Monmouth College Hewes Library news

National Library Week & The Big Read

Hewes Library at Monmouth College will celebrate National Library Week beginning on Friday, April 11, at the afternoon coffee. The celebration will continue through the following week, April 13-19, with an exhibit on display in the New Books section of the library. Please stop by to visit the exhibit and if you have any questions, you can call 309-457-2190.

National Library Week, April 13-19, 2008

The American Library Association (ALA) has declared April 13-19, National Library Week. Every year it is a time to celebrate the nation's libraries and the people who work in them.


Libraries are changing. They are no longer simply a place to check books in and out. Today, libraries are being used a social spots for group work as well as a center for technology with access to ebooks, wikis and wireless communication via laptops. 2008 celebrates the 50th anniversary of National Library Week and as a result, this year's theme is "Join the Circle of Knowledge," which focuses on the many facets of libraries that bring communities together. The Big Read, below, is one example. For more information about National Library Week, you may view the American Library Association's Press Release on their website.

The Big Read 2008: A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Big Read is a national initiative to encourage citizens to return reading to part of the national culture. Currently, there are 127 communities around the country participating in the project. The Big Read runs from March 15 - April 18, 2008.


A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway has been chosen by our community to be the book to bring people together for discussions and events. For more information about The Big Read: A Farewell to Arms, please visit the National Endowment for the Arts website about the program. A listing of community events is also available online. Events will continue through the end of May 2008.


There are several societies and foundations today that still study Hemingway's work. The Ernest Hemingway Foundation of Oak Park works to promote the author's life work and seek to understand its impact on literature. Born in 1899 and raised until Oak Park, Illinois, Hemingway did not complete his first important novel, The Sun Also Rises until 1926. In 1929, he completed A Farewell to Arms about an American's soldier's disillusionment with war, where Hemingway drew on his own wartime experiences. He completed For Whom the Bell Tolls in 1940 followed by The Old Man and the Sea in 1952, in the midst of publishing many short stories. The Old Man and the Sea earned him a Pultizer Prize in 1953 and then he received the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature. The NEA's A Farewell to Arms has supporting materials to accompany the book.


The National Endowment for the Arts' introduction offers a glimpse into the book. The following is an excerpt from their introduction: "Ernest Hemingway's third novel A Farewell to Arms (1929) was crafted from his earliest experience with war. As a teenager just out of high school, Hemingway volunteered to fight in the First World War, but was rejected because of poor eyesight. Instead, he drove a Red Cross ambulance on the Italian front, where he was wounded in 1918 by a mortar shell. While recovering in a hospital, Hemingway fell in love with Agnes von Kurowsky, a nurse seven years his senior. She did not reciprocate his passion, however, and rejected his marriage proposal five months after their first meeting. These events were thinly fictionalized by Hemingway a decade later into A Farewell to Arms, with its tragic love story between an American ambulance driver and an English nurse. Lieutenant Frederic Henry meets Catherine Barkley in a small town near the Italian Alps. Though Catherine still mourns the death of her fiancé, killed in the war, she encourages Frederic to pursue her. Badly wounded at the front, Frederic finds himself bedridden in a Milan hospital, but Catherine arrives to look after him. It is here that their initial romance deepens into love. While Frederic recovers from surgery and prepares to return to action, Catherine discovers that she is pregnant-a surprise that delights and frightens them both. Though the couple has escaped the war, there are dangers that cannot be anticipated or avoided. The final chapter is one of the most famous, and heartbreaking, conclusions in modern literature."


Patrons are invited to view an exhibit to accompany the book at Hewes Library. It will be on display in the first floor lounge Friday, March 28. March 30 thru April 18 the exhibit will be on display in the New Books section located on the first floor.


For more information on Ernest Hemingway and A Farewell to Arms, please take a look at the following:

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lj 3-24-08