Veteran's Day

The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month...

Major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 with the German signing of the Armistice.

According to the Library of Congress (from the American Memory Project), "the Allied powers signed a cease-fire agreement with Germany at Rethondes, France on November 11, 1918, bringing World War I to a close. Between the wars, November 11 was commemorated as Armistice Day in the United States, Great Britain, and France. After World War II, the holiday was recognized as a day of tribute to veterans of both world wars. Beginning in 1954, the United States designated November 11 as Veterans Day to honor veterans of all U.S. wars."

In Flanders Fields

by Colonel John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below

We are the dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved, and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Honoring our Veterans.

National Book Awards Finalists Display

Come and check out the National Book Awards Finalists display at the Al Harris Library! When the 2011 winners are announced on November 16, the display will be updated with winner information.

Sponsored by the National Book Foundation, the National Book Award winners are selected in four categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature. The National Book Award began in 1950 when a consortium of book publishing groups sponsored the 1st annual National Book Awards Ceremony & Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. Their goal was to enhance the public's awareness of exceptional books written by fellow Americans and to increase the popularity of reading in general. If you would like to find out more about the National Book Awards, please go to http://www.nationalbook.org/.

Photography Display

It is difficult to imagine a world without photography. We wouldn't have family photographs, movies, or a driver's license with our worst possible mug shot.

The ancient Chinese and Greeks used a camera obscura to form images via a tiny pinhole, but no one figured out how to save a permanent image until around 1816. Frenchman Nicephore Niepce combined the obscura with photosensitive paper to create the first permanent photograph.

The first photograph to contain a human was a photograph of the Boulevard du Temple in Paris taken by Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre in 1839. It was actually a busy street scene with people and horse-drawn carriages. However, since it took almost twenty minutes to take the photo, only one man standing still getting his boots shined actually made it into the finished photograph.

Come by the Al Harris Library on campus to take a look at the current display on photography. The display shows a few famous photographs, a timeline history of photography, and a plethora of books, CDs, and VHS tapes on almost every aspect of this subject. Also included is a scenario of what photography may be like in 2060.