Tag Archives: Library of Congress

Seen at ALA Annual 2017: Two ALA presidents and the Nittany Lion

two African-American professional women holding vertical poster composed of hundreds of digitzed images from Penn State University Libraires' special collections, forming a composite image of Penn State's Nittany Lion Shrine stone sculpture. Poster is signed in silver ink by many Penn State Libraries employees.

Courtney Young, head librarian at Penn State University Libraries’ Kelly Library and professor of women’s studies at Penn State Greater Allegheny, as well as the 2014-2015 president of the American Library Association (ALA), presented a Penn State Libraries-employee-signed Nittany Lion Shrine composite-image poster to the current Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, at the 2017 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago (June 22-27). Hayden also was ALA president, during the 2003-2004 year.

On Sunday, June 25, Hayden received ALA’s 2017 Melvil Dewey Medal, in recognition of “creative leadership of high order, particularly in those fields in which Melvil Dewey was actively interested: library management, library training, cataloging and classification, and the tools and techniques of librarianship.” 

The Nittany Lion Shrine poster is composed of more than 750 digitized images representing several artifacts from among the University Libraries’ Special Collections. According to Young, Hayden loves it!

Pa. Center for the Book honors 2017 Letters About Literature contest winners

three girls wearing colorful outfits standing in front of a shrub with pink flowers

The Pennsylvania winners of the 2017 Letters About Literature Contest are, from left to right, Level II (grades seven to eight) winner Madison Kelleher, of Montoursville; Level III (grades nine to 12) winner Hailey Cross, of Scottdale; and Level I (grades four to six) winner Lydia Floreck, of Gettysburg.

The Pennsylvania Center for the Book recently recognized the Pennsylvania winners of the 2017 Letters About Literature Contest. A nationwide event sponsored by the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress, the contest invites students in three grade levels to write letters to authors — living or dead — about how an author’s words affected them or changed their worldview.

The Level I (grades four to six) winner, Lydia Floreck, of Gettysburg, was honored for her letter to Susan Cain about “Quiet Power.” The Level II (grades seven to eight) winner, Madison A. Kelleher, of Montoursville, wrote her letter to Robert Munsch about “Love You Forever.” And the Level III (grades nine to 12) winner, Hailey Cross, of Scottdale, was honored for her letter to James Hurst about “Scarlet Ibis.”

Winners receive $200 and were honored at a celebratory luncheon with their families on Saturday, May 20, at the Nittany Lion Inn on Penn State’s University Park campus.

The full Penn State News article may be read online.

For more information about the Letters About Literature Contest in Pennsylvania, contact editor Nicole Miyashiro at nmm16@psu.edu, or visit the Pennsylvania Center for the Book website at www.pabook.libraries.psu.edu.

Pennsylvania Center for the Book selects book for 2017 Route One Reads initiative

For the third consecutive year, the Pennsylvania Center for the Book will participate in the Route One Reads initiative, a program under the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. In 2017, the theme of the initiative will be memoirs and biographies, and the selected book to represent Pennsylvania is “The Life and Times of Mary Vaux Walcott” by Marjorie G. Jones (Schiffer).

Jones chronicles the life of Mary Vaux Walcott using letters, journal entries, newspaper reports, illustrations and photographs. She tells the story of Walcott, a Philadelphia Quaker (1860-1940), whose life as an avid explorer, glaciologist, early photographer, Indian commissioner and renowned illustrator of North American wildflowers illuminates the worldview of intrepid women of her era.

“Walcott was quite an explorer and trailblazer for her time,” Caroline Wermuth, Pennsylvania Center for the Book outreach coordinator, said. “It’s a great read for women’s history.”

The diverse reading list created by Route One Reads highlights each individual State Center for the Book while celebrating the East Coast as a whole. By participating in Route One Reads, readers can travel across 15 states and the District of Columbia without taking a single footstep, or load selected books into the car for a literary road trip. The full list of featured books for the 2017 Route One Reads initiative is available along with a map of participating states at: Route1Reads.org . Visit pabook.libraries.psu.edu/route1reads for Pennsylvania’s book.

Route One Reads is a partnership between the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress and its affiliates in: Connecticut; Delaware; Florida; Georgia; Maine; Maryland; Massachusetts; New Hampshire; New Jersey; New York; North Carolina; Pennsylvania; Rhode Island; South Carolina; Virginia; and, Washington, D.C. Connecting the 2,369 miles of U.S. Route 1 from Ft. Kent, Maine, to Key West, Florida, the Route One Reads initiative is a partnership between 16 affiliate Centers for the Book to promote books that illuminate important aspects of their states or commonwealths for readers traveling the major and meandering highway. The initiative was launched at the 2015 National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. For more information, visit Route1Reads.org or follow #Route1Reads on Twitter.

The Pennsylvania Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress (LINK: Read.gov), encourages Pennsylvania’s citizens and residents to study, honor, celebrate and promote books, reading, libraries and literacy. In addition to the Route One Reads initiative, it also administers the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize , the Public Poetry Project, Letters about LiteratureA Baker’s Dozen: The Best Children’s Books for Family Literacy; and the interactive Literary & Cultural Heritage Map of Pennsylvania.

For more information about Route One Reads for other initiatives of the Pennsylvania Center for the Book, contact Nicole Miyashiro at nmm16@psu.edu.