On Tuesday, April 17, Arlington County will be performing repairs to Central Library’s parking garage gate.
The work will begin at 6 a.m., and should end around noon. During this time, the parking garage will not be accessible to vehicle traffic.
We apologize for this inconvenience, and encourage Library visitors to explore alternate transportation options on Tuesday morning if possible.
Date: Wednesday, April 18
Time: 7 – 9 p.m.
Location: Central Library Auditorium
In “Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity,” investigative journalist Katherine Boo exposes readers to the human stories behind the present-day volatility of global economic change and inequality.
Boo’s book describes Annawadi, a slum of Mumbai, India, where she follows the interconnected lives of several residents, including a young trash picker, a female slumlord and a college student. All three face daily struggles ranging from corruption, hunger, disease, dirt, ethnic strife and violence while striving toward a better life.
Boo has documented the lives of people from disadvantaged communities over the past two decades and has won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and the National Book Award.
The 2018 Arlington Reads series features an investigative journalist, a Princeton sociologist turned urban ethnographer and a leading authority on housing policy — each telling stories of people’s hopes, dreams and losses in the imminent face of eviction, segregation and inhumane living conditions.
Arlington Reads continues this spring:
After World War II, developers transformed much of Arlington County’s open land into urban neighborhoods, destroying open meadows, forests, and other natural areas. By the mid-1960s, Dr. Phoebe Hall Knipling, Science Supervisor at Arlington Public Schools (and the first person to hold such a position in Virginia), encountered a major challenge to developing the district's science curriculum: her students’ lack of hands-on experiences with nature and wildlife.
Beginning in the 1950s, Dr. Knipling worked hard to create a more engaging, participatory science curriculum. She started the school system’s annual science fair, a relatively new educational exercise at the time, and ran a summer science program to take students on excursions through natural areas outside the metropolitan area. But Dr. Knipling found it increasingly difficult to locate natural, relatively untouched areas close to Arlington for these field trips.
Dr. Knipling spent three years searching for an undisturbed area to reserve as an outdoor laboratory exclusively for Arlington County students to observe the forces of nature at work.
You can read more about Dr. Knipling and the Outdoor Lab, and view related archival material including additional photos, in the Center for Local History's online exhibit Women's Work: Stories of Persistence and Influence.
From a bombed out Madrid during the Spanish Civil War to Omaha Beach on D-Day, Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemmingway fell in and out of love. In the years between, they buy a house in Cuba and write their novels and cover multiple wars across the globe. Gellhorn tries to balance her own career outside of Hemmingway’s shadow with being his wife.
While perfect for fans of McLain’s "The Paris Wife," "Love and Ruin" fully stands on its own. An absorbing and well-placed novel that bounces between the horrors of war and idles of Cuba, from terrible ocean journeys to drinks with Gary Cooper in Sun Valley, this is bound to create legions of new fans for a woman who became one of the 20th century’s most significant war correspondents.
Reviewed for you by Jennie R., Materials Management Librarian.
Win a Book Wednesdays will take place at least once a month. Prize books are Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) of books that will be added to the Library collection within the next month, and can already be found in the Library catalog as "on order."
ARCs are uncorrected proofs given to the Library for review purposes only, and are not for sale.
The Friends of the Arlington Public Library hold a massive used book sale each spring and fall in the Central Library parking garage.
The sale includes thousands of books for all ages and interests, magazines, DVDs, CDs and LPs, games and puzzles. Visa, MasterCard, checks and cash are accepted.
Thursday is Members Only night (Friends memberships are available at the door), and on Sunday all merchandise is half price.
Learn more on the Library calendar.
On exhibit at Central Library Youth Services Area, April 4-15, 2018.
"Encrypted Art" by Herlinda H.
Each year, Arlington County holds a student art contest to choose the next Arlington County Vehicle Decal. As part of this contest, students are challenged to create artwork that features the location that best represents the “Spirit of Arlington” to them. This year nine students chose to honor the Library by selecting one of our branches to represent this spirit.
“Reflections from the Front Window” features the artwork of nine Arlington students: Cesar C. R., Herlinda H., Grace H., Margaret L., Jack P., Elizabeth P., Claire R., Halina S. and Teodosia Z.
Art is an expression of an artist’s individual style, interests and values. We are gratified that these students selected their local library, elated by the value they see in it, and excited and honored to exhibit their artwork.
As we conclude Women’s History Month, join us to celebrate Arlington women who make history every day in the operation of local businesses and non-profits.
The “Women Making History” Small Business Fair will feature representatives of Arlington County-based businesses showcasing and demonstrating their products and services. The event will feature a keynote speech by Karen Bate of Awesome Women Entrepreneurs.
RSVP for an event reminder; attendance is on a first-come, first-served basis.
Presented in partnership by Arlington Public Library and Arlington Economic Development’s BizLaunch.
All Arlington County facilities and Arlington Public Schools are closed on Wednesday, March 21.
Any physical items that were previously due back to the Library on March 21 are now due Thursday, March 22.
Many years ago, I was attending a party for Charlie, a work colleague who was retiring. It came time to cut the cake and he turned to me - one of the few women in the room - and asked me to do it, adding that it was “women’s work, anyway.”
At the time, I was the assistant division chief responsible for a couple of hundred employees. But to him, I was a woman and he was not, and there were tasks - cake cutting among them - that it was my “job” to do.
Rather than demur, I did as I was asked, and yet never forgot the experience.
Today (with a bit of tongue in cheek) and in honor of Women’s History month, Arlington Public Library launches a new digital exhibition:
The collection profiles the women who made Arlington the community it is today. Entrepreneurs, activists, educators, politicians, and homemakers, the women of Arlington helped found Arlington’s first hospital, fought to integrate the school system, and established the Black Heritage museum. Even the public library system we enjoy today, a vibrant system comprised of a Central library and seven branches, exists because of the largesse of citizen bequests and the vision and hard work of leaders of Arlington women’s civic and garden clubs who understood only too well that knowledge is a core service. Several years ago, sociologist Robert Putnam warned in “Bowling Alone” that civic engagement was dying and with it the life and hope of communities. But Putnam doesn’t know Arlington’s residents, particularly its women.
As the exhibit unfolds over the upcoming year, through photographs, personal papers, and oral histories, you will find the story of Dr. Phoebe Hall Knipling, science teacher and founder of the Arlington Outdoor Education Association and its 225-acre Lab in Fauquier County, where Arlington students can experience nature and learn how to protect the environment. And Elizabeth Campbell, board member for Arlington Public Schools and founder of WETA-TV, the first public television station in Washington, D.C. And entrepreneur Margarite Reed Syphax, who began a real estate and construction business with her husband William, and who was one of the first black business women to be designated a Certified Property Manager.
This first release presents several stories and over the next year, we will continue to add more. But this collection will never be complete because a “woman’s work is never done.”
Diane
If you know of an Arlington woman who should be included in this exhibition or if you possess artifacts or other source materials of Arlington women that you would like to donate to the community archive, please contact the staff of the Center for Local History.
