The Library at the Center for Graduate Studies of Asheville

Happy Leap Day! Every four years, February tries to get an early start on April fools and last an extra day. Today's Google doodle (above) celebrates this rare (one quarter more rare than yesterday) day. Picture it: Rome, 1582 - mismatched solar, lunar, and seasonal cycles  were causing the Julian calendar (the standard of the day) to be off by about 10 days. Holidays were coming later and later and were slipping into the wrong associated season. So, Pope Gregory XIII proclaimed the Gregorian Calendar would be the new standard - and 1582 lost 10 days in the process. In 1582 the end of October 5th ended and the morning of October 15th began. So, if anyone tries to sell you a genuine artifact from October 8th, 1582, you'll know it's a fake! Even more rare than Leap Day is when events of note have gone down on this day in history  - like when Hattie McDaniel won the Academy Award for best supporting actress for her role as Mammy in Gone With the Wind , bec

As promised in our Scariest Librarians post, and in honor of Valentine's Day , we bring you: Heartthrob Librarians  Rupert Giles Rupert Giles is everyone's favorite vampire & demon slaying librarian.  According to the Buffy wiki :  Giles' natural and supernatural abilities include: Superior knowledge of demonology, mystical artifacts, and the black arts due to his Watcher training and delving in the black arts during his "Ripper years". Genius-level intellect. Fluency in several languages (such as Latin, German, Sumerian, and ancient Greek) and special knowledge of history, philosophy, science, and many areas of human knowledge, all due to his studies at Oxford University and his Watcher training. All of these qualities make him an excellent librarian, even though library science isn't expressly listed. Mary From the 1995 comedy-drama film Party Girl, Mary is a fashionable & free-spirited gal in NYC w

An exclamation point is a punctuation mark that conveys an emergency, signal of intensity, or strong feeling.   Usage (or should I say, over-usage ) of the exclamation point, or mark (!), has risen alongside the increased use of electronic communication.  Photo by Craft Snark Nowadays with so much of our day-to-day communication being electronic, many feel that the typed message makes it difficult to convey feeling. Thus, the exclamation point is being overly used to show emotions, such as excitement. If what you are writing is more paramount than it sounds, you need to work on your word  usage. Vocabulary should describe the message you are trying to get across, not punctuation. W hen you overuse the exclamation point, the effectiveness of it begins to wear off quite quickly. Photo by The Bewildered 20-Something Writer  When writing, we advise you to limit your use of the exclamation point. Save them for when they are really needed - especially when writing in p