Thanksgiving resources

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and the Christmas feast is just a month away. If you are stuck for ideas, or want to do some research about the history of turkeys, check our databases. In particular, the Culinary Arts Collection includes 150 of the major cooking and nutrition magazines. Coverage includes thousands of searchable recipes, restaurant reviews, and industry information.

Have a safe and fun Thanksgiving!

Autumn facts

Here are a few facts about autumn, gleaned from our databases:

• "Though not as popular as spring, autumn has been a frequent subject of poetry since the classical Roman era, when certain conventions were established. Autumn, of course, has two aspects: it completes summer and it anticipates winter, it celebrates the harvest of the summer’s crops and it mourns the death of the year; it is, in Dickinson’s words, “A little this side of the snow / And that side of the Haze” (no. 131). " In A Dictionary of Literary Symbols. Retrieved from http://www.credoreference.com/entry/litsymb/autumn

• "English acquired autumn from Latin autumnus, partly via Old French autompne. Where Latin got the word from is a mystery; it may have been a borrowing from Etruscan, a long-extinct pre-Roman language of the Italian peninsula. In Old English, the term for ‘autumn’ was harvest, and this remained in common use throughout the Middle Ages; it was not until the 16th century that autumn really began to replace it (at the same time as harvest began to be applied more commonly to the gathering of crops). Fall, now the main US term for ‘autumn’, is 16th-century too." In Word Origins. Retrieved from http://www.credoreference.com/entry/acbwordorig/autumn
• From the Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, autumn is the :
  

• season of the year between summer and winter during which temperatures gradually decrease. It is often called fall in the United States because leaves fall from the trees at that time. Autumn is usually defined in the Northern Hemisphere as the period between the autumnal equinox (day and night equal in length), September 22 or 23, and the winter solstice (year's shortest day), December 21 or 22; and in the Southern Hemisphere as the period between March 20 or 21 and June 21 or 22. The autumn temperature transition between summer heat and winter cold occurs only in middle and high latitudes; in equatorial regions, temperatures generally vary little during the year. In the polar regions autumn is very short . . .

  The concept of autumn in European languages is connected with the harvesting of crops; in many cultures autumn, like the other seasons, has been marked by rites and festivals revolving around the season's importance in food production. Animals gather food in autumn in preparation for the coming winter, and those with fur often grow thicker coats. Many birds migrate toward the Equator to escape the falling temperatures. A common autumn phenomenon in the central and eastern United States and in Europe is Indian Summer, a period of unseasonably warm weather that sometimes occurs in late October or November.

We're moving!

It is official - the Arkansas State Library will be moving house. Our last day open to the public before the move will be Friday, December 4th. We will reopen at our new location, 900 W. Capitol, just down the road from our current address, sometime in late January or early February.

Any books that have been checked out can be returned before we close, or you can hold on to them, with no penalty, until we reopen

Check back here for more news and updates as they becomes available.