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.
Because we’re getting a late start, this post gives you a “twofer” containing highlights from both January and February 1968.
January 3rd
The Herman Miller furniture manufacturer introduced the world to the Panton Chair designed by Verner Panton.
January 8th Otis Redding‘s single, (Sittin’On) The Dock of the Bay was released, less than one month after he perished in a plane crash.
January 12th
AT&T (The American Telephone and Telegraph Company), announced plans to create a universal emergency telephone number, that could be dialed from any phone in the country. After much analysis, it was discovered that the number least likely to be misdialed was 9-1-1.
January 13th Johnny Cash performed his historic Folsom Prison concert. This was not Cash’s first performance at the penitentiary, but it was the first to be recorded.
January 21st
At about 5:30 in the morning the North Vietnamese Army began shelling a U.S. Marine base. On this day, the North Vietnamese Army destroyed 98% of the base’s ammunition. This battle lasted 77 days and cost 274 American lives. It is known as the Battle of Khe Sahn.
January 30th
On January 30th, the North Vietnamese Army began its coordinated surprise attack on more than 100 cities and outposts in South Vietnam. It was known as the Tet Offensive as it began the day before the Vietnamese holiday of Tet, the Vietnamese New Year.
January 31st
At 3:40 in the morning roughly 1,000 guerillas took over the former imperial capital of Hue. More than 2,000 residents were executed over the course of three weeks and another 6,000 were killed in the bombing and shelling of the city by Americans. This counterattack destroyed 18,000 of Hue’s 20,000 houses.
February
February 1st
Saigon’s police chief, Brigadier General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, displayed captured Viet Cong officer, Nguyen Van Lem, to a group of reporters. At this moment, the police chief pulled out his revolver and executed the prisoner at point blank range. This moment was captured by photographer Eddie Adams. This photograph (which will not be shown here), became an iconic symbol of the war.
February 4th
On this day, at the age of 43, Neal Cassady died in a hospital in Mexico after being found in a coma by the side of the road.
February 6th The Beatles along with Mike Love, Mia Farrow, Donovan and others travel to India to visit Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
February 8th
In early February protests began against racial segregation at a local bowling alley. Over several days, student protesters gathered on the campus of South Carolina State College. In the evening a bonfire was lit and as police and firefighters tried to put out the flames, officers of the South Carolina Highway Patrol fired into the crowd of African American students. Twenty-seven people were injured and Harry Ezekial Smith (19), Samuel Hammond Jr. (18), and Delano Middleton (17) were killed. This is known as the OrangeburgMassacre.
February 12th
On this day, the 25th Golden Globe Awards were held. In the Heat of the Night won the award for Best Picture – Drama and The Graduate won the award for Best Picture – Comedy.
“There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?”
February 25th
24-year-old Robert Crumb and his wife Dana sold initial copies of the underground comix title Zap Comix in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in San Francisco.
February 27th Frankie Lymon, 25, singer of “Why Do Fools Fall in Love,” died of a heroin overdose.
February 29th
The 10th Annual Grammy Awards were held and The Beatles and their producer George Martin were the big winners. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band won Album of the Year, Best Album Cover, Best Contemporary Album and Best Engineered Recording – Non-Classical. Released in 1967, Sgt. Pepper’s revolutionized the recording process.
The 1968 Project will be back at the end of March for more 1968 history!
It’s January again! Through snow, through sleet, through freezing rain…whether you’re hibernating, feeling invigorated, or dreaming of change, the start of a new year is always a good time to take stock of what’s new. Our staff explores some of the titles that are newly arrived, on order, or that will come out later in 2018.
From our library catalog, try searching on-order titles before they even arrive at the library, and place your holds early.
Youth Services
Carrie’s Pick
I am excited for a sweet little picture book about a visit to the library where the characters come alive!
In The Library Book, Tom Chapin has put the text to a melody entitled The Library Song: “I’m going down to the library, picking out a book, check it in, check it out,” and the song’s words and music are printed in the endpapers. The shushing librarian even gets into the rhythm in this rousing celebration of The Library.
