The Gateway To Knowledge: Follow the Torch!

The Library of Congress' rolling exhibition, "Gateway To Knowledge," recently came to town, featuring various highlights (in facsimile) from America's greatest library. Housed in a specially designed 18-wheeler, the mobile exhibition began last September at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. The tour will stop at about 60 sites, mostly in the East and Midwest (see full itinerary here).

On April 27, 2011, the Common Curator visited the exhibition, met one of its two docents, Josh Van Gelder, and photographed the images shown here while the vehicle was stationed at University Mall in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. There was a steady flow of interested visitors, including children, who seemed quite intrigued by the materials on display, which included information about Thomas Jefferson's library, hyperspectral imaging of the Declaration of Independence, Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, and Spider Man, among much else.

Further details about the tour are available at the Gateway To Knowledge web site, and via the tour's guest posts to the Library of Congress blog; Abigail Van Gelder's post covering the stops in North Carolina is available here. The exhibition and national tour were made possible through the support of the Abby and Emily Rapoport Foundation.

Note: Additional exhibition photos can be viewed online at Flickr.

The Internet Archive Builds a Physical Archive

As a complement to its online digital library, the Internet Archive is developing "a physical archive for the long term preservation of one copy of every book, record, and movie" that it can acquire, with a goal of obtaining ten million items. Founded in 1996, the Internet Archive's digital collections encompass millions of items, including texts, moving images, audio, software, and archived web pages. But as its founder Brewster Kahle noted in a recent blog post: "Books are being thrown away, or sometimes packed away, as digitized versions become more available. This is an important time to plan carefully for there is much at stake." He observed further that: "A library that would prefer to not be named was found to be thinning their collections and throwing out books based on what had been digitized by Google. While we understand the need to manage physical holdings, we believe this should be done thoughtfully and well."

In development since January 2009, the Internet Archive's first physical storage facility will be launched this month in Richmond, California (the image above depicts modified shipping containers that are utilized as environmentally controlled storage units). Further information on this initiative can be found in Kahle's blog post.

On a related note, the North Carolina History of Health Digital Collection is available online via the Internet Archive (The Common Curator was the principal investigator and project director for this grant-funded digitization project).

Gathering: Memoir of a Seed Saver

Diane Ott Whealy, co-founder of Seed Savers Exchange (SSE), has recently published Gathering: Memoir of a Seed Saver, which chronicles the history and development of the organization that now counts over 13,000 members worldwide. The book can be obtained from the SSE website or via Facebook.

Headquartered at Heritage Farm in Decorah, Iowa, Seed Savers Exchange is the premier organization devoted to the cultivation and preservation of the collective heirloom seed legacy in the United States. Supported by its members, SSE conserves and maintains heirloom seeds for thousands of vegetables, fruits, herbs, and flowers. Its mission is:

. . . to save North America's diverse, but endangered, garden heritage for future generations by building a network of people committed to collecting, conserving and sharing heirloom seeds and plants, while educating people about the value of genetic and cultural diversity.

SSE is open to visitors from April to October, and sponsors special events such as seed starting, grafting, and gardening workshops. It also hosts an annual conference and campout, which this year will take place July 15-17, 2011.

To learn more about Seed Savers Exchange, visit its website, and download its 2011 Catalog for this year's gardening. Below is a brief video of Diane Ott Whealy discussing her new book.

Where Is Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei?

Scarabocchio Art Museum Reopening

The Scarabocchio Art Museum (SAM), a joint venture of the University of Wisconsin--Stevens Point (UWSP) and the City of Stevens Point, is reopening May 31, 2011. Located in downtown Stevens Point, the gallery's reopening will coincide with the reception for Monoprint 2011: A Gathering of Artists, a weeklong workshop featuring 12 printmakers from the U.S. and abroad in residence at the University.

SAM was founded by Dr. David Smith, an emeritus faculty member in the Department of Art & Design at UWSP, and the reopening will have on display a retrospective of Smith's scarabocchio-style originals dating from 1973 to 2009. The Museum's current mission is to continue to serve as a venue for Smith's work, while providing opportunities for performing and fine arts activities and art-related education and programming through collaborative efforts. SAM hopes to provide a setting for events that enhance the cultural and intellectual growth of the community. The Curator of SAM is Brian Borchardt.

Note: Scarabocchio is Italian for scribble or doodle, and the term has been used by Professor Smith to describe his style of drawings, as shown in the image above, executed in 2009.

