This Saturday, June 4, the Aurora Hills Branch Library will once again take part in the Aurora Hills Senior Center’s Annual Trash and Treasure Sale, from 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
In addition to a wide selection of books, this year the Friends of the Library will also have over 500 classical music records for sale.
If you use the Library’s online catalog, you should notice some changes and improvements today:
And based on user feedback, we’ve switched to a streamlined two-column layout with more white space and an easier-to-read font.
Legendary voice Bob Edwards will discuss his pioneering work at NPR and Sirius XM Satellite Radio – plus look back on his friendship with sportscaster Red Barber and the legacy of Edward R. Murrow – when he appears June 14, 7 p.m., at Arlington Central Library Auditorium.
Edwards spent 30 years with National Public Radio, anchoring “All Things Considered” before waking up millions of listeners as the founding host of “Morning Edition” from 1979 to 2004. He took his thoughtful, well-researched approach to satellite audiences with the daily Bob Edwards Show and is now also heard back on public airwaves with the weekly Bob Edwards Weekend. His many awards include a Peabody and inclusion in the National Radio Hall of Fame.
Mr. Edwards revisited his weekly NPR chats with Barber in Fridays with Red: A Radio Friendship and tackled the roots of electronic newsgathering in Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism. He’ll publish his own memoir, “A Voice in the Box,” this fall.
A longtime Arlington County resident, Edwards is the featured speaker at this year’s Friends of the Arlington Public Library annual meeting. His remarks will begin after brief Friends business.
Refreshments will be served at this event and copies of “Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism” will be sold and available for signing at the end of the evening. For more information, call 703-228-6321.
Baseball became a part of my life on a cool evening in the late summer of 1960 at Griffith Stadium in a game between the New York Yankees and the Washington Senators. The Yankees won. And from that evening on, I was hooked on both baseball and the Yankees.
In the months before my 10th birthday in June 1964, my father smoked enough Phillies cigars to collect a Mickey Mantle Big Leaguer Rawlings baseball mitt for my birthday present. When I opened the box it arrived in, and saw it nestled there among tissue paper and a color, "autographed" photo of Number 7, I could not have been more thrilled.
Finally, my own glove to fit my hand--not a battered hand-me-down cast off by the neighbor boys. For the next several months, I lovingly seasoned it with a little Neatsfoot oil and scores of games of "hotbox" (aka pickle). By the following spring I was ready to be called up to the newly formed Arlington-Fairfax Savings and Loan softball team for pre-teen girls, one of a dozen or so teams that comprised Arlington’s Pigtail League (as differentiated from the Ponytail League for older girls), and administered by the Better Sports Club of Arlington, they of the "Better Sports Today, Better Citizens Tomorrow."
We were "coached" by a willing neighborhood mom, a sports naïf whose children were dragged to practices and left to whine "can we go home NOW?" from the bleachers while we tried to turn two and shag fly balls.
I played shortstop with a wicked side arm that more than once pulled our leggy first baseman off the bag. But when the 6-3 worked, it was sublime. (Hitting was another story. It was not for nothing that I earned the moniker "good field, no hit.")
Over several blissful weeks, on unforgiving elementary school ball fields and Barcroft fields under the lights, we scratched out a 3-10 record, playing less like New York’s baseball finest, the Yankees (locally, that honor fell to the Conklyn’s Florist team) and more like the hapless, expansion Mets. And I couldn’t have cared less. I was doing what I loved to do.
As another June rolls around (and another birthday, too), it's hard not to think of lessons learned both on and off those dusty fields of dreams. So here's to Mrs. Miller, Kay, Kim, Debbie, Barbara, Mimi, Baby Ruth, Janis, Nancy, Jane, Gayle, Carol, Ginny, Linda, and all the rest of the girls of summer who taught me teamwork, humility and how to take joy from a game well played regardless of the outcome.
Arlington Public Library has a terrific collection of DVDs and books that celebrate our national past time. Here are just a few of our favorites.
