It is the year 1948 in England at a benefit dinner, and a well-known writer has documented quite a bit of confidential information in his latest book.

Keeping the book from being published, and a secret from being revealed, is something that one dinner guest might just kill for.

The Independence County Library Friends Foundation will present its Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre Fundraiser at 6 p.m. Sept. 16 in The Loft of the Barnett Building in Batesville.

The nonprofit organization was started in February by Vanessa Adams, library director, as a way to get the community involved with the library.

Instead of forming a Friends of the Library and a foundation, I took Darla Inos advice, the director of the White County Regional Library System, and formed one nonprofit organization, as she has done successfully. The ICLFF raises money for the library through an ongoing book sale in the library, Adams said.

The dinner theatre will be the foundations first major fundraiser, she said, and proceeds from the event will go toward purchases for the new Independence County Library, scheduled to open next summer.

Adams said an original play written by Georgette Sims, Vicki Lowery and herself will be presented at the event and separated into four acts.

Drinks and appetizers, prepared by ICLFF members, will be served before the play, she said, then dinner will be served in three courses between each act.

After the third act, audience members will have the opportunity to guess who the murderer was.

Those who guess correctly will be placed into a drawing for a prize, she said.

Adams said a silent auction will also take place at the event, and winners will be announced after Act Four.

Auction items include jewelry, paintings, autographed books, a Boston Red Sox autographed baseball, a Kindle e-reader, a Yeti cooler and gift cards, she said.

Tickets are $35 and must be purchased by Sept. 8 to reserve a seat.

Tickets are available at the Independence County Library, Citizens Bank Main Branch and First Community Bank Main Branch in Batesville.

An autumn-themed dinner featuring smoked squash salad, maple and cherry glazed pork loin, glazed carrots, herb-potato puree and a fig and an almond tart for dessert will be served by The Field & The Fork Catering Company, she said.

Adams said the ICLFF is important to her because it provides a way for members of the community to give back.

Ive had many people say to me that our library gives them so much, they have wanted a way to give back. The ICLFF is doing that by raising awareness of our needs and raising funds for us, she said.

Five members currently serve on the ICLFF board, but Adams said she hopes to expand to ten members within the next couple of months.

We have about 80 members now. Dues are $25 per year, which gives the members voting rights and discounts on book sale purchases and discounts on ticket purchases to our events, she explained.

Mary Beth Frensley, member of the ICLFF board, said members of the organization hope to promote the library while looking forward to their new location on Main Street in the near future.

Assisting the library through fundraising events and activities that make Independence County a better place is the foundations main focus, she said.

I also enjoy the opportunity to meet new people who have either returned or relocated to Batesville. Batesville has become my home and my desire is to give back to our great town, she said.

Frensley said she is excited about attending the mystery dinner and trying to guess the murderer herself.

Adams said the play is set in England at a time when people were still raw from World War II.

Lord and Lady Tilney are having a benefit dinner at their country estate and their good friend Simon Peters, who is a well-known writer has asked that certain guests be invited to the dinner. Hes written a tell-all book about certain members of society who have some secrets they dont wish to be revealed. All the guests are aware hes written a book, and they are nervous about it being published, she said.

How far are they willing to go to keep the book from being released?

Staff writer Kayla Baugh can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or kbaugh@arkansasonline.com.

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Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre to support library - Arkansas Online

If you've seen the hit musical Hamilton or even if you've only heard about it you might want to know more about the founding father who was the United States' first Secretary of the Treasury. And if so, the Library of Congress just made it easier to go right to the source.

Before, if you wanted to see for example Alexander Hamilton's letters to his wife, you had to travel to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and even then, you'd have to view them on microfilm. Now, Julie Miller, the library's curator of early American manuscripts, says the collection has been digitized. "The web site is meant to open these up to a much broader public," she tells me and given the increased interest in Hamilton, the timing is no accident.

Miller says the musical's enormous popularity motivated the library to make approximately 12,000 Hamilton documents available on the Internet. At a briefing, Miller and members of the library's digital team lay out some of the original documents underneath a screen displaying the new website

"We're going to start with something very, very early," Miller says. "This is actually a famous letter." In the letter, written when Hamilton was 12 years old, he expresses his desire for what he calls a larger life. "He has fantastically good handwriting," she says, "because he was a clerk in a trader's office on the docks in St. Croix, and part of being a clerk was learning how to write like that."

