Marygrove to host Detroit fiction evening

The Marygrove College Institute for Detroit Studies and English and Modern Languages Department present a Defining Detroit event:

An Evening of Recent Detroit Fiction
a reading and book signing,
featuring Peter Markus, Susan Messer, and Michael Zadoorian 

Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 7:00 PM
Marygrove College
8425 West McNichols, Detroit
Alumnae Hall, Madame Cadillac Building

Free and open to the public

Peter Markus has written two books of short stories,
Good, Brother (2005) and The Singing Fish (2006)
and a novel, Bob, or Man on Boat (2008).
“Peter Markus’ gorgeously spare, riverine fables of brotherly sweetness and violence are hypnotic, haunting, and sublime.”—Gary Lutz

Novelist and short-story writer Susan Messer is
the author of Grand River and Joy (2009)
“With unsparing candor, Susan Messer thrusts us into a time when racial tensions sundered friends and neighbors and turned families upside down. The confrontations in Grand River and Joy are complex, challenging, and . . . spot-on accurate.” —Rosellen Brown

Michael Zadoorian is the author of two novels, Second Hand (2000)
and The Leisure Seeker (2009) and one book of short stories,
The Lost Tiki Palaces of Detroit (2009).
“Zadoorian’s pace [in The Leisure Seeker] is deceptive, it’s restful. But unexpected scenes jump out at you. Come to the end and you’ll say, ‘Oh my God!’” —Elmore Leonard

Leonard Pitts Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation:  Leonard Pitts Jr., Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, will be the featured speaker Friday January 15, 2010 at 10 AM at Oakland Community College Orchard Ridge Campus’ Smith Theatre , 27055 Orchard Lake Road, Farmington Hills.  Admission is free.  For more information: http://www.oaklandcc.edu/Posters/MLKDayConvocation.pdf

Before I Forget Book Discussions:  Throughout the month of February 2010, the Detroit Public Library will be hosting free and open to the public book discussion opportunities of Leonard Pitts Jr.’s book Before I Forget.  For dates, times, and locations, click here: http://www.detroitpubliclibrary.org/events/beforeiforget.htm.

From Mocha to Latte

A new exhibit, free with museum admission, is opening at the Arab American National Museum on January 28th.  “From Mocha to Latte: Coffee, the Arab World, and the $4 cup” will be featured in the lower gallery from January 28 – August 15, 2010.  The public is invited to a free opening reception at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, January 28, 2010 in the AANM’s dramatic Community Courtyard, featuring complimentary Arabic coffee and sweets, sponsored by Hashem Roastery of Dearborn.   See http://www.arabamericanmuseum.org/frommochatolatte for more information.

BookTV premiere this Sunday

Sunday, January 10, 2010 at 5:15 p.m. tune in C-SPAN2’s Book TV to see the premiere of Alia Malek’s talk on her book A Country Called Amreeka taped in December at the Arab American National Museum’s Library & Resource Center.

U.S. Census History at DPL

The History of the United States Census

Wednesday, January 13, 2009
6:00 –7:30 PM

Explorers Room of the Detroit Public Library
5201 Woodward, north of Warren in Midtown Detroit

Learn about the history of the U.S. Census and how you can use this valuable data.
This is the first in a three part series. Free and open to the public.
Information at 313-833-1440
http://www.detroitpubliclibrary.org/

Jacob Lawrence Exhibit at WSU Law Library

The exhibit “Jacob Lawrence and the Legend of John Brown”, a project funded by a grant from DALNET, will be hosted by the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights and the Arthur Neef Law Library at Wayne State University through mid-January 2010.

For more information, check out the following links:
http://www.law.wayne.edu/news.php?id=3756

http://www.lib.wayne.edu/sites/jacoblawrence/

http://dalnetconsortium.wordpress.com/2008/12/10/lawrence-project-noted-in-american-libraries/

http://dalnetconsortium.wordpress.com/2008/11/04/jacob-lawrence-traveling-display/

BCTV Library Highlights features DALNET Libraries

Rita Sol, a recent graduate of the Wayne State University (WSU) School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) is concerned about the plight of Michigan libraries in these difficult economic times and she is doing something about it.  Rita is the volunteer host of Library Highlights, a weekly 30-minute television program that airs on the Bloomfield Township community cable BCTV network.  As a forum for community dialogue, BCTV provides the perfect venue to inform the metro area public about the great libraries in the area and what they do for their communities. 

