Terri Holtze had a great time visiting family at her cousin's wedding in Black River Falls, Wisconsin over the October 4 weekend. The foliage was fall, but the temperature was definitely summer. You might even catch part of the wedding on TV sometime, because the BBC filmed the end of it for a documentary.

Anna Marie Johnson and Phil Sager presented "So Many Students, Not Enough Time" at the Kentucky School Media Association and Kentucky Library Association Joint Conference on October 30. The focus of this presentation was the Minerva tutorial created by them on Authorware. There was much interest and many positive comments.

Special Collections
Cliches
Last week some math professors came, as many do, to see the Newton and Rheticus* in Rare Books. The professors weren't there to read the books (there are numerous translations.) They were there to admire the books, to discuss them, to see where Newton made notes, and to hold the books in their hands. As I boxed the Newton when they were through, I was amazed again at how light it is. And the Rheticus - how could a book that moved the Earth from the center of the universe be so tiny? Shouldn't it be monumental, bound in fine leather, gilded and jeweled? It's like mother's cliche about judging a book. It's not the binding that moves me, it's the fact that I hold in my hand a great event of humankind to say truly that the universe is what we all can observe, not what someone else tells us to believe. Without that concept, there would be no computers, no space flight, no Hubble showing us galaxies far, far away. Not only would we not have the tools, but we wouldn't have the mental concepts to understand what we see with our own eyes.

Until she was ten, my sister thought the long white clouds she saw rising in the sky were the souls going to heaven she had heard about in Sunday School (although she didn't admit it until she was much older). She never asked anyone what the clouds were because she KNEW what they were - she saw, but she didn't make the leap to asking, "Is that true?" Recently that same sister was asked to moderate an Internet forum on mental illness. When asked whether her degree was in psychology or social work, she replied, to everyone's surprise, that she had a G.E.D., asked a lot of questions, and had worked with the mentally ill.

The Turing Test is the classic model for testing artificial intelligence. A human sits at a keyboard and has a conversation with an unknown party. If the human can't tell if the answering party is a human or a machine, then the machine is intelligent. And if you can't tell the difference, then isn't the machine also human? The Internet may be our Turing Test. There is no way to know if the party on the other end of the conversation is advantaged, degreed, old or young, male or female. There is only the content of their speech to judge by. If you can't tell if someone has a degree, does the degree matter? But to judge if the concept is true, you must know how to evaluate each new concept, to weigh it against what you've known before and what you can validate, to think for yourself and be responsible for your own continuing education, to search for truths that change how you look at your world without prejudice for or against the source. Your mother was right again. It's the thought that counts.

* Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727) Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. London: Streater, 1687. [1st ed.] Presentation copy to Lord Halifax with Newton's emendations on the errata leaf in his own hand. (The fundamental work on dynamics and gravitation.)

Rheticus [Georg Joachim von Lauchen, 1514-1576] Narratio Prima. Dazig: Rhodus, 1540. (The first announcement of the Copernican system of heliocentricity by his pupil. One of only five known copies.)

Collection Management
Collection Management welcomes Jodi Duce, who will be taking over the position recently vacated by Susan Scheiberg. Jodi joins us from Technical Services in Ekstrom, where she has been for three years. She started in Collection Management on November 10. Welcome, Jodi!

Stacks Maintenance and Exit Control
Stacks is gearing up for the heavy stacks usage that we inevitably experience in October and November. We are grateful to Margo Smith for offering student assistant Donnie Waters when he is not working in Monographs.

Kersey Library
New Staff
Kersey is proud to announce a new member to our staff. Her name is Kirstie Bullock, and she is our new Binding Assistant who will be working with Steve Whiteside. She comes to us from Ekstrom Library. She is presently working as a student assistant in DADS. Kirstie shares a common bond with Carol Brinkman, Pat Randle and Marcia Kotlinski, which is the love of horses. Everyone knows that Carol owns a thoroughbred jumper named Tor, Pat has a lovely mare named Lady, and Marcia and her husband have an Arabian stallion named Skyree. Kirstie hopes to own her own horse someday. She rides whenever she has time.

November Birthdays
Steve Whiteside will be celebrating his birthday this month..."another year wiser"! Kersey Library would also like to wish a Happy Birthday to all the library personnel celebrating this month...have a happy one!

Exhibits
The Kersey Library has a display of the photographic history of the Chemistry Department as part of UofL's Bicentennial Celebration. Please visit our library and send your comments about the display to Jan Kulkarni.

Kornhauser Library
It's been a slow news month down here on the Health Sciences Campus. The big news is that the Systems Office has finally gotten to the bottom of the Staff PC Replacement Project list and Mike Purcell is very busy installing new computers and helping everyone convert to Windows and Word.

Congratulations to Nancy Utterback on the award of a $2000 Technology Awareness grant from the National Network of the National Library of Medicine (NN/NLM) Greater Midwest Region. The funds will be used to support the 1998 Health Sciences Center Expo '98 co-sponsored by the Kornhauser Library, University Libraries and IT.

