Boy beside store window display of Christmas ornaments

the biggest shopping day of the holiday season! The day after Thanksgiving, often referred to as “Black Friday,” is a day that many retailers kick off their holiday sale season. One myth is that this day is when retailers begin to make a profit. For some it has become a family tradition to hit the malls on that day.

Near as I can determine, the use of Black Friday to represent the beginning of the holiday shopping season began sometime in the 1960’s or 1970’s in Philadelphia and had to do with the amount of traffic on the streets from vehicles and people.

Is this really the busiest shopping day of the holiday season? Maybe, maybe not. A post on the Snopes website shows that this day is typically in the top 10, but not in the #1 spot. The International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) media guide for 2006 does show that for 2005 this day did hit the #1 spot (see pg. 6).

When I started doing some research for this post, I was amazed on the number of websites dedicated to the Black Friday shopping phenomenon. There are sites that track the deals being offered by stores, like Black Friday 2009 which provides daily updates for consumers on what retailers will be offering or sites like GottaDeal.com where you can look at the deals available by retailer or by category.

Retailers can find information at the Holiday Headquarters from the National Retail Federation. The International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) provides a media guide with information on what’s hot, retail forecasts, and some holiday fun facts.

I won’t be joining the fray on November 27th. I tend to start avoiding most shopping centers at this time and don’t go back until mid to late January. Does that mean my holiday shopping will be all done by then? Absolutely not! I’ll be joining the Cyber Monday crowd.

For more tips and information, check out GovGab Black Friday post.

Happy Holidays & Happy Shopping to all!

(*Nineteenth Century in Print: The Making of America in Books and Periodicals collection is part of a distributed digital collection collaboration between Cornell University Library and the University of Michigan Library and the Library of Congress.)

Sweet potato or yam?

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a sweet potato and yam? I have. I found myself in a market looking for fresh sweet potatoes for a sweet potato salad recipe. I searched the produce aisle, without success. So I asked the produce manager for help. He told me to use the garnet or jewel yams. “But my recipe calls for sweet potatoes,” I cried. He replied, “The yams are just like sweet potatoes.”

I took his advice, but when I got to the Library the next morning I thought this would make a perfect Everyday Mystery– What is the difference between sweet potatoes and yams?

I hurried down to the reading room and grabbed The Oxford Companion to Food and the Cambridge World History of Food to find my answer. What we call a yam in the United States (e.g., garnet yam or jewel yam) is in fact a softer variety of sweet potatoes. True yams, native to African and Asia, are drier and starchier than sweet potatoes.

To supplement this culinary history, I needed to understand the botanical relationships between the two. Botanically, a sweet potato and a yam are both flowering plants, but that is where the similarity ends. Yams are closely related to lilies and grasses, while sweet potatoes are part of the morning glory family. I learned that the sweet potato isn’t even a real potato!!

I felt misled. For so many years, I have claimed the yam as one of my favorite vegetables. In fact, as a youngster, I used to sing songs about them. The “I love yams song” was a favorite. After all these years, I have now recognized that it is the sweet potato I love. 

Thanksgiving Dinner, 1942. From the FSA/OWI Collection

So as you sit down to a Thanksgiving dinner of candied yams, you can share this tidbit with your friends and family – that you are not eating yams, you are eating sweet potatoes.

You can read more about the difference between a yam and a sweet potato from our Everyday Mystery Web site.

Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford. American physicist and inventor. Author in Jefferson's Library

I bet most people don’t know that an estimated 40% of the Library’s books and journals are science and business materials. The significance of this can be traced back to our founding father, Thomas Jefferson, who sold his personal library to Congress in 1815 for $23,950. Jefferson collected titles from around the world in all subjects, including agriculture, astronomy, chemistry, commerce, economics, medicine, and zoology. His collection contained over 500 volumes in the sciences, with an even larger number of business-related titles. These and others books became the foundation of the Library of Congress.

Science and Technology

In June 1949, following the boom in scientific research after WWII, the Science and Technology Division was formed to provide specialized reference and bibliographic services and to develop the general collections of the Library in all areas of science and technology. The Technical  Reports and Standards Unit holds much of the  WWII-related scientific research such as the OSRD Collection and  Historical PB Collection. 