What are yours?
DVDs:
Books:
Beginning the first week of June 2011, Arlington County’s Department of Environmental Services will install solar panels on the roof of the Central Library to help reduce the facility’s “peak demand” energy usage, offset a portion of its electricity consumption, and ultimately save money.
The 60-kilowatts solar photovoltaic system will consist of 250 solar panels on the roof of the Central Library, in order to:
As part of Fresh AIRE (Arlington Initiative to Reduce Emissions), the new solar photovoltaic system will contribute to Arlington’s goal to reduce the County government greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent by 2012. Central Library is an ideal facility for a solar photovoltaic system, due to its large, flat roof that can easily collect sunlight, coupled with previous AIRE energy efficiency improvements.
This project is funded entirely by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, through the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) program administered by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Impact on Library Service:
Energy Improvements at Central Library
With one of the largest public library collections in Metro DC, Central Library runs the typical heating, cooling, ventilation (HVAC), lighting, and water heating equipment associated with a commercial building, as well as a robust public access computer center and office equipment for staff use.
A series of adjustments and retrofits to Central Library’s building systems over the last decade have:
For more information about the solar panel installation, please contact Viswanadhan Yallayi at 703-228-0755 in the Arlington County Department of Environmental Services.
For details about Fresh AIRE and Arlington’s efforts to improve energy efficiency in County facilities, please contact John Morrill at 703-228-4426. Or visit http://www.arlingtonva.us/ and search “central library solar panels.”
On Tuesday, May 17, the Arlington County Board honored the founders of ARPANet, which we now see as the beginning of the internet and the World Wide Web. As described on the County NewsRoom:
These scientists [who are being honored] worked, at the time, in Arlington, for ARPA — the Advanced Research Projects Agency. ARPA later became DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Their work has had a profound effect on how we work and how we conduct our private lives.
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| Library staff demonstrated the Internet for Senator Robb, Rep. Moran and County Board Vice Chairwoman Ellen Bozman in 1995 |
But did you know that Arlington Public Library was also at the forefront of implementing the internet in Arlington County? In August of 1995, with the help of a LibraryLINK grant, we installed our first internet terminals at Central – becoming the 3rd public library in Virginia to offer free Internet. According to Navigating the Internet at Arlington Central Library (pdf):
Arlington was one of eight libraries chosen to receive grants from MCI in the first year of their LibraryLINK community initiative to bring the information superhighway to “Main Street, USA.” Grant money was used to install two public and one reference Internet workstation at Central Library for one year.
And in 1997, Arlington County’s ‘new and improved’ website was launched (with explanation and help from Librarian Elizabeth Fry):
Union soldiers in Arlington wrote from geographic locations such as Arlington Heights and Hall’s Hill. While the forts in the defenses of Washington are well-documented and photographed, it can be difficult to find information on temporary camps and hospitals. State and local historical organizations help piece together the “puzzle” of a Civil War ancestor’s life after consulting on-line photographs and other sources available through the Library of Congress and National Archives and Records Administration.
For example, on December 31, 1861, Iselin Roberts of the 4th NY Cavalry wrote a letter to “My Dear Wife Nelly” from Camp Hunters Chapel. Information from the Arlington Historical Society website http://www.arlingtonhistoricalsociety.org and Arlington United Methodist Church historian Sara Collins locates this camp at Glebe Road and Columbia Pike, at the site of the Hunter’s Chapel Methodist Church. The Union Army established a camp and appropriated church building materials. Hunters Chapel’s successor, Arlington United Methodist Church, is two blocks away.
The New York State Museum and Veteran’s Research Center website has a regimental history of the 4th NY Cavalry’s service, including their journey to Fairfax Court House and onward to the First Battle of Bull Run/Manassas, and the writings of Gustavus Asche-Berg, “This Sorrowful War: A Veterinary Surgeon in the 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign.”
