Identical twin brothers Logan and Noah Miller are part of the Shambaugh Author Series for the Iowa City Book Festival. They recently talked with Loren Keller at the Corridor Buzz.

http://corridorbuzz.com/articles/twin_filmmakers_trade_baseball_for_books.htm 

Logan and Noah will be presenting their film Touching Home  starring Ed Harris on Friday, July 17 at 10 p.m. and Saturday, July 18 at 4 p.m. in the Shambaugh Auditorium in the UI Main Library.

Both screenings are FREE and Open to the Public.

The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa

The University of Iowa Libraries has reached 5 million volumes. It has been cataloged and shelved and is ready for eager minds to use. To wrap your brain around what 5 million books really represent, let’s think about them in concrete terms. If placed end to end, 5 million books could reach between Iowa City and San Francisco. Five million books translate to 1.67 books for each person in the state of Iowa (but only 1 book for every 3 hogs). In economic terms, at an average price of $60 per book, the UI Libraries’ collection has an estimated value of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars.

So what is the 5 millionth book, you may be wondering. To recognize the UI Libraries partnership with the University of Iowa Press and the anniversary of their 40th year, we’ve selected one of their recent publications: The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa, edited by David Hudson, Marvin Bergman and Loren Horton.

Written by an impressive team of more than 150 scholars and writers, the readable narratives include each subject’s name, birth and death dates, place of birth, education, career and contributions. Many of the names will be instantly recognizable to most Iowans; others are largely forgotten but deserve to be remembered. Beyond the distinctive lives and times captured in the individual biographies, readers of the dictionary will gain an appreciation for how the character of the state has been shaped by the character of the individuals who have inhabited it.

The UI Libraries has taken The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa digital – creating a fully searchable, easy-to-navigate interface you can access from anywhere (http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/uipress/bdi).

The University of Iowa Libraries was awarded $5,000 for the Iowa City Book Festival by Humanities Iowa, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities

The grant was one of 17 totaling more than $160,000 awarded at the recent HI board meeting in Ames.

The Iowa City Book Festival will be a daylong celebration of books, reading and writing. The festival also is a celebration of the five millionth volume purchased by the UI Libraries as well as the 40th anniversary of the UI Press. Kristi Bontrager, the library’s public relations coordinator, said it also is a way to thank the public for their help moving books during last summer’s flood.

“It brought back the idea that books are an important part of people’s lives,” Bontrager said. “We saw this as a way to create a dialogue between writers and readers.”

The festival will include workshops on starting a writer’s group, and finding book discussion groups.  There will also be food and music and activities for children.

“The Iowa City Book Festival brings together everything that makes our community so refreshing in summertime: books, reading, writing and sweet corn,” said Holly Carver, the editor at UI Press. “As we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the University of Iowa Press, we are delighted to be part of this first-but-not-last annual festival.”

The festival will also include book vendors and book arts demonstrations as well a program by Iowa’s poet laureates, Mary Swander, Robert Dana and Marvin Bell. There also will be a presentation by the editors of “The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa,” David Hudson, Marvin Bergman and Loren Horton; and a keynote address by “The Oxford Project” creators Peter Feldstein and Steven Bloom.

Other programs to promote literacy include workshops on adult literacy, starting up a writer’s group, finding a book discussion group, library research for writers and writing a literary blog among others.

“Books are one of the things that makes Iowa City a special place,” said HI executive director Christopher Rossi. “The Iowa City Book Festival is a great way to celebrate that heritage while also promoting the literary arts.”

Nancy Baker, university librarian for the University of Iowa Libraries, said the book festival should help fill a “cultural gap” in the community.

“We noticed that a book festival was missing from the landscape of our City of Literature,” Baker said. “The Iowa City Book Festival will be a place that brings all kinds of writers, readers and book-lovers together in conversation. With the help of Humanities Iowa and our other partners, we hope to make the Iowa City Book Festival an annual tradition.”

To learn more about the Iowa City Book Festival, check the website www.iowacitybookfestival.org.