Banned Books Week

Sept. 23-30 is Banned Books week. In 1982 the American Library Association began designating this week to honor our ability to read freely. ALA has compiled a list of the most challenged titles over various time periods. Topping the list since 2000 is the Harry Potter series. John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men is also on the list.

Riverwalking Notes

Yesterday the water was choppy. The weather was great and there was a wonderful view of the Philly skyline, if you stopped on a bench for a moment to look. Today the river was calmer, just small, steady waves. A duck was diving for something (a fish?) but it kept getting away. A few overcast clouds added atmosphere.

Colonial Brewfest!

Calling all brewmeisters!!! Here is your chance to see how great great grandpappy come up with his homebrew:

Raise your glass in celebration of colonial brewing and 18th-century tavern life at the Camden County Historical Society on Saturday, September 23, from 12 noon to 4 p.m. The afternoon-long event provides a working look at the mechanics of brewing and open-hearth cooking as practiced in Camden County's pre-industrial past.

Cherry Hill's Flying Fish Brewing Co. will be providing the ingredients and brewery historian Rich Wagner will demonstrate the brewing process. Tickets are $20 for Camden County Historical Society members, $25.00 for non-members. For more info see the CCHS website

An Update on the Rutgers Camden Technology Campus

There is more good news for the Rutgers Camden Technology Campus!

The New Jersey Urban Enterprise Zone Administration has awarded a $325,000 grant to the Rutgers Camden Technology Campus, Inc., to support the growth of new businesses in the Rutgers-Camden Business Incubator.

The grant will be used to construct high-quality incubator office space for new businesses in the Rutgers-Camden Business Incubator, with an emphasis on maintaining confidentiality for clients as they develop their products and services. The business space will be housed within the Waterfront Technology Center at Camden, a state-of-the-art facility where the Rutgers incubator will become the primary tenant later this year. (more info)

Jersey Beetles Conquer Loosestrife

One of the state's lesser known entities, the Phillip Alampi Beneficial Insect Rearing Laboratory, a division of the state's department of agriculture, is taking the battle between invasive plants and natural vegetation seriously. Purple Loosestrife has one known predator, the Galerucella beetle, and the lab is sending out as many of them as it can.

The New Jersey Dept. of Agriculture's official note on the project states:

Purple Loosestrife is an exotic and invasive noxious weed that is threatening New Jersey's wetlands. It damages the state’s wetlands by displacing native plants essential to wildlife for food and cover. The Department is rearing and releasing two species of leaf eating beetles, Galerucella spp., that feed on purple loosestrife to control this weed pest in wetland areas. Since 1997, more than 1,500,000 Galerucella spp. beetles have been released at 100 sites, in 16 of the 21 counties throughout NJ.

Numerous sites are continuing to show high levels of beetle activity and feeding damage; the loosestrife population is being reduced and native wetland plants are beginning to populate these previously infested sites. The Galerucella spp. beetles have been recovered up to twelve miles from a release site.

NJ Court Decisions Online

The Rutgers University School of Law at Camden has digitized several groupings of court decisions. The following information is now available online:

Decisions of the New Jersey Supreme Court’s Attorney Disciplinary Review Board from December, 1998 onward. These decisions are online at http://lawlibrary.rutgers.edu/drb/search.shtml.

New Jersey Session Laws, which currently offers a complete compilation of session laws from 1703 to 1970. Rutgers-Camden plans to complete the collection “at least through 2000. This collection likely is of great interest to historians who can access archival legal and census information about New Jersey.” The documents are online at http://lawlibrary.rutgers.edu/njleg/index.shtml.

U.S. Congressional Documents, which offers digital access to congressional hearings and committee prints. This is an ongoing project. The collection is online at http://lawlibrary.rutgers.edu/gdoc/search/shtml.

Full press release here.