Hamilton signs off with a youthful flourish, a signature that ends in a series of curlicues. Bill Kellum, of the library's web division, says it's that kind of detail that makes the digital collection so fascinating. "When you take the papers or the archives of a person and put them online, you get to see all of the things that are not famous, whether it's their receipts, or their letters, or it's correspondence that previous experts have thought unimportant, you get to see those ... it really kind of humanizes a person."

One of the most moving documents in the collection is a letter written by Hamilton to his wife Eliza, the night before his duel with Aaron Burr. Miller reads a bit of it for me: "It says, 'This letter will not be delivered to you unless I shall first have terminated my earthly career' ... And then he says, 'With my last idea, I shall cherish the sweet hope of meeting you in a better world.' And I think this is what people know from the play: 'Adieu, best of wives and best of women, embrace all my darling children for me.' And that was the end of Alexander Hamilton."

You can now see that letter and thousands of other documents from the Hamilton collection on the Library of Congress web site.

This story was produced and edited for radio by Tom Cole and Andrew Limbong. Petra Mayer adapted it for the web.

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Alexander Hamilton's Papers Now Online At The Library Of ... - NPR - NPR

Fans of author Jane Austen have celebrations planned in England and North American in 2017, the 200th anniversary of her death. The Bank of England is even printing a 20 pound note with her picture on it.

In the last century, many other authors have been inspired by her characters and her themes.

Some biographies about Jane Austen and books that have been inspired by her work are:

Jane Austen at Home: A biography, by Lucy Worsley. This biography focuses on the homes that Jane Austen lived, studied, worked and visited in during her short life from 1775-1817. Her writings and her possessions are tied to these locations.

The Jane Austen Project, by Kathleen Flynn. In this novel, two researchers from the future are sent back in time to London, 1815, in order to retrieve an unpublished Jane Austen manuscript and determine the illness that killed Jane Austen two years later. While doing this, they must not change the past.

Emma: A modern retelling, by Alexander McCall Smith. In this retelling, heroine Emma Woodhouse is a recent university graduate who has come home to Hartfield as an interior designer. She finds her father obsessed with germs, and her governess spending her time online. Hartfield needs her help.

First Impressions: A novel of old books, unexpected love, and Jane Austen, by Charlie Lovett. In this novel, a recent graduate of Oxford, Sophie Collingwood, is working in an antique bookstore. A customers request for a rare book leads Sopphie into a deeper mystery of whether Jane Austen plagiarized Pride and Prejudice. Alternating chapters follow the young Jane Austen as she writes her first novel with the supportive friendship of the older clergyman Richard Mansfield.

Jane and the Waterloo Map: Being a Jane Austen mystery, by Stephanie Barron. In this 13th mystery in the Jane Austen mystery series, Jane is in London in 1815 nursing her ill brother Henry. In a rare opportunity to visit the prince regents library, Jane stumbles across a dying war veteran who mentions the words Waterloo Map to her. With the help of a spy, she solves the mystery of the killer and the importance of the map.

Learn to Play Bridge: 6:30-7:45 p.m., Thursdays, Sept. 7, 14, 21, 28. Registration required. The classes provide basic instruction in the card game bridge. Sponsored by the Friends of the Chaska Library.

Tails for Reading: 10:30-noon Saturday, Sept. 9. Preschool and school-age children are welcome to read books out loud to therapy dogs to encourage confidence in reading. Presented by North Star Therapy Animals. Children read for a 15-minute session on a first come, first served basis.

Mail Fraud, Postal Scams, and Identity Theft: 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 7. Learn how to prevent becoming a victim of mail fraud and identity theft. U.S. Postal Inspector Jeff Long will discuss mail and types of e-mail that should cause you concern. Registration required.

Teen Advisory Board: 6:30-7:30 p.m., Monday, Sept. 11. Ages 13-18. Join other teens to help plan programs, activities, and volunteer as Teen Advisors. Discuss new books and have some snacks. Bring a friend if you wish.

Club Book author talk by P.J. Tracy is 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 14. P.J. Tracy is the pseudonym for Traci Lambrecht. She co-wrote with her mother the internationally bestselling Monkeewrench mystery novels. The most recent book in the series is Nothing Stays Buried.

Writers Group: 10 a.m.-noon Saturday, Sept. 16. Join other aspiring writers for support and advice.

Free Online Classroom: 6-8 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 14. Register. This workshop will provide participants with an overview of popular free online learning platforms. Come explore the endless opportunities for online learning.

Storytimes at Carver County Libraries resume the week of Sept. 11.