Business

It was not until 1991, in response to a growing recognition of the need for staff with specialized skills to work with the business and economics collections, that a separate administrative unit, the Business Reference Section, was established.

Originally established within what is now the Humanities and Social Sciences Division, the Business Reference Section benefited in its early years from collaboration with the Business Research Project (no longer in existence). This fund was established in 1993 by Edward Lowe of Edward Lowe Industries (inventor of kitty litter!) in order to promote access to business research for entrepreneurs. This collaboration enabled the Section to develop several signature products which continue today, including BEOnline and The Directory of Small Business Information Providers. 

Science and Business Reading Room, John Adams Building

Science, Technology and Business 

 For many years the Business Section and the Science and Technology Division, along with their collections, both resided in the John Adams Building. In the late 1990’s plans were underway to merge the two. In June 1998, the Business Reference Section was transferred administratively to the Science and Technology Division, thus forming the new Science, Technology and Business Division. Today, it seems like a natural fit. Science and business go hand in hand. Patents, inventions, industry, and manufacturing draw from science, but you also need business know-how and funding to be successful.

Tomb of Unknown Soldier 11/11/1926

In 1926 Congress passed a resolution for an annual observance of the end of World War I. Tomorrow, November 11, was initially known as “Armistice Day” and became a national holiday in 1938. The name was changed to Veterans Day by President Eisenhower in 1954 as a way to honor all who served in American wars.

Prompted by the U.S. Census Bureau’s “Facts for Features” news release for Veteran’s Day, we’d like to take this opportunity to share a few veteran related highlights from the upcoming Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2010.

In the United States in 2008 there were 23.2 million military veterans of which 1.8 million were female.

The number of veterans over the age of 64 in 2008 is 9.2 million and the number younger than 35 is 1.9 million.

The 2008 American Community Survey reveals that there are 10.4 million veterans between the ages of 18 – 65 in the labor force in 2008.

The 2002 Survey of Business Owners reported that 14.5% of those responding to the survey were veterans, and 7% of those reported they were disabled as the result of injury incurred or aggravated during active military service.

For more facts, check out the Facts for Features: Veterans Day 2009: Nov. 11 found on the U.S. Census Bureau website.

You may also be interested in The Star’s and Stripes from the Library’s American Memory collection or our Veterans History Project. If you would like additional information, please don’t hesitate to Ask a Librarian.

1917 Census poster for State military

We regularly receive requests for federal statistics and knowing where to look can often be a daunting task! With so many agencies producing numbers you might ask: Where do I begin? Can I get them over a period of time? Whether it is population numbers for Livermore, CA for a business plan, or employment numbers for the VA/MD/DC Metro area, we can help!

I recently attended a workshop conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau on Understanding Federal Statistics. I found out that I have a lot to learn about the various websites, publications and tools that are available, and that it will take much exploring to become comfortable. I also found that a tool or guide that points me off in the right direction can be very helpful. Business Reference just happens to have a couple of those.

A new tutorial, Finding Census Data for Business Research is available on our website. The tutorial takes about 10 minutes to go through and gets you on your way to locating population statistics, historical census information, and  some basic tips for using the American Fact Finder tool on the Census website. We also have a handy guide for International and U.S. Census data.

So where might you look for various federal statistics?

State Employment Service office opens (San Francisco, CA). Line to register for unemployment benefits.

The U.S. Census Bureau is a sure bet for information on people and households. Try the Bureau of Labor Statistics for employment and CPI data. The National Agriculture Statistics Service can tell you how many women were principle operators of farms in 2007. (There were 306,209 up from 237,819 in 2002.) The Bureau of Transportation Statistics can enlighten you with the current motorcycle trends in one of their special reports. Want to know how many people have been diagnosed with heart disease, the National Center for Health Statistics has the answer. The Bureau of Economic Analysis will have GDP information and the National Center for Education Statistics can help to find a college for that budding engineer graduating from high school.

Kentucky census. Leaf inserted in 1st ed. of 1st census 1790 at p. 51

After looking at all of the sources mentioned above, here’s a fun fact: in 2007 the estimated resident population of the United States was 301,621,000. In that same year adult participation for video games numbered 26,119,000 and 9,765,000 adults participated two or more times per week! (Table 2. Population 1960-2007. Table 1200. Adult Participation in Selected Leisure Activities by Frequency: 2007 from the Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2009; 128^th Edition.) If you would like to see how these numbers compare with those for recreational activities popular in the past, check out the Historical Statistics of the United States.

