Posts from the General Research Division

As the year is coming to an end, many of us are already planning for new and exciting changes in the upcoming year. Some people may consider different vacation spots, career changes or even returning to school. If you are part of the group interested in going to graduate school, we can help!

Did you know that some of your favorite dishes from a Chinese take out restaurant have interesting stories behind them? The origin of their names, the ingredients used and how they were conceived and transformed in America all make fascinating tales in food history.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, or does it? If you come to the South Court Auditorium of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at 42nd Street this Thursday at 1:15 p.m. (whew!) you might find a clue. The first lecture of the year by the writers of the Wertheim Study and Allen Room will be given by John R. Bohrer, a cool guy and journalist often writing for Slate, Huffington Post, Esquire, etc. He's currently writing a book in the Allen Room about Robert Kennedy.

The 2012 Summer Olympics, officially called The Games of the XXX Olympiad kicks off on July 27th in London, United Kingdom!

For about two weeks, the world will be watching their top athletes compete for medals of honor in a multi-sport event.  These sports range from boxing to archery. Some of the most competitive games to watch include swimming, gymnastics, cycling, weightlifting and basketball.

According to the Kinsey Report
Ev'ry average man you know

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. (The Catcher in the Rye)

Over the last few months, I have read all seven novels, many of the poems, and selected bits of juvenilia by the three Brontë sisters — as well as several biographies, odds and ends of literary criticism, and a fascinating volume about the Brontë legend, which over the years has sometimes overshadowed the facts of their lives.

May is Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month. This month celebrates the contributions of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States.  

I have spent a lifetime reading books and perhaps half a lifetime going to the opera. Each is a very real pleasure — neither can be done without — yet both offer different kinds of satisfaction. Words? Music? Which is more important? Fortunately, I am not in the position of having to choose. Books can sometimes lead to opera; opera can sometimes find its way back into books. Since the library specializes in both these worlds of artistic expression, it might be intriguing to look briefly at some of the places they intersect.

St. John Ervine was an English theatre critic in 1920s, '30s, writing often for Time and Tide, that remarkably sensible middle-class magazine which first featured the dry and sly E. M. Delafield's Diary of a Provincial Lady (reserve this book right away!). But I digress.

Thinking a great deal just now about the Great One, I thought of last years venture, April 11-15 2011.  It was a great deal of fun, and inspiration, and I felt great admiration for the Allen Room and Wertheim Study scholars who presented such fine work.  The week was audio-taped if you would like to listen to them, before you come to this year's lectures.

Since in less than a week you will have heard a terrific lecture incorporating and marmorializing [sic] Romeo and Juliet, I thought to prime the pump with a reprint of an earlier post: The Juliet Club by Suzanne Harper.  It is still one of my favorite, for joyous, books.

Its'a comin'.  Five presentations on Him.  At 1:15 in the South Court Auditorium at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. 

In the meantime, last night at the Columbia Shakespeare Seminar, a friend and I began to explore the idea of an anthology of poems about, not by, Shakespeare. What do you think?  Do you have one to contribute?  Should we create a blog? Facebook page? Create a pamphlet (how deliciously old-fashioned)? If you have a favorite poem about Shakespeare, please let me know.  One by favorite author, Sylvia Townsend Warner, follows.

For 25 years the Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism has highlighted in-depth, investigative reporting. It was established in 1987, through a gift from Joseph Bernstein to the NYPL, in honor of journalist Helen Bernstein (now Helen Bernstein Fealy). The award plays an important role in safeguarding the first amendment and raising public awareness about significant world events and important issues. The 2012 finalists have all garnered acclaim this past year for stories that criss cross the globe and inform us about everything from Afghanistan, pirates, and pensions to the war against al Qaeda and drifting ducks. Here's a crash course on the 2012 finalists along 

It's coming up, 5 lectures from really smart people on the one and only Mr. William "Bard" Shakespeare.

Hamlet, Hamlet (redux) Taming of the Shew, The Winter's Tale and a super presentation on the Library's Shakespearean collections by our own Robert Armitage.

It's here again, featuring the one and only Robert Armitage, Humanities Bibliographer and Blogger Extraordinaire, and 4 cracker-jack scholars from the Wertheim Study.

May 3rd marks the centenary of the birth of poet and novelist May Sarton. Sarton’s most important novel, Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing, tells the story of septuagenarian Hilary Stevens, a poet whose life is retold episodically during an interview with two writers from a literary magazine.

It's a small volume, neatly but unostentatiously bound in mottled calf. The gilt ornamentation is discreet, except for an impressive coat of arms on both boards. That becomes even more impressive when we identify it as the blazon of one of the standout personalities of 18th-century France, Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, marquise de Pompadour — elevated from her haute-bourgeois background and a boring union with a certain M. Lenormand d'Étioles (nephew of her mother's lover) to become the official maîtresse-en-titre to King Louis XV, who ennobled her under the ancient (but extinct) title of Pompadour.

March is Women's History Month. This year, the theme of Women's History Month is Women's Education — Women's Empowerment. This blog post will explore how one can conduct research in women's and gender studies and history.

For the past several weeks, the world has been eyeing a young rising athlete named Jeremy Lin. Lin plays as a point guard for the New York Knicks. At age 23, he has been captivating the globe with his personality, skills, and victories.