Another New York regiment stationed at Hunter’s Chapel, the 8th NY Infantry, also known as the German Rifles or Blenker’s Division, was made up of German immigrants. The aristocratic military veterans of European wars in Blenker’s Division impressed General-in-Chief George McClellan with their drilling practices and neat campsites. A book owned by Arlington Central Library, The Soldier’s Pen: Firsthand Impressions of the Civil War by Robert E. Bonner contains soldiers’ writings and drawings from the Gilder Lehrman Collection of New York City. A unique drawing of Camp Hunter’s Chapel and drawings of other Northern Virginia locations by Private Henry Berckhoff of the 8th NY German Rifles can be found in this book and in a virtual exhibit on the Digital History website of the University of Houston.
What about you?
Do you have a Civil War ancestor who came to Arlington? Do you know of documents or images of the Civil War in the Northern Virginia area? The Virginia Room wants to know.
Transcribed text of letter from Iselin Roberts to wife Nelly
My Dear Wife Nelly,
I wrote to you two days ago and I cannot help writing to you again. You will excuse the writing as my head aches so I can hardly see I have such a bad cold still I must have a few words with my Nelly. I received an nother Box yesterday from my Sisters and Brothers for Christmas and we had a jolly time over it I assure you for there was lots of good things in it. My Dear Nelly, I wrote to you on Sunday last the day that I received your letter and I am in hopes that I will hear from you soon again. I wish that you could write to me often as your letters do me so much good, and I like to hear from you so very much.
Dear Nelly, I did not say much in my last as I was in such a hurry but you can give my Best Respects and wish all of them a Happy New Years for me. I mean Mrs. Phillips, Mrs. Jenner, Mrs Simmons, Mrs. Richmond, Mrs. Clark, Mrs. Green, Mrs. Arnold and all inquiring friends, also Mr. Phillips, Mr. Jenner, Mr. Rodman, Dr. Crane, Dr. Baker and all of your friends. I hope there will be no trouble about the Furlough, they say that we will get paid the fifth of January. I hope we will as I want to try and bring the money home to you. I haven’t much to say at present, only I hope that my dear Nelly will have a good New Years.
Bibliography
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| Earnest E. Johnson with his wife Mignon (left) and an unknown friend in 1982 |
In 1949, Arlington established a formal Department of Recreation for the rapidly growing and developing county.
However, the classes, clubs and activities sponsored by the department mirrored the school system and were segregated.
In 1950, a formal “Negro Recreation Section” was created “with a special emphasis on sports.” Its director was Ernest E. Johnson, who was a central figure for African-Americans in Arlington who wished to participate in the Department’s programs.
Read more about Ernest E. Johnson and the eventual desegregation of the County’s Recreation Department on Our Back Pages.
The Arlington Public Library’s 2010 Arlington Reads program has been selected to receive an Outstanding Achievement in Local Government Innovation Award for 2011, from the Alliance for Innovation!
Innovation Awards are bestowed annually to programs that successfully and creatively address important public service dilemmas and positively impact their communities. The awards recognize Alliance members who have shown extraordinary commitment to bringing innovative ideas to life.
Arlington Reads 2010 examined our relationship with where our food comes from.
Our featured author was literary legend and Kentucky farmer Wendell Berry – author of The Memory of Old Jack – who made a rare appearance at the Central Library. We also hosted urban farmer Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City.
Arlington Reads 2010 also created our first (and ongoing) Library Vegetable Garden.
With the help of volunteers from Arlington Food Assistance Center, the Northern Virginia Master Gardeners and other enthusiastic folks from the Arlington community, our garden was such a success that it was even named a USDA People’s Garden.
Home to one of the earliest church congregations in Arlington County, the unique history of Walker Chapel is that of both change and tradition.
Located at the present address of 4102 North Glebe Road, the original Walker Chapel was built in 1871, six years after the end of the Civil War, and only a year after the end of Arlington County’s occupation by the Union Army.