Cindy’s Pick
I really liked the book I hosted in January for the Smart Girls Read Book Club. It’s a graphic novel for middle-grade level: All’s Faire in Middle School by Victoria Jamieson. We all liked (in our book club conversation) how the main character ended up realizing that popularity at the expense of being kind to others wasn’t worth it. And overall, we liked that it was a book about realizing who your real friends are and who you want to be as a person.
Kelley’s (Teen Librarian) Picks
The bad news (for me) is that the YA books I am most anticipating in 2018 are sequels. The good news (for you) is that you can start at the beginning.
Thunderhead (Scythe #2) by Neal Shusterman |Jan 2018
Scythe was one of my absolute favorite books of 2016/2017, so I can’t wait to find out what happens to our newly licensed grim reapers in this utopian/dystopian world created by a master of YA science fiction.
Spill Zone 2: The Broken Vow by Scott Westerfeld and Alex Puvilland |July 2018
Teen Library staff universally loved this post-disaster thriller about things in Poughkeepsie going mysteriously and totally wrong. Check volume one out now, which was one of our favorite graphic novels of 2017.
Monstress, Vol. 3 by Margorie Liu and Sana Takeda | August 2018
We all have our “inner demons” but Maika literally has a monster living inside her. The anti-hero of this graphic series has all sorts of problems, but at least she has the company of a sweet half-fox girl and a three tailed magus cat on her adventures. Those who can handle ultra-violence and unending backstabbing are in for some beautiful and dark storytelling in volumes one and two. If you are squeamish about horror or Game ofThrones level fantasy violence, this might not be for you.
The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee |Oct 2018
A literal sister book to one of 2017’s most popular teen titles, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue. This Goodreads description says it all: “A sequel to The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, narrated by Felicity and featuring travel, pirates, and a science girl gang.” Fingers crossed for more snark and steam from Mackenzie Lee, who is also working on a YA book about Loki!
Adult Fiction
Nate’s Pick
I’m eagerly anticipating the arrival of Peter Kimani’s Dance of the Jakaranda. This intergenerational tale of love and rebellion is set against two significant points of time in Kenya’s recent history. Bound together by a shared locale, the story alternates between two eras: the time of the construction of the “Iron Snake” rail line (which connected Lake Victoria with the coastal city of Mombasa in the late 1800’s), and the early 1960’s era leading up to Kenyan independence from Britain. Of late I have been increasingly interested in tales focusing on the rise and fall of the British Empire. This fascination has brought me to shows such as the BBC’s The Last Post, which is about the Yemeni port of Aden, and to books like Orwell’s Burmese Days. Most stories about the Empire written or acted in English are told from the point of view of British characters. Dance of the Jakaranda—told from the point of view of two Kenyans of Indian descent—brings an exciting, vital depth and perspective to an understanding of the British Empire and all those impacted by it.
Sarah’s Pick
I am really looking forward to reading Everything Here Is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee. Library Journal writes, “spun from an award-winning short story that originally appeared in the Missouri Review, this debut features Chinese-American sisters Miranda and Lucia. Lucia, who starts hearing voices when their mother dies, marries an older man, then leaves him and has a baby with a young Latino immigrant even as Miranda tries to help her from afar.” It’s a story of sadness, love, and the bond between sisters by a promising new literary voice. The book will be out in January, and the author will be at PPL on March 28 to discuss her book—plenty of time to read it twice!
Harper’s Pick
This winter I have found myself in the mood for fast, exciting reads and dramatic adventures. If you’re feeling the same and also happen to like sci-fi, space politics, and humans learning to navigate alien cultures, look no further than Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti trilogy. With Bintialready under my belt, Binti: Homein my backpack, and Binti: The Night Masquerade coming out later this month, I’m prepared for my past, present, and future to be filled with interstellar travel, alien jellyfish that communicate through their tentacles, and a girl from earth who is the first of her people to attend the galaxy’s most prestigious university.