Kathy Bognanni is the branch manager of the Chanhassen Library and the Victoria Library, Carver County Library. She can be reached at kbognanni@co.carver.mn.us

See the article here:
Library: Celebrating Jane Austen - SW News Media

The British Library Releases 570 Pages of Leonardo da Vinci's Manuscripts Online

A collaboration between theBritish LibraryandMicrosoft, titledTurning the Pages 2.0,made 570 pages ofLeonardo da Vinci's'Codex Arundelavailable for free online. Now anyone can navigate the writings of one of the most inventive minds of the Renaissance. In the hundreds of digitized pages are ideas for airplanes, helicopters, parachutes, submarines and automobiles, centuries before they were developed and brought to the world.

During his lifetime, part of his ideas and reflections were recorded in his notebooks. Some of these manuscripts have been lost over the centuries, and those that remain have become rare objects accessed only by a select group of collectors and historians - until now.

Painter, sculptor, architect, mathematician, engineer, botanist, historian, musician... it seems thatLeonardo da Vinci'slist of aptitudes is truly universal - and perhaps that is precisely why he is one of the most famous artists in the world, inside and outside the art circles.

The process of digitization began in 2007 today it is possible to "turn" the pages of the da Vinci's manuscript as if it were a real book, including notes from the British Library.

Browse the texts and drawings of Leonardo da Vinci's manuscriptshere, and to know more about the life and work of the inventor, seehere.

Source:Openculture

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The British Library Releases 570 Pages of Leonardo da Vinci's Manuscripts Online - ArchDaily

Posted: Aug. 22, 2017 9:20 am

I think The Herald-Whig's online newspaper archive at the Quincy Public Library is fantastic. It's very easy to search, but it only goes up to a certain date. When will the next portion of the newspaper be scanned and put online?

The Quincy Public Library digital newspaper archive contains newspapers from 1835 through May 1926. The library and newspaper continue to work with the state of Illinois, federal agencies and other sources to secure additional grant funding to expand the digital archive, and will do so once that funding becomes available.

"It's a very expensive process, so we look for grants and accept donations to support it," said Nancy Dolan, library executive director.

The digital archives was introduced in 2003 with the first phase covering 1835 through 1890. It was funded by a $150,000 Library Services and Technology Act grant. In 2005, the library received $200,000 in federal funding to expand the archive for newspapers from 1890 to 1919.

The library was able to digitize newspapers through May 1926 in 2015 for about $100,000 through a special project budget.

Newspaper editions up to the present day are available on microfilm in the library's Illinois Room. There are two digital microfilm scanners that allow patrons to make digital copies of pages and articles.

How can my question be answered? Just ask. We'll quiz community leaders, business officials, historians, educators -- whoever can tell us what you want to know. Submit questions to answers@whig.com or mail them to Answers, The Herald-Whig, P.O. Box 909, Quincy, IL 62306. Provide a name and phone number so we can respond or clarify information. Questions dealing with personal or legal disputes will not be accepted.

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When will online newspaper archive at Quincy library be expanded? - Herald-Whig

Brownsville Free Public Library, 100 Seneca St., will celebrate its 90-year history of continuous operation with an Anniversary Gala Sept. 1, featuring a daytime birthday party for young patrons and a wine and spirits tasting in the evening for the 21-and-older crowd.

The birthday party will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. There will be games, crafts and a birthday cake. The childrens party is free.

The adults-only gala will be held from 6 to 10 p.m., with Seneca Street being closed to vehicular traffic and decked out for the affair. The gala will include hors doeuvres, a silent auction and tastings from Red Pump Distilleries and Winslow Winery.

Advance tickets for the 90th Anniversary Gala are $20 per person. Admission at the door will be $25. Ticket price includes hors doeuvres and tastings. Call the library at 724-785-7272 for tickets and additional information.

Brownsville Free Public Library was built in 1927 by prominent businessman Charles L. Snowdon, a banker by profession, community leader and benefactor. Three chapters, including details about its ornate facade, are dedicated to the library in Volume Two of the Looking Back: The Best of Glenn Tunney series.

Snowdon picked up the tab to build the library and subsequently leased it to Brownsville Borough for $1 per year. It was his way of thanking the citizenry for its many years of supporting his businesses, Tunney wrote.

The librarys open house was Sept. 1, 1927. The first librarian, Anna Shutterly, served from Oct. 1, 1927, until Feb. 11, 1943, when she died at age 79. Within the first year, she had stocked the shelves with 4,800 books, and 50,450 books were circulated among 2,550 cardholders.

