healing; history of medical ideas, practices, and institutions; and histories of illness, disease, and public health. Submissions from all eras and regions of the world are welcome. In addition to single-paper proposals, the Program Committee accepts abstracts for sessions and for luncheon workshops. Please alert the Program Committee Chair if you are planning a session proposal. Individual papers for these submissions will be judged on their own merits.

Presentations are limited to 20 minutes. Individuals wishing to present a paper must attend the meeting. All papers must represent original work not already published or in press. Because the Bulletin of the History of Medicine is the official journal of the AAHM, the Association encourages speakers to make their manuscripts available for consideration by the Bulletin.

The AAHM uses an online abstract submissions system. We encourage all applicants to use this convenient software. A link for submissions is available on the website. Abstracts must be received by September 15, 2010.

If you are unable to submit proposals online, send eight copies of a one-page abstract (350 words maximum) to the Program Committee Chair, Susan E. Lederer, selederer@wisc.edu, Dept. of Medical History and Bioethics, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, 1300 University Ave. Madison, WI 53706.

When proposing a historical argument, state the major claim, summarize the evidence supporting the claim, and state the major conclusion(s). When proposing a narrative, summarize the story, identify the major agents, and specify the conflict. Please provide the following information on the same sheet as the abstract: name, preferred mailing address, work and home telephone numbers, e-mail address, present institutional affiliation, and academic degrees.

Trent Center Lecture on Eugenics and Bioethics: "Unsettled Legacies"

The first lecture of the new academic year in the Trent Center's Humanities in Medicine Lecture Series will be by Dr. Eric Juengst, the new director of the UNC Center for Biomedical Ethics. Entitled "Unsettled Legacies: Early 20th Century Eugenics, Late 20th Century Bioethics, and Where We Go from Here," the lecture will take place 12-1 pm, Monday, September 13, 2010 in the Duke Hospital Lecture Hall 2001. (Click on image to enlarge flyer).

Of related interest is two earlier Common Curator posts on Eugenics: The History of Eugenics in North Carolina and North Carolina Dedicates Eugenics Historical Marker.

The Common Curator Launches

The Common Curator has recently superseded the Carolina Curator blog, which was previously cited by OnlineUniversities.com as one of the "100 Best Curator and Museum Blogs." After approximately 220 postings on a wide variety of topics since its inception in December 2008, all the content of the Carolina Curator (click the Carolina Curator label) has been incorporated into the Common Curator blog, which will continue in much the same--if broader--vein to document developments in the history of the health sciences, digital libraries, archives, museums, and special collections, as well as tend other issues of import, such as freedom of information, open access, preservation and conservation, public policy, human rights, etc.

All readers of the Carolina Curator are encouraged to follow the Common Curator by visiting this website, or by subscribing to its RSS feed with Google Reader, Bloglines, or your favorite RSS reader. In addition to the new blog, the Common Curator also has a presence on other social media, including Delicious, Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter.

So, whether a longtime follower of the Carolina Curator or just discovering the new blog, thanks for your collective interest and comments--hope to continue hearing from you here at the Common Curator!

Ask a Curator Day

September 1, 2010 is "Ask a Curator Day," a one-time worldwide Question & Answer event on Twitter. Modelled on the successful Follow a Museum event on February 1, 2010, users of Twitter can post questions to participating curators of art, history, science, and other collections at #askacurator. A list of individuals and institutions from over 20 countries available for questions can be viewed here.