How we celebrated National Library Week

“You Belong @ Your Library.” What a won­der­ful theme for this year’s National Library Week cel­e­bra­tion! Today is the last day of National Library Week, and while its obser­va­tion at the Delaware County Dis­trict Library may have been some­what restrained (librar­i­ans are not par­tic­u­larly noted for their row­di­ness, after all), the library staff cer­tainly rec­og­nizes and cel­e­brates the impor­tance of pub­lic libraries in our society.

Founded in 1958, National Library Week is a national obser­vance each April spon­sored by the Amer­i­can Library Asso­ci­a­tion (ALA) and libraries across the coun­try. It is a time to cel­e­brate the con­tri­bu­tions of our nation’s libraries and librar­i­ans and to pro­mote library use and support.

The Delaware Library has been busy as usual this week, with peo­ple check­ing out books, DVDs and other mate­r­ial, read­ing mag­a­zines and news­pa­pers, hop­ping on the library’s Inter­net con­nec­tions, using the wire­less access, and attend­ing pro­grams. I am always grate­ful for the sup­port of the Delaware com­mu­nity, and the con­tin­ued increase in the num­ber of check-outs is a strong indi­ca­tor that the com­mu­nity embraces and appre­ci­ates the library, as well.

So, we librar­i­ans don’t cel­e­brate National Library Week with par­ties, con­fetti, noise­mak­ers, or carous­ing, but we do cel­e­brate it by con­tin­u­ing to strive to meet your library cus­tomer ser­vice expec­ta­tions. And, remem­ber, as the say­ing goes, “You Belong @ Your Library!”

Can a pitcher have a no-hitter if the oppos­ing team scores a run?

Accord­ing to Rules of the Game, in base­ball, a no-hitter (also known as a no-hit game and col­lo­qui­ally as a no-no) is a game in which a team was not able to record a sin­gle hit. Most of the time, a no-hitter is also a shutout. How­ever, since it is pos­si­ble to reach base with­out a hit (most com­monly via a walk, error, or hit bats­man), a pitcher can throw a no-hitter and still give up runs and even lose the game. On two occa­sions, a team has thrown a nine-inning no-hitter and still lost the game. It is the­o­ret­i­cally pos­si­ble for oppos­ing pitch­ers to throw no-hitters in the same game, although this has never hap­pened in the majors. A game in which a team allows no run­ners to reach base at all is a per­fect game, as well as being a shutout vic­tory. A per­fect game is by def­i­n­i­tion also a no-hitter. Twenty per­fect games have been recorded in MLB history.

Is tuna still “dol­phin safe” if it is not indi­cated on the can?

Accord­ing to The Ency­clo­pe­dia of Food Safety, there is no guar­an­tee that dol­phins have not been harmed, despite the var­i­ous labels on canned tuna because there is no uni­ver­sal and inde­pen­dent ver­i­fi­ca­tion of the dolphin-friendly claims. In a report released by Green­peace in 2008, it is noted that the dol­phin safe labels may make con­sumers believe that canned tuna is also envi­ron­men­tally friendly in gen­eral. These labels only cover the by-catch of dol­phins, not other species, the sus­tain­abil­ity of the hunt itself nor the envi­ron­men­tal impact of it. Species such as sharks and alba­tross still suf­fer greatly from tuna fish­ing. On Sept. 15, 2011, the World Trade Orga­ni­za­tion banned the prac­tice of using dol­phin safe labels. The results of this rul­ing are not yet known, but a coun­try that con­tin­ues a pol­icy banned by the WTO may face sanctions.

What is “mother” in vinegar?

“Mother” in vine­gar is cel­lu­lose pro­duced by the vine­gar bac­te­ria itself. Pas­teur­iza­tion usu­ally gets rid of this stringy sub­stance, though its pres­ence does not mean that the vine­gar is spoiled. On Food and Cook­ing: The Sci­ence and Lore in the Kitchen pro­vided this information.

If you have a ques­tion that you would like to see answered in this col­umn, mail it to Mary Jane San­tos, Delaware County Dis­trict Library, 84 E. Win­ter St., Delaware, OH 43015, or call 740–362-3861. You can also email your ques­tions by vis­it­ing delawarelibrary.org or directly to Mary Jane at mjsantos@delawarelibrary.org. No mat­ter how you con­tact us, we’re always glad you asked! 

Posted by Mary Santos on Apr 13 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.