Shutterly, who spent 40 years building and overseeing the California State Normal School library, was known for her resourcefulness and determination in keeping Brownsvilles library going strong even during the Great Depression.

Although many small towns are facing the loss of their local libraries, Brownsvilles continues to flourish. Library cards remain free to the public, and the collection now tops 17,000 items, including more than 600 DVDs, free computer time for cardholders and access to a vast online library network, classes and research materials.

In addition to the borough, the library services residents of Newell Borough and Brownsville, Franklin, Jefferson and Luzerne townships.

See original here:
Brownsville library celebrating 90th year - Observer-Reporter

Magazines may not be as popular as they once were since the heyday of Time, Newsweek, Life and Look, but they are still an attraction to many library users. The library subscribes to around 100 magazines, as well as 100 online on our Zinio platform.

Although, readers can find the expected magazines, such as People, Time, and Sports Illustrated in the librarys physical collection, you can also browse through some more specialized titles, such as West Virginia Game & Fish as well as JazzTimes and Discover.

If you are interested in crafts and hobbies, there is Popular Photography, Threads, American Patchwork & Quilting, Family Handyman, Organic Life, Popular Mechanics, and This Old House. If you are an amateur cook or an expert, try Everyday with Rachel Ray, Taste of Home, Fine Cooking and Food Magazine.

History buffs can sample American History, Appalachian Heritage, Archaeology, Goldenseal, and Smithsonian. For those keeping up with the national scene, try Time, New York, the Nation, National Review, Atlantic, and Rolling Stone, The entertainment crowd can vicariously enjoy the celebrity world with People, Billboard, Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly, and Town and Country.

Weightwatchers, Dogster, Catster, Health, Runner, Utne, Pittsburgh, Astronomy, Southern Living, Vogue, Prevention, Country Living, Popular Science and Wonderful West Virginia are just a few more of the titles.

The library does not circulate the current issues of magazines; you need to read them in the library, but older issues can be checked out just like books.

The online collection is very similar. You can access it through the City of Bridgeports website, click on digital services and then on rbdigital. You need to sign in once with your library card, and then you can download magazines to your PC or personal devices. Instructions on how to do it are available on the site.

The online collection duplicates some of the in-house magazines, but there are quite a few of exclusive titles, such as The Economist, Us Weekly, The Week Magazine, In Touch Weekly, Newsweek, Cooking with Paula Deen, PC Magazine, OK, Womans World, Empire, Apple magazine, Backpacker, Diabetic Living, Eating Well, FamilyFun, Knits, Motor Trend, Oxygen and Star Magazine.

One of the advantages of the online collection is that you dont accumulate stacks of old magazines, but once you download these issues they are yours until you delete them.

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Variety of magazines available through Bridgeport library - The Exponent Telegram (press release) (registration)

Before Google, if you wanted to find out about a person, you had to go to a library to pore through newspaper archives and public records. Now a newly-proposed U.K. law may force researchers back to the bookshelves - or at least to the British Library's website. New plans from the British government will make it easier for people to delete embarrassing or erroneous information about themselves online. U.K. Digital Minister Matt Hancock said in early August the government would introduce new privacy legislation that would expand "the right to be forgotten," beyond just search engine results to any personal data held by a third party - from social media sites such as Facebook Inc. to forums run by video game companies, like Germany's Bigpoint GmbH, which produces massively multiplayer online game Battlestar Galactica.

The law will bring the U.K. in line with the European Union's existing General Data Protection Regulation, which takes effect in May 2018. But the new privacy rules contain exceptions for some official information, including medical records collected by the National Health Service. Also exempt are the internet archives maintained by the British Library, which by law is required to collect a copy of all published material in the U.K. Since 2013, the Library has also been required to archive the entire U.K. web domain once per year.

The new legislation will make it far easier for people to expunge unwanted information, meaning archives such as the British Library - home to over 150 million books, manuscripts, and maps - may have a more accurate record of online activity than Google, and will be of increasing importance for those looking to trace employment histories or undertake corporate due diligence.

U.K. law already recognizes a "right to be forgotten" but it has applied primarily to search engine results, such as those generated by Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Microsoft Corp.'s Bing, and people have generally had to prove that the information they wish to remove has caused damage or distress.

Instead of individuals having to prove damage or distress, material will now be removed on request unless private companies can prove a compelling public interest in keeping it up, said Max Campbell, a privacy lawyer at Brett Wilson Solicitors in London.