The Digital Public Library of America Announces "Beta Sprint"

The Steering Committee of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) has announced a Beta Sprint to solicit ideas, recommendations, models, and so forth to inform the development of a large-scale digital library. The DPLA planning initiative is the outgrowth of a meeting in October 2010 at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, where representatives from numerous constituencies convened to discuss the creation of a national digital library. John Palfrey, chair of the DPLA Steering Committee, has stated:

As the DPLA planning initiative moves forward, we are optimistic that the DPLA community and public can help us think about what a DPLA might look like, in practical – and perhaps unexpected – ways, as platform, architecture, interface, and beyond. We hope geeks and librarians, especially, will join forces to develop beta submissions in support of this initiative.

Statements of Interest for the Beta Sprint are due by June 15, 2011, with final submissions due September 1, 2011. The DPLA Secretariat is located at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and further information on the DPLA can be found on the Berkman Center web site. The DPLA also maintains a planning initiative wiki and a listserv for public discussion.

The University of Chicago Opens New High-Density Library

Designed to serve the needs of today's "hybrid culture" of print and digital resources, the University of Chicago on May 16, 2011 opened the new Joe and Rika Mansueto Library, which is centrally located on campus and houses a high-density underground storage system with the capacity to hold 3.5 million volume equivalents. Judith Nadler, Director of the University Library, observed that: "We believe that having materials close by enhances their use, and that storing them remotely will do the opposite. By not providing ready access to materials, we de facto reduce their value, and we impact research in ways we wouldn’t want.”

Designed by architect Helmut Jahn, the the library is topped by an elliptical, glass dome which encloses the library's Grand Reading Room and other above-ground facilities for research, digitization, and preservation initiatives. The library will be formally dedicated on October 11, 2011 after the initial transfer of library materials is completed. For additional information on Mansueto Library's construction and operation, visit the library's web site.

125th Anniversary of the Haymarket Affair

Aside from being the Society of American Archivist's MayDay: Saving Our Archives, May 1st is also International Workers' Day, and this year it commemorates the 125th anniversary of the Haymarket Affair in Chicago. The eight-hour workday was a central demand of the Chicago labor movement in the 1860s, and a week-long, city-wide strike began on May 1, 1867. The strike collapsed, but the issue remained, with the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in 1884 calling for workers to take direct action and begin observing the eight-hour day on May 1, 1886.

Numerous meetings, parades, and gatherings took place leading up to a strike on May 1, 1886. On May 3, two strikers were killed by police, which led to a protest meeting being called by anarchists at West Randolph Street Haymarket. The following day more violence ensued, when police moved to disperse another meeting and a bomb exploded. Many of the these events have been documented in the Haymarket Affair Digital Collection created by the Chicago History Museum. In addition to contextual essays, the collection provides access to trial documents, published materials, manuscripts, artifacts, broadsides, photographs and prints, and wood engravings depicting the events of Haymarket as recorded in the press.

The labor movement has long been fraught with controversy, and the eight-hour workday was not achieved until the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 was passed as part of the New Deal. The image above (Wikimedia Commons) depicts the Haymarket Martyrs' Monument, which was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1997. Erected in 1887 in Forest Park, Illinois, the inscription reads: "The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today."

MayDay: Saving Our Archives

Since 2006, the Society of American Archivists (SAA) has designated May 1st as MayDay, or a day of action for both individuals and organizations such as archives, libraries, museums, and historical societies to improve their capacities to deal with emergencies that can threaten or destroy historical collections. The ravages of recent tornadoes in Alabama and other states is just one example of the physical risks facing cultural heritage institutions.

Although the landmark study, A Public Trust at Risk: The Heritage Health Index Report on the State of America's Collections (2005), systematically documented that most institutions lack an adequate disaster preparedness plan, the SAA has worked to mitigate these deficiencies. The SAA web site provides recommendations for MayDay activities, as well as a compilation of resources, including technical literature and tools, disaster plan templates and examples, tutorials and courses, bibliographies, and other resources.

April Is the Coolest Month

It is fitting that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) announced during Poetry Month that Kenneth Price, professor at the University of Nebraska--Lincoln and co-editor of the Walt Whitman Archive, had conclusively identified nearly 3,000 documents as the work--at least in part--of Walt Whitman. Whitman lived in Washington, D.C. from 1863 to 1873, and was employed variously as a government clerk, copyist, and scribe in offices of the Army Paymaster, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Attorney General. The exact nature of Whitman's intellectual contributions to these documents will require further study and elaboration, but the documents nonetheless represent an important new archival facet in the life of one of America's greatest poets.

Further resources on Whitman are available at the Walt Whitman Archive, and at the Library of Congress, which has the largest Whitman archives in the world (a guide is available online). A portrait of Whitman as an older man, as well as a link to an online version of his Leaves of Grass (1855), can be found at an earlier Common Curator posting.

