Have you been looking for some decades-old wisdom about “Growing Snap Beans for Canning”? We’ve got you covered. Reminiscing about “Beginning with Bees in Maine” in days gone by? Check. Have you been losing sleep wondering whether PPL has anything about “Transporting Maine Potatoes by Truck” from 1962? Well, toss and turn no more. Thanks to newly added catalog records originally created by our colleagues at Fogler Library in Orono, PPL’s collection of University of Maine Extension Service bulletins and circulars are now represented and easily findable by title or subject.
Extension services were first established in America in 1914 with the adoption of the Smith-Lever Act (stay with me!), which sought to empower farmers and rural families (and anyone, really) by supplying them with the latest information related to agriculture, home economics, health & nutrition, and other subjects. One of the primary ways this information was able to reach a wide audience was via bulletins and circulars, ranging from simple trifold brochures to 20-page booklets. They were often illustrated, perhaps with a diagram to explain how to test cream for butterfat, or with photographs depicting the ailments caused by lack of calcium.
In a 1957 address, “Philosophy of Extension Work,” Arthur L. Deering, Dean and Director of the University of Maine College of Agriculture, mused about the nature of the Maine Extension Service and similar organizations all over the country. The philosophy of extension services, he said, “finds its best soil in that agent who has a heartfelt desire to help others and a strong belief in the ability of people to help themselves, once the way is pointed out and their interest aroused” (p. 5). Psst… that doesn’t sound too unlike a public library!
PPL has about 250+ of these original bulletins and circulars in our Portland Room Archives, and they make for an interesting—and at times entertaining—window into a time before widespread factory farming, increased urbanization, and digital society. From instructions on the application of DDT (banned for agricultural use in 1972) to tips for transitioning from kerosene lamps to electric lighting, an afternoon spent browsing these bulletins from the Extension’s early years is something like library-assisted time travel.
Much of PPL’s bulletin collection was published in the ‘30s and ‘40s, and the concerns of the UMaine Extension reflect the concerns of WWII-era America. Extension services at this time were charged by Congress with recruiting emergency agricultural workers and overseeing the Farm Labor program, an effort that is plainly evident in dozens of circulars’ headings: “Green and yellow vegetables on the firing line”; “Milk and bullets fight together”; “Raise rabbits in wartime: food and fur are ammunition.” Several pamphlets urge teenagers to spend their summer vacations as Victory Farm Volunteers and implore women to consider joining the Women’s Emergency Farm Service.
For all the historical value of this collection, it’s worth noting that our local Extension Services are far from a thing of the past. UMaine Cooperative Extension is still very active, with fourteen offices spread out among Maine’s sixteen counties. The bulletins continue as well, now available to download for free from the Extension’s website. For example, the recent Bulletin 1061 enumerates the ways smartphones can be used to benefit farm business. As they have for a century, extension services are continuously adapting to the latest research and changes in technology to meet the needs of healthy, empowered communities.
The 1968 Project aims to highlight some of the historic events of the year. From protests and famous battles to chart-topping popular hits and box office smashing film, 1968 was a huge historical year with reverberations that we still feel today. The 1968 Project looks to grab snippets of these events on a monthly basis and list them here with links for further exploration.
July 1st
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was signed in Washington, D.C., Moscow and London. This treaty aimed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and encourage peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
July 3rd Chairman Mao Zedong issues the July 3 Public Notice. This “notice” denounced the violent “counterrevolutionary” crimes and chaos. In the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, it was estimated that over 80,000 people were killed before and after the notice.
The movie Salt and Pepper, starring Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford, is released in cinemas.
July 6th The FBI sends out a memorandum to its field offices outlining its approved COINTELPRO (COunterINTELligencePROgram) for disrupting anti-government organizations. The program was exposed in 1971. In 1976 a Congressional Select Committee deemed the FBI’s program as unconstitutional.
July 7th The Yardbirds play their final concert at the LutonCollege of Technology in Bedfordshire, England.
Photo from the 1968 US Yarbirds tour. Unknown photographer.
Leo Sowerby, winner of aPulitzer Prize in 1946 for his cantata, Canticle of the Sun, passed away at a summer choir camp.
July 12th The Best Nest by P.D. Eastman is published by Random House Children’s Books.
July 16th
Alexander Dubcek, the leader of Communist Czechoslovakia, who had enacted democratic reforms, is given a two week deadline by the Communist leaders in Moscow to justify those reforms, later dubbed the “Prague Spring.”
