National Library Week Event: Just Desserts with Chef Isabella of Paesano's Restaurant

This event was held on April 15, 2009 at Downtown Library: Multi-Purpose Room

Watch Now (Runtime: 01:02:00)

Celebrate National Library Week with a cooking demo and discussion with Chef Isabella Nicoletti, Executive Chef of Paesano’s Restaurant and Wine Bar. Isabella will discuss the history, recipes and making of several dessert dishes (some from her cookbook – and some new creations) including torta, biscotti and semifreddo. A native of Trissino, Italy, she spent 12 years working at various restaurants in Italy before joining the award-winning Paesano’s Restaurant in 1998. This event will feature a book signing of her first cookbook, Perbacco Isabella! - Italian country cooking from your good friends at Paesano's. Books will be on sale at the event.

National Library Week Director's Event: Local Historian Grace Shackman Discusses Why Is Tubingen Our Sister City?

This event was held on April 14, 2009 at Downtown Library: Multi-Purpose Room

Watch Now (Runtime: 01:15:00)

Each year, Library Director Josie Barnes Parker chooses a current topic of interest as the director’s program for National Library Week. This year’s event features local historian Grace Shackman who will examine the relationship of Ann Arbor and its German sister city, Tübingen. Grace will explain Ann Arbor’s historically strong German roots and discuss why a sister city pact with Tübingen made sense – it is a university town in the southern part of Germany where most of Ann Arbor’s Germans came from. Tübingen is even as near to Stuttgart (where most of Germany’s cars are made) as we are to Detroit. Since 1965, Tübingen and Ann Arbor citizens have lived in each other’s homes, traveled together, celebrated achievements, and mourned losses together. Today Ann Arbor has seven sister cities and Tübingen has eight, but they continue to be each other’s only American-European partner. The event is co-sponsored by the Friends of the Ann Arbor - Tübingen Sister City Relationship.

National Library Week Director's Program – Sustainability and Religion: Natural Partners or Uneasy Acquaintances

This event was held on April 12, 2008 at Downtown Library: Multi-Purpose Room

Watch Now (Runtime: 01:27:00)

National Library Week is April 12-20. Each year, AADL Director Josie Parker chooses a current topic of interest for the NLW Director's Program. This year the program is a panel discussion held in conjunction with the upcoming Earth Day/Sustainability lecture at Crisler Arena by the Dalai Lama. The distinguished panel will include Dr. Rolf Bouma, Pastor, Center for Faith and Scholarship/Campus Chapel (Christian Reformed), Ann Arbor; Sr. Paula Cathcart, Immaculate Heart of Mary/IHM, former member of the IHM Leadership Council, Monroe; Rabbi Robert D. Levy, Temple Beth Emeth, Ann Arbor; and Gelek Rimpoche, Jewel Heart Tibetan Educational Center, Pittsfield Township. Professor Emeritus and Dean Emeritus James Crowfoot of the UM School of Natural Resources & Environment, will moderate the discussion, bringing his own experiences of teaching about sustainability and social change.

This interfaith dialog provides an opportunity to learn about what religions are doing and can do to address the threats of increasing environmental degradation, social violence, growing economic inequities, and other negative impacts of the industrial growth system. Religions and spirituality, along with science and other sources of knowledge and wisdom, can aid understanding of what is happening in our communities and world, and why certain changes are necessary to achieve sustainability.

National Library Week: Censorship with Banned Book Author Nancy Garden and ALA's Intellectual Freedom Committee Chair Kent Oliver

This event was held on April 14, 2008 at Downtown Library: Multi-Purpose Room

Watch Now (Runtime: 01:34:10)

Are books and the right to read still under attack? This discussion of book and library material banning issues will feature Nancy Garden, winner of the Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award for her work defending her novel "Annie On My Mind" from an attempt to ban it from libraries in a Kansas school district, and Kent Oliver, Chair of the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee. A book signing will follow, with books for sale courtesy of Shaman Drum Bookshop.

In 1993, Annie On My Mind was banned by the Olathe School District and burned in demonstrations. The issue became a First Amendment lawsuit when a group of teens and parents sued to have the book returned to library shelves. In 1995, a federal judge ruled in their favor.