(Personal note: selecting the images for this post was very difficult! To see some of the other choices, search American Memory or Prints & Photographs with census as the search term.)

Slant floor storage--Floor connection

Parking! We city dwellers often ask, “Is there parking?” before even venturing out the door.  For so many of us, the statement “a really great parking space can totally move you to tears” is right on spot. 

On Sunday (November 1, 2009) the Washington Post’ s Philip Kennicott  reported (On the spot: Putting parking in its proper place ) on the recent pattern of parking garage news stories and the new exhibit House of Cars  at the National Building Museum.  This article cites a lecture ST&B hosted back in January 2008 with architect Shannon Sanders McDonald, author of The Parking Garage: Design and Evolution of a Modern Urban Form (Urban Land Institute, 2007). This 312 page work is filled with amazing images illustrating the history and future of parking structures.  Over the course of several years of writing this book, Shannon made multiple trips to the Library of Congress to find images of parking structures in the Library’s books and serials. Our reference staff worked extensively with Shannon to identify pictorial materials and sources documenting historical buildings and plans .   

Cars in slots in vertical parking lot.

The Library filmed Shannon’s illustrated lecture and it can be viewed at Parking Garage and Its Impact on Urban Planning. This lecture was such a hit that our LC Blog commented on it in  Behold, the Parking Garage (Feb. 2008).

For those of you interested in learning more about parking structures and urban planning, you might be interested in our Parking and Parking Structures Bibliography

This building, built as an annex, was completed and opened to the public in 1939. It was initially named The Annex building. On June 13, 1980 it became known as the John Adams Building in honor of our second president who approved the law establishing the Library of Congress.

It is an interesting building with some unique features. When entering the building you are greeted by huge brass doors depicting the history of the written word in sculpted figures.

On the side of the building facing Independence Avenue you find a beautiful sculpted owl as you go up the steps. This entrance is no longer used, but it was originally intended for the Copyright Office. Currently you will find tables where one can stop and enjoy a bite, rest, or people watch.

In the lobby area of the 5^th floor, before you enter the reading room, there are two decorative pedestals (one at each end) that remind me of a scene from Indiana Jones.

You’re on your way to the treasure and you have to pass through an area that could be dangerous, you must clear the obstacles before you enter the treasure room… the reading room!

Some amazing photos have been taken of this building. You can find them in the Prints & Photographs Catalog with a subject search for Library of Congress Adams Building.

For more history of the buildings, doors, and architecture that makes up the Library of Congress, visit On These Walls.

We’re new here in the Library of Congress blog space and we are looking forward to a long relationship with you, our readers. The title of this post, “…Never to be afraid of a book,” is taken from a letter John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson on May 26, 1817, and we found it appropriate for the journey on which we are about to embark today.

The Science, Technology & Business Division, otherwise known as ST&B, is located in the John Adams Building ( named after the second president of the United States). The John Adams Building (one of three Library buildings on Capitol Hill) contains 180 miles of shelving and can hold ten million volumes! We have around 13 acres of shelf space in this one building alone. We look forward to this journey with you as we discover and highlight materials from our collections, share our favorite finds, and spotlight exciting events that take place here at the Library. Over the next few posts we will explore how ST&B came to be and share with you some history about the John Adams Building, along with its art and architecture.

Your guides along this journey are Donna, a business digital reference specialist and Jennifer, a science digital reference specialist. Our aim is to help connect you to the Library’s collections in science and business and to the activities of ST&B. Basically we want to give you a look Inside Adams.

“Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.”
(The Works of John Adams, v.3: pg. 462)

The name of our blog, Inside Adams, is quite fitting in many ways. ST&B is located inside the John Adams Building. As the quote notes, we will dare to speak and write to you from Inside Adams about things that we find, read, think and do Inside Adams.

We end our first blog post with parting words from John Adams, “In such researches as these, let us all in our several departments cheerfully engage…” (The Works of John Adams, v.3: pg. 462)
We hope that you will participate with us on this journey and we look forward to your thoughts and questions.