As Rita notes, “Michigan needs its libraries. The good our librarians do to support the needs of the public during these financially hard times is essential to our economic recovery.”     

Each week, Library Highlights features librarians from metro area libraries. Rita begins the interviews by asking her guests what motivated them to enter the library profession and what brought them to the library where they work.  The second part of the interview focuses on the services and resources offered to the community.  At the conclusion of the show, guests are given an opportunity to talk about future directions for their libraries.

To date, three DALNET libraries have been featured on Library Highlights:  Oakland County Libraries, Oakland Community College Libraries, and the Walsh College Vollbrecht Library.  As noted by Jon Campbell, Director of Vollbrecht Library and Chair, DALNET Board of Directors:

Walsh College very much appreciated the opportunity provided by BCTV to “tell our story” to the Oakland County community. The one-on-one interview format provided ample space to both describe the evolution of the library as well as remind the audience of the specialized accounting, taxation, and financial collections available to them. The occasion to highlight the Walsh College Library along with the other libraries of Oakland County was most welcome.  

You can catch Library Highlights at 9:00am on Tuesdays and 4:30pm on Thursdays.  Be certain to watch for future guests from DALNET Libraries: Caryn Noel, Director of the Adam Cardinal Maida Alumni Library, Alison Keller, Director of the Rochester College Ham Library, and Linea Dudley from Marygrove College.

If you would like to know more about Library Highlights or are interested in having your library featured on the program, contact Rita at solrita7792@yahoo.com.

 -       Mary Ann Sheble´, Oakland Community College Libraries

CSPAN’s Book TV at AANM on Dec 10

CSPAN’s Book TV will be in Dearborn for Alia Malek’s A Country Called Amreeka: Arab Roots, American Stories author appearance & book signing. 

6 p.m. Thursday, December 10, 2009
Arab American National Museum
Free and open to the public

From the press release:
Syrian American author and civil rights attorney Alia Malek has reported for Salon, The Columbia Journalism Review and The New York Times.

Her first book, A Country Called Amreeka, tells the story of the last 40+ years of U.S. history as experienced by Arab Americans. These are dramatic narratives, describing the very human experiences of love, friendship, family, courage, hate, and success. There are the timeless tales of an immigrant community becoming American, the nostalgia for home, the alienation from a society sometimes as intolerant as its laws are generous. 

Each chapter describes an event in U.S. history which may already be familiar to us, and invites us to live that moment in time in the skin of an Arab American. The chapters follow a timeline from 1963 to the present, and the characters live in every corner of this country.

CSPAN will be on site filming the event for their Book TV series.

For further information about this event and the collections and services of the AANM Library & Resource Center, call 313.624.0223 or visit the Event Website.

Museum Adventure Pass

The third year of the Cultural Alliance of Southeastern Michigan’s Museum Adventure Pass program began on October 25, 2009.   Four new museums have been added:  Paint Creek Center for the Arts, Shalom Street Museum, Troy Museum & Historic Village and the University of Michigan Matthaei Botanical Gardens.  A complete list of participating museums can be found here.

How it works
(from detroitadventurepass.org)

Visit your public library (for a list of participating libraries, click here) and check out a Museum Adventure Pass, using your valid  library card, for two or four free admissions, depending on location, to one of the museums.  Libraries have a limited number of passes for each participating organization. Passes are available on a first-come, first-served basis and cannot be reserved, renewed or requested through interlibrary loan.   One Museum Adventure Pass may be checked out per person, per loan period. The loan period is seven days.

@ your library logos

Go to this page to download “@ your library” logos in multiple languages.  From the ALA website:   “The @ your library® logo is available for libraries and library organizations nationwide—libraries and library organizations do not need to seek permission to use the logo. See Trademark Use Policy and How to Use the @ your library Brand Correctly.”