July 17th
The 17 July Revolution occurs in Iraq as the Ba’ath Party takes over the government. The 17 July Revolution was a bloodless coup which brought the Arab Socialist Ba’ath party to power. Saddam Hussein was a major participant of the coup.
Super Session is released by Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper and Stephen Stills.
July 20th
The first ever Special Olympics were held at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois. Over 1,000 developmentally disabled kids from the US and Canada. The event was organized by Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Today the Special Olympics is the largest sports organization for kids and adults with intellectual disabilities with over 5 million athletes from 172 countries.
July 28th The novel, Last Exit to Brooklyn, is cleared of all charges related to the Obscene Publications Act. This was considered a turning point in British censorship laws.
Otto Hahn, German chemist, Nobel winner and discoverer of nuclear fission passes at age 89.
In April of 1968, a schoolteacher by the name of Harriet Glickman, wrote to Charles M. Schultz urging him to create a black character. On this day in 1968, Franklin was introduced to the Peanuts gang.
Copyright held by Peanuts Worldwide LLC.
Be sure to come back at the end of next month for events from August 1968!
Since the Videoport collection was bestowed upon us at the Library, you, the Incredibly Strange Public, have been asking for the Incredibly Strange Movie collection. And now, at last, we are making it available. The official date is August 1, 2018, when we will be adding some selections to our shelves at the Main Branch and making the rest available for request from the Annex. However, you, as an alert reader of our blog, do not have to wait–you can access the Incredibly Strange collection right now.
What makes a movie Incredibly Strange? We’re not sure; not everything on the list strikes us as Incredibly Strange, but as a category, it sounds more tantalizing than, say, Sort of Strange, or Somewhat Quirky, does it not? Consider the limited appeal of a collection called Shocking When It Was First Released But Now Rather Tame, Maybe Even Quaint. No, Incredibly Strange covers a variety of oddities that may or may not be shocking but are certainly unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.
Unique. Unusual. Unconventional. How else to categorize a movie as bizarre as Harmony Korine’s Gummo, or as brilliantly peculiar as Don Coscarelli’s Bubba Ho-Tep? In your wildest Shark Week dreams, have you ever seen a movie more over-the-top than the Roger Corman-produced Sharktopus? Has the style of a movie ever matched its subject as perfectly as The Filth and the Fury, Julien Temple’s documentary about the Sex Pistols?
Trey Parker’s Cannibal! The Musical is in this category, along with multiple seasons of his South Park cartoon series. Fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 will rejoice at the number of episodes in the collection, and let’s not even speculate as to how John Waters fans will react to the availability of his oeuvre.
So, if you had a favorite Incredibly Strange Film from the Videoport collection, you can find it now at the Library. If the collection is new to you, just type the words “Videoport Incredibly Strange” into the keyword search box and browse the list.
For a list of incredibly strange and wonderful films to start you off, click here.
Have you been looking for some decades-old wisdom about “Growing Snap Beans for Canning”? We’ve got you covered. Reminiscing about “Beginning with Bees in Maine” in days gone by? Check. Have you been losing sleep wondering whether PPL has anything about “Transporting Maine Potatoes by Truck” from 1962? Well, toss and turn no more. Thanks to newly added catalog records originally created by our colleagues at Fogler Library in Orono, PPL’s collection of University of Maine Extension Service bulletins and circulars are now represented and easily findable by title or subject.
PPL has about 250+ of these original bulletins and circulars in our Portland Room Archives, and they make for an interesting—and at times entertaining—window into a time before widespread factory farming, increased urbanization, and digital society. From instructions on the application of DDT (banned for agricultural use in 1972) to tips for transitioning from kerosene lamps to electric lighting, an afternoon spent browsing these bulletins from the Extension’s early years is something like library-assisted time travel.
concerns of the UMaine Extension reflect the concerns of WWII-era America. Extension services at this time were charged by Congress with recruiting emergency agricultural workers and overseeing the Farm Labor program, an effort that is plainly evident in dozens of circulars’ headings: “Green and yellow vegetables on the firing line”; “Milk and bullets fight together”; “Raise rabbits in wartime: food and fur are ammunition.” Several pamphlets urge teenagers to spend their summer vacations as Victory Farm Volunteers and implore women to consider joining the Women’s Emergency Farm Service.
