Best Web Site of the Month for Kids

What really happened at the First Thanksgiving in 1691? Be a history detective and discover for yourself, as you learn more about the lives of the English colonists and the Wampanoag people: Plimoth Plantation

National Book Award for Nonfiction: "The Swerve"

Stephen Greenblatt won for The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, a “rumination on the pleasure of knowledge and on the agony of its loss,” the judges’ citation said. It was published by W.W. Norton & Company.

“My book is about the power of books to cross boundaries, to speak to you impossibly across space and time and distance, to have someone long dead seem to be in the room with you,” Mr. Greenblatt said in his acceptance speech. “My book is about what the magic of the written word is.” Last year's winner was Patti Smith for Just Kids.

National Book Award for Fiction: "Salvage the Bones"

Jesmyn Ward won the National Book Award for fiction last night for Salvage the Bones, a haunting tale of the struggles of a 15-year-old pregnant girl as a hurricane bears down on her fictional Gulf Coast town of Bois Sauvage, Miss. Accepting the award, Ms. Ward said she had begun writing stories to honor her younger brother after his death.

“I understood that I wanted to write about the experiences of the poor, and the black and the rural people of the South,” Ms. Ward said, “so that the culture that marginalized us for so long would see that our stories were as universal, our lives as fraught and lovely and important, as theirs.”

“Salvage the Bones” was published by Bloomsbury USA, a division of Bloomsbury Publishing. Ms. Ward, a former writer in residence at the University of Mississippi, has also written the novel Where the Line Bleeds. Last year's winner was Jaimy Gordon for Lord of Misrule . To be eligible,a book must have been written by a United States citizen. Winners receive $10,000 and a bronze statue. Each of the other awards will receive a separate posting on this blog.

Veteran's Day

In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…"

The original concept for the celebration was for a day observed with parades and public meetings and a brief suspension of business beginning at 11:00 a.m.

Goodwin Library makes the American Archives List

October was American Archives Month—an opportunity to raise awareness about the value of archives and archivists. There is strength in numbers, and our collective voice can be more powerful than individual voices when we set aside time each year to celebrate our collections. Goodwin Library is on the list, "See How Your Colleagues Celebrated American Archives Month."

Library Science Exhibit at Artspace

Artspace in New Haven will have an exhibition, "Library Science", opening Saturday in New Haven beginning at 5 p.m. Conceived of by New York based curator Rachel Gugelberger, the exhibition will feature 22 contemporary artists, both emerging and established, who are inspired by libraries in their drawing, photography, sculpture, installation, painting or web-based projects. The exhibtion runs through January 28.

The exhibition title references Eleanor Antin's artwork "Library Science" (1971), which appropriated libraries' classification methods to represent the identities of living women. The title also refers to Library and Information Science, a field that studies library resource usage, human interaction with library systems, and information organization. The show will investigate how our physical, intellectual and personal relationships with the library and its materials are changing as libraries adapt to the digital world. If the book dies, might the library survive? How can libraries evolve to keep pace with the 21st century?

How cool is this? Artspace is located at 50 Orange St. in New Haven