This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,753) on Friday, January 6, 2023. Some people blanche at the word “resolution” especially at this time of year. They believe, often rightly, that New Year’s resolutions are meaningless if not harmful because they raise expectations and often result in frustration. I don’t really subscribe • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,234) on Friday, May 13, 2022. Like millions of others in the 1990s and beyond, I was caught up in the television depictions of “crime scene investigation” and the way in which “forensic science” is used to convict people accused of crimes. Calling something a • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,266) on Friday, November 5, 2021. We didn’t always wear the best clothes or live in the finest houses, but those of us who were lucky enough to receive musical training when we were young were the rich kids in school. We had something special, • Read More »
We’re coming up on the annual Banned Books Week, a celebration of intellectual freedom sponsored by the American Library Association. This year’s theme is Keep the Light On. If your local library is having an event, be supportive and take part. If not and you have other means of promoting this idea (a website or • Read More »
After my rant last week about the funding proposals from the county government for our local library, one of my very good newsletter readers and faithful correspondents (Frank C.) sent me these provocative questions. They were challenging enough that I thought I should share them with you to see if you had any reactions. Does • Read More »
Note: This is the first entry in a series about Robin Hood If you had asked me, as a boy growing up in the 1950s and 60s, to name some of the kings and queens of England, I probably could have come up with two. One was Elizabeth II, the then current queen (she still is) • Read More »
No name is more associated with public libraries than that of Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie has his name on a lot of things, to be sure — Carnegie Hall and Carnegie-Mellon University, to name a couple — but for most of the 20th century, America and a good part of the world paired the name Carnegie with • Read More »