Elizabeth’s Picks
Books book books! Here are just a few of the new and on-order (fiction and nonfiction) titles I’m curious about.
I just ordered the Girls Auto Clinic Glove Box Guide. I hadn’t originally seen it when it came out in 2017, but we recently got two requests in a single day, so it’s in my cart! I think it will be a tremendous asset in our automotive repair section.
Raminta’s Picks
There is some great new music coming to PPL in the coming weeks. New albums by First Aid Kit, Emenem, Brandi Carlile, Justin Timberlake, They Might Be Giants, Vance Joy, Tune-Yards, Jimi Hendrix, and more! Also keep your eyes pealed for the Grammy nominated Hello Dolly! Cast Recording, starring Bette Midler, and the soundtrack to The Greatest Showman starring Hugh Jackman.
Will’s Pick
Shawn Achor’s Big Potential reveals why our potential is not limited by what we on our own can achieve; rather, our success is amplified by the successes of those around us. It offers five strategies for exponentially raising our achievement and performance by helping others—colleagues, teams, and employees—be better. For decades, most people have thought about potential as being a constellation of individual traits: your creativity, your abilities, your intelligence. Achor explores new research showing that this version of potential (what Achor calls Small Potential) is deeply flawed, and it places a ceiling on the level of success we can achieve. If individual traits are in fact interconnected with others, we can see that by pursuing success individually, we have been leaving much of our greater potential untapped. Big Potential works not in isolation, but rather as part of an ecosystem. Achor suggests that when we help those around us succeed, we not only raise the performance of the group, but we also create a positive cycle by which we in turn become more successful ourselves. It’s of no surprise that the Reference staff of PPL works as a team!
Aprill’s Picks
I’m really excited to get my hands on Alterknit Stitch Dictionary: 200 Modern Knitting Motifs. Andrea Rangel’s new collection of knitting motifs looks so fresh, fun, and innovative. Since participating in the PPL’s Calico Library yarn bombing installation, I have been inspired to add more colorwork to my knitting. This stitch dictionary has my imagination fired up: I see socks with tiny skulls, hats with sweet little mushrooms, and scarves with bold geometric leaf patterns in my future!
I am also echoing excitement for So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo. I’ve followed Oluo’s writing on various platforms for some time now and can’t wait to access her brave, brilliant voice on the pages of her book.
As always, thanks for reading! Hope you found some inspiration here: to fill your wintry days, or to go sleuthing for your own new reads…and if you’re still looking for ideas, you might try our 2018 Reading Challenge.
We are happy to share a few photos and updates about the Peaks Island Library and Community Center building project.
Now that the demolition phase is fairly complete, we have biweekly walk-through meetings with our contractor. Great progress is being made! Attending these progress checks are Aaron Bourassa, Karen James and Matt Schweier of Great Falls Construction (GFC), Dick Reed, Reed & Co. Architecture, George Cooper from PPL, and David Onos from the City of Portland. Arthur Fink attends as well to photograph the site for our archives. Thank you, Art!
As islanders have seen, GFC removed the wall on the Sterling Street side giving us a glimpse into the expansion of the floor plan. Temporary walls are now up until the structural beam goes in place. And new concrete will be poured shortly. We are still on a good path to reopen before the Summer. (Arthur Fink photos)
NEW VISION CAMPAIGN: It’s not too late to join the New Vision Campaign to help pay for new furnishings. We are thrilled to announce that we received grant support from both the Davis Family Foundation and the Morton-Kelly Charitable Trust to buoy the wonderful gifts from over 350 Peaks households and friends. We are so grateful for the generosity of the Kennedy-Carter family for whom the building will be named. For those interested in participating, please make gifts to Portland Public Library and note “New Vision Campaign” in the memo line of your check.
We continue to look forward to seeing you in the Library’s temporary home in the Peaks Island Elementary School (around the back, up the ramp).
George Cooper visited branch staff Priscilla Webster and Rose Ann Walsh, with islanders Jon and Angie Kelso at the PIES temporary location. (George Cooper photo)
