Focusing on the major educational initiatives of our times--the National Education Goals outlined and endorsed in 1990 by the nation's governors, and President Bush's America 2000 strategy--this report reviews and summarizes information about the role of libraries in many different educational efforts designed to meet the national goals. It is argued that libraries can and must play a pivotal role in meeting these goals, including efforts to prepare students to cope with learning in an information age (resource-based learning), and to provide a national electronic network for students, teachers, administrators, and community members (the National Education and Research Network). This work provides direct evidence of the relationship between existing and developing library programs and the national education initiatives, citing specific examples whenever possible or appropriate. A separate chapter is devoted to each of the six goals to be reached by the year 2000. Within each chapter, information is presented for each of three spheres of influence defined in "Education Counts: An Indicator System To Monitor the Nation's Educational Health" (U.S. Department of Education, 1991)--learning and schools, social context, and national values. Within each sphere of influence, examples of ways in which libraries can contribute to meeting the goal are presented together with research findings, comments, and highlights of programs already involved in the types of activities related to a particular example, and sources of the information given are cited. A 15-item selected bibliography of sources on which this work is based concludes the report. (BBM)

The enduring and engaging guide to educating yourself in the classical tradition. Have you lost the art of reading for pleasure? Are there books you know you should read but haven’t because they seem too daunting? In The Well-Educated Mind, Susan Wise Bauer provides a welcome and encouraging antidote to the distractions of our age, electronic and otherwise. Newly expanded and updated to include standout works from the twenty-first century as well as essential readings in science (from the earliest works of Hippocrates to the discovery of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs), The Well-Educated Mind offers brief, entertaining histories of six literary genres—fiction, autobiography, history, drama, poetry, and science—accompanied by detailed instructions on how to read each type. The annotated lists at the end of each chapter—ranging from Cervantes to Cormac McCarthy, Herodotus to Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Aristotle to Stephen Hawking—preview recommended reading and encourage readers to make vital connections between ancient traditions and contemporary writing. The Well-Educated Mind reassures those readers who worry that they read too slowly or with below-average comprehension. If you can understand a daily newspaper, there’s no reason you can’t read and enjoy Shakespeare’s sonnets or Jane Eyre. But no one should attempt to read the “Great Books” without a guide and a plan. Bauer will show you how to allocate time to reading on a regular basis; how to master difficult arguments; how to make personal and literary judgments about what you read; how to appreciate the resonant links among texts within a genre—what does Anna Karenina owe to Madame Bovary?—and also between genres. In her best-selling work on home education, The Well-Trained Mind, the author provided a road map of classical education for parents wishing to home-school their children; that book is now the premier resource for home-schoolers. In The Well-Educated Mind, Bauer takes the same elements and techniques and adapts them to the use of adult readers who want both enjoyment and self-improvement from the time they spend reading. Followed carefully, her advice will restore and expand the pleasure of the written word.

Sophie wants one thing for Christmas—a little freedom from her overprotective parents. So when they decide to spend Christmas in South Louisiana with her very pregnant older sister, Sophie is looking forward to some much needed private (read: make-out) time with her long-term boyfriend, Griffin. Except it turns out that Griffin wants a little freedom from their relationship. Cue devastation. Heartbroken, Sophie flees to her grandparents' house, where the rest of her boisterous extended family is gathered for the holiday. That's when her nonna devises a (not so) brilliant plan: Over the next ten days, Sophie will be set up on ten different blind dates by different family members. Like her sweet cousin Sara, who sets her up with a hot guy at an exclusive underground party. Or her crazy aunt Patrice, who signs Sophie up for a lead role in a living nativity. With a boy who barely reaches her shoulder. And a screaming baby. When Griffin turns up unexpectedly and begs for a second chance, Sophie feels more confused than ever. Because maybe, just maybe, she's started to have feelings for someone else . . . Someone who is definitely not available. This is going to be the worst Christmas break ever . . . or is it?

"Directory and statistics" (called -1954 "Directory of Texas libraries") issued as Apr. number, 1954-58 (Apr. 1954 as Special ed.).