Leah Gadzikowski's daughter Jessica, a 16-year-old sophomore at Atherton High School, was sworn in as an Officer of Teen Court on October 7. This is a program of Jefferson County government for first-time teen offenders charged with misdemeanors. So far Jessica has acted as court clerk, jury member, and attorney in this legally binding courtroom activity.

Law Library
Musical Notes ...
Louisville is blessed with numerous "community" choral ensembles: The Louisville Bach Society, Voces Novae, the Choral Arts Society, just to name a few. There is also an ensemble of singers based out of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary on Lexington Road that is beginning to make a name for itself.

The Oratorio Chorus is the concert choir of Southern Seminary. It is currently about 120-voices strong with about 2/3 of those voices coming from the community-at-large, and 1/3 from the Seminary community, and is under the direction of Dr. John Dickson.

David Minton (Technical Services) has joined this chorus, singing in the bass section. At this writing, there is one final "dress" rehearsal with the Seminary Orchestra (which also has players from the community-at-large) before the October 26 concert. By the time this reaches your mailbox, the fall concert will have been a rousing success (!), featuring the Seminary Orchestra performing Aaron Copland's "Appalachian Spring," under the direction of Dr. Lloyd Mims, Dean of the School of Church Music at Southern Seminary. Following that, the chorus and orchestra, under Dr. John Dickson, performed Ralph Vaughan Williams' "Serenade to Music" and J.S. Bach's great "Magnificat in D."

This large organization has presented large-scale choral and orchestral works, all in the truest "community" spirit. The chorus and soloists are all volunteers, and the orchestra is all volunteer, with only the occasional guest players being paid. Chorus singers purchase their own scores from the Seminary bookstore and pay semesterly dues to defray the cost of printing posters and fliers.

The chorus needs still more voices, ESPECIALLY MEN'S VOICES. There is no audition for the chorus, but it certainly helps if you read music at least a little bit. There is little time to hammer out individual notes in rehearsal, so "homework" is the rule. One nice thing is that Dr. Dickson almost always recommends a CD recording of the work(s) being prepared, so one can listen to the music and follow the score. This helps immensely...plus you get a great CD to add to your collection! The soloists are drawn from the chorus, with auditions being held for those parts. Rehearsals are held on Monday evenings from 7:00 till 9:15 at the Seminary. If you are interested in joining this growing choral group, simply call Dr. John Dickson at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Mandolin Magic!
The Louisville Mandolin Orchestra is hosting the 1997 Convention of the Classical Mandolin Society of America. Convention activities begin at the Galt House on Wednesday, November 5 and continue through Sunday, November 9. Besides the demonstrations, vendor displays, and workshops, the Convention will feature "Mando Magnificat III," a Lonesome Pine Specials concert at the Kentucky Center for the Arts' Bomhard Theatre on Friday, November 7, at 8:00 p.m. This concert will showcase some of the world's finest individual mandolin players, including Sam Bush and Tony Williamson, as well as some of the premiere mandolin groups, including the LMO and the Nashville Mandolin Ensemble. On Saturday, November 8, a final convention concert at the Bomhard will feature the LMO as well as the 1997 Convention En Masse Orchestra (you haven't lived until you've heard 100+ mandolins together on one small stage) and other notable groups, including the Mair-Davis Duo (from Providence, Rhode Island) and the Uptown Mandolin Quartet (from Lawrence, Kansas).

For more information on the CMSA Convention, click on http://www.iglou.com/dba/LMO/cmsa97.html. You may also call Robin Harris at the Law Library (6083) for more mando info!

University Archives and Records Center
The UARC staff reports significant travel recently, both professional and personal. Bill Morison, Mary Margaret Bell, Kathie Johnson, and Margaret Merrick attended the Society of American Archivists conference in Chicago from August 27 through August 31. Bill Morison also attended the fall meeting of the Kentucky Council on Archives October 10 at Pine Mountain State Park.

Kathie Johnson feels like a real jet-setter. (Look out, Michel Atlas!) In one month's time (September 11-October 12), she traveled to Orlando and Daytona Beach, Florida, as well as to Charleston, South Carolina and Dallas, Texas. The Florida trip was a surprise visit to husband Ron's parents, who spend a month there every year. The Charleston trip was a visit with daughter Cassidy to the College of Charleston. The Dallas trip was to attend a niece's wedding. (This was a real family affair: Ron sang, brother Steve officiated, brother Randy played guitar, and niece Linda was Matron of Honor.)

Margaret Merrick went with her husband Robbie on a motorcycle trip to the Smoky Mountains. The weather was beautiful and the fall colors were beginning to show. Highlights of the trip included a ride on Deal's Gap (reputed to have 318 curves in eleven miles!), the Cherohola Parkway, and a two-day ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Mary Margaret Bell visited England, Scotland, Wales, and Paris in September, arriving one week after the funeral of the Princess of Wales. She reported still seeing large amounts of flowers and other remembrances. Trip highlights included visits to many churches and other landmarks and a cruise on the Seine.