In cases where the content was originally generated by the person requesting its removal - such as an old blog entry or a post on someone's social media page that the person now finds embarrassing or misleading - "it will be much more cut and dry for you to withdraw your consent for data processing and have that data be deleted," Campbell said. "You don't have to show that it is causing you substantial distress or damage, or indeed, even any. It is your data and you have the right to say you don't want it there."

The British Library said in a statement that it was "pleased" the government intends to exempt archiving that is done in the public interest and for scientific, historical research or statistical purposes. "This would apply to all of the British Library's archiving activity, including the UK Web Archive," the statement said.The Library noted, however, that the government has not provided details of exactly how the exemption will be applied in practice. "We are in ongoing dialogue with the Data Protection Bill team to ensure that possible risks to the activities of the British Library and similar institutions can be appropriately managed," it said.

The Library previously made it clear that it would not follow European regulations to allow people to remove traces of past events of their life from its records.

The most common reasons people want something removed from the internet is because it is erroneous, said Yair Cohen, a lawyer at London's Cohen Davis Solicitors, who specialize in media and privacy cases. But he also said people with old criminal convictions or who simply find some material about their younger selves embarrassing or misleading may wish to have that material removed.Campbell said the U.K. data regulator is broadly sympathetic to removals from search engines, but that in cases of criminal convictions, especially for serious offenses, they will usually conclude there is an overriding public interest in keeping the material up. This is particularly true, he said, in cases involving misconduct or fraud in regulated professions, such as medicine, law, or accounting.

The exemption of these archives probably wouldn't cause any concern for those wishing to expunge unwanted data, who tend to care most about search engine results, Campbell said. "In an ideal world, people would want to delete every trace of their past," he said. "But practically speaking, having something still available on a newspaper website or library archive won't cause that much concern. What people generally are worried about is going for a job interview or a first date with someone and someone puts their name into Google via their phone and the first thing that pops up is something negative."In 2014, when Google first announced it would comply with the European Court of Justice ruling that established "the right to be forgotten," privacy advocates worried the company would try to get around the rules by inserting a note into search results highlighting the fact that it had removed the link and possibly even directing searchers to archives like the Wayback Machine. In the end, the company decided not to include such notations.

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Kahn is based in London.

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You can be forgotten online, but not in the British Library - Laredo ... - Laredo Morning Times

The Cooke County Library is joining with the American Library Association and libraries nationwide for Library Card Sign-up Month in September.

Library Card Sign-up Month is an initiative to make sure that every student has a free library card.

As of 2010, childrens programs accounted for nearly two-thirds of library programming in the United States, with more than 2.3 million childrens programs nationwide. Older students also access high-speed Internet and digital tools, as well as working with trained professionals on how best to use these resources.

Close to 90 percent of libraries offer digital literacy training to help students of all ages navigate.

Resources at the Cooke County Library are available to anyone with a library card. Students can turn to the library for materials, programs and knowledgeable library staff that support academic achievement.

Throughout the school year, the library staff will assist parents and caregivers with saving on educational resources and services for students. From free access to STEAM programs and activities, educational apps, virtual homework help, a library card is one of the most cost effective back to school supplies available.

Our library provides access and programs for students of all ages, said library director Jennifer Johnson-Spence. For preschool-age children, we offer early literacy resources and classes to encourage school readiness; for older children and teens, we supplement education with multidisciplinary programs; and for nontraditional students, we have GED resources. Theres really something for everyone, and its all free with a library card.

For more information on how to sign up for a library card, visit the Cooke County Library in person or visit the library online at http://www.cookecountylibrary.org.

More here:
Cooke County Library marks Library Card Sign-up month - Gainesville Daily Register

There are multiple versions of each test, which vary from 20 to 150 questions long, with questions that are similar or often identical to the real DMV test. The practice tests offer hints, detailed explanations and immediate feedback, along with questions about fines, limits, regulations, road signs and citations.

No library card number or personal information is needed. This resource also is great for anyone looking to brush up on his or her knowledge of Pennsylvanias traffic laws. A helpful FAQ section addresses questions residents might have about visiting their local DMV, such as how to renew your PA license, those who are new to PA, and documents need to apply for a PA license.

This free service supports the statewide information literacy initiative of PA Forward, which helps citizens know how to use online resources and current technology to improve their education and fully participate in a digital society.

The James V. Brown Library is open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday; noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; and 24/7 at http://www.jvbrown.edu.

The rest is here:
Library offers free online PA driving practice tests - NorthcentralPa.com