Bob Edwards Weekend Highlights – October 9-10, 2010
HOUR ONE
To celebrate National Book Month, we begin a new series examining the successes and failures of our national library system. Current American Library Association president Roberta Stevens discusses how libraries have changed over the past 20 years, and shares librarians’ struggles to meet the community’s growing demands even as library budgets are slashed. Then, library historian Matthew Battles gives the then and now of world libraries, from the famed library at Alexandria to the genesis of modern public libraries. He is the author of Library: An Unquiet History.
In this week’s installment of our ongoing series This I Believe, we hear the contemporary essay of attorney Djenita Pasic. She and her family settled in Louisville, Kentucky, after Serbian forces laid siege to her hometown of Sarajevo for over three years. Pasic now runs her own international business development and legal consulting firm, and she is active in peace-making and civil liberty issues.
HOUR TWO
Mark Boyle lives without cash and he manages just fine with his off-the-grid caravan, solar laptop and toothpaste made from washed-up cuttlefish bones. Boyle was a successful businessman but he became disillusioned with society’s obsession with money, so in 2008, he decided to try living for a year with no money at all. His story is told in a new book titled, Moneyless Man.
Ruben Martinez chronicles how the Old World changed the New World, from agriculture to racial hierarchies. When Spanish conquistadors met the natives, the indigenous Americans already had a sophisticated society, even if it didn’t appear so to the armor-clad Europeans. When Worlds Collide presents how the two cultures merged into the Latino heritage we have come to know today.