Celebrate Earth Day Every Day

Earth Day was first celebrated on April 22, 1970. Founded by former US Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in, Earth Day is now coordinated by Earth Day Network, with programming and events around the world. In 2009, the United Nations also declared April 22 to be International Mother Earth Day, an observance that "recognizes a collective responsibility, as called for in the 1992 Rio Declaration, to promote harmony with nature and the Earth to achieve a just balance among the economic, social and environmental needs of present and future generations of humanity."

One option for observing Earth Day is to become a member of Seed Savers Exchange, which supports a grassroots movement of gardeners working to insure a healthy food supply for future generations. A current special membership offer includes the following benefits:

:: A one-year (6 issue) subscription to Organic Gardening Magazine. Organic Gardening empowers readers to lead simpler, more efficient lives and to make positive connections with their world through their gardens (offer expires April 30th).

:: Members-only publications delivered right to your mailbox.

:: Access to the Seed Savers Exchange Yearbook, a directory of our community of nearly 700 members who save seeds and make them available to other members across the country.

:: A 10% discount on all purchases from the Seed Savers Exchange catalog and from the Lillian Goldman Visitors Center at Heritage Farm.

:: Reciprocal admissions with the American Horticultural Society to public gardens and arboretums across the country.

Of related interest is an earlier Common Curator posting featuring Seed Savers Exchange.

50th Anniversary of First Human Spaceflight

With the words "Let's go (Poyekhali)!" on the morning of April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin blasted off from the Baikonur launch site in a Vostok 1 spacecraft. During his brief 108-minute flight, Gagarin made one orbit around Earth, attaining a speed of over 27,000 kilometers per hour and an altitude of 327 kilometers, and thereby becoming the first human in space. (The first animal in space, incidentally, was the dog, Laika, launched by the Soviets on Sputnik 2 on November 3, 1957; unfortunately, Laika died during the mission).

Gagarin was 27 at the time of his momentous spaceflight, having been born on March 9, 1934. He had graduated from the Soviet Air Force Academy in 1957, and was chosen to train among the first group of Soviet cosmonauts. He never made a second space launch, and was killed while piloting a MIG15 jet during a training mission on March 27, 1968.

Note: The video here was produced by Roscosmos TV-Studio. Other Gargarin-related resources include the Russian Federal Space Agency (English version); YuriGagarin50.org (UK); and NASA (US).

National Library Week 2011

First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and libraries across the country each April. Bestselling author John Grisham is the Honorary Chair for this year, and is shown in the video above reminiscing about the importance of libraries and their place in his life.

Minnesota Center for Book Arts Prize 2011

The Minnesota Center for Book Arts Prize is the first honor in the United States to recognize book art from across the field and around the world. The MCBA Prize celebrates the diversity of book art and encourages discussion rather than limiting recognition to one aspect of this vital field.

A jury of three distinguished leaders in the field of book arts will review all submissions, and narrow the field to five finalists. These five works will appear on display at Minnesota Center for Book Arts during Book Art Biennial 2011. From these five works, the jury will select the recipient of this year's MCBA Prize.

Please review the MCBA Prize 2011 entry guidelines before submitting work through the online submission form. The deadline for submissions is April 8, 2011.

As the largest and most comprehensive center of its kind in the nation, Minnesota Center for Book Arts celebrates the book as a vibrant contemporary art form that takes many shapes. From the traditional crafts of papermaking, letterpress printing and bookbinding to non-traditional artmaking and self-publishing techniques, MCBA supports the limitless creative evolution of book arts. To learn more, visit the MCBA website.

The Origin of April Fool's Day

Though the definitive origin of April Fool's Day is doubtless unknowable, it has itself been the subject of an April Fool's Day hoax. According to the Museum of Hoaxes, which has an entertaining list of its Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes online, the Associated Press (AP) reported in 1983 that Boston University history professor, Joseph Boskin, had discovered that the holiday was first celebrated under the Roman Emperor Constantine. By Boskin's account, a court jester had asserted to the emperor that fools and jesters could rule the kingdom better than he, and therefore the emperor mandated that one day of the year would be reserved for them to prove their claim. The emperor appointed the jester Kugel to be the first ruler-for-a-day, and thus began the tradition of April Fool's Day. This story was widely republished, although Professor Boskin acknowledged it was bogus a few weeks later.

The short video above was posted to YouTube by Boston University on April 1, 2009, and features Professor Boskin briefly retelling his 1983 fabrication; the video annotation at the YouTube link provides additional background, including this observation from Fred Bayles, the AP reporter taken in by Boskin's initial story: "Be very, very wary of what someone, particularly someone talking about April Fools' Day, tells you. It also illustrates a professor's responsibility not to screw around with someone's career — and the integrity of a university."