text:
Fall 2004
Graziano Krätli
From travelog to catalog
Colonial scholarship produced a few tentative surveys of prominent libraries, a limited number of partial handlists, and a handful of reviews or translations of individual works, but made no serious and systematic attempt at mapping the
manuscript territory it had discovered and started to explore. Travelers, on the other hand, offered a different and complementary view by describing visits to actual libraries, encounters with their owners and keepers, and life in the
oasis towns where manuscript collections had been preserved for centuries. By giving these libraries a human face and a physical background, and by contextualizing and popularizing what had previously been confined to a few scholarly accounts, their narratives managed to add these new and uncommon mustsees to the travel maps and guides of western Sahara. More significantly, travel accounts laid the foundations of cultural tourism in Mauritania, which in the past ten years has seen a slow but steady growth, and to which the cultural and economic survival of the old caravan towns, as well as the future of the manuscript libraries themselves, appear to be increasingly linked.
A new incentive to emphasize the manuscript tradition as part of the cultural heritage of the country was provided by the movement for independence, which culminated in the creation of the new Islamic Republic of Mauritania on November 26, 1960. As early as 1949 the scholar Mokhtar Ould Hamidoun produced an inventory of the private libraries of Chinguetti (Gaudio, 1978, 82). Then in the early 1960s, with funding from UNESCO, he and Adam Heymowski of the Royal Library in Stockholm were able to conduct a countrywide survey, inventorying almost 2,000 works by 425 authors and estimating the existence of about 40,000 manuscripts. Their Catalogue provisoire des manuscripts mauritaniens en langue arabe préservés en Mauritanie (196566) was the first extensive inventory of Islamic manuscripts produced in Mauritania, and one of the first initiatives of this kind conducted in West Africa. Like all pioneering projects carried out with limited means, it is simple and yet resourceful, with basic entries providing author and title (typed in Arabic), as well as Latin transcriptions of author names, handwritten in the margin.
An important step towards the creation of a national repository of manuscript collections was the establishment in 1975 of the Institut Mauritanienne de Recherche Scientifique (IMRS), followed three years later by the Institut Supérieur des Etudes et Recherches Islamiques (ISERI). In the first five years, thanks to the energetic collaboration between its director, Abdallahi Ould Boubacar, and the minister of culture, Ahmed Ould Sidi Baba, the IMRS acquired some three thousand manuscripts, which were more than doubled by 1995. This inspired the ISERI to implement a similar initiative in 1988, which secured an important collection of about two thousand items (Ould Maouloud, 2002, 340).
The great value and poor conditions of these newly acquired materials on one hand, and the lack of expertise and resources (both financial and technological) on the other, prompted the IMRS to seek foreign help to take proper
preservation measures. This led to a fruitful collaboration with the University of Tübingen, in Germany, for the microfilming and cataloging of 2,239 manuscripts from over 260 collections throughout the country. Funded by the Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation), the fouryear long (198184) project was coordinated by Rainer Osswald,
Ulrich Rebstock, and Ahmadu Ould 'Abd alQadir, while the selection of the materials to be cataloged was based on a list compiled by the chief of the manuscript division at IMRS, Ahmad Ould Mohammed Yahya. The resulting microforms were deposited at the University of Tübingen, the University of Amman, Jordan, and the IMRS in Nouakchott, while the threevolume catalog was published in 1985 and reissued in one volume in 1989 (Ould Cheikh, 1987).
The catalog is organized in a way that emphasizes conciseness and precision. Each entry is made of up to six descriptive fields identified by letters of the alphabet: A for Author, B for Title, C for Subject, D for Date, E for Location, and F for Dimensions and Condition. Four indexes (libraries,
subjects, titles, and authors) complete the survey. The first two show, next to each entry, the number of corresponding works and their relative percentage. Manuscript collections (or individual owners/curators) are listed under place names (from Abdangay to azZiwan, for a total of 96 locations), while subjects are identified by their Arabic names transcribed in Latin characters (e.g., Adab, Fiqh, etc.). The collaboration between Rebstock and Yahya continued over the years to produce other significant contributions, including a handlist of 1,109 items from twelve private collections (six in Chinguetti and six in Ouadane), and a catalog that describes fourteen private libraries in Nemah and Oualata.
Around the time Rebstocks Rohkatalog was published, another foreign scholar was contacted by the Shaykh Sidiyya family with a request for assistance in the microfilming of the their famous collection, both for preservation purposes and as a first step in the creation of a regional archive based in Boutilimit. A member of the History Department of the University of Illinois, Charles C. Stewart, had been conducting research in Mauritania and particularly in Boutilimit since the late 1960s; he knew the Shaykh Sidiyya and had used their library to collect material for his doctoral thesis on The Role of Shaykh Sidiyya and the Qadiriyya tariqa in southern Mauritania. [1]
In June 1986 Stewart conducted a preliminary survey of the collection, to identify and quantify material for filming, and to separate manuscripts from printed books. Of the latter, threequarters dated from the second decade of the twentieth century onwards and were not inventoried, while all the manuscripts were set aside for microfilming, as was a small collection of early print (lithograph) materials that were deemed to be rare (Stewart, et al., 1992, 1). Between October 1987 and December 1989, with two grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, nearly 120,000 pages of material
were microfilmed and subsequently indexed and cataloged. The microfilmed collection consists of 104 reels, of which two copies were returned to a member of the Shaykh Sidiyya family in Nouakchott and two are preserved at the University of Illinois.
The bilingual (Arabic and English) catalog was created using a computerbased program especially developed for this project by Kazumi Hatasa of Purdue University (Stewart and Hatasa, 1989). Each of the 2,054 records consists of a potential of 31 items descriptive of the manuscript, although it is rare that even half of these are utilized in a single record (Stewart, et al., 1992). Most entries, in fact, are made of a dozen or less basic fields, such as record and collection numbers, title (in Arabic only), author, known as (i.e., familiar or common names), subject, form (prose, verse, or commentary), date (the year the manuscript was copied or published), owner (provenance), pages, dimensions (in centimeters),
and miscellany (which may include information about the condition of the manuscript). Based on the information contained in these fields, computergenerated indexes were created for authors, subjects, nisbas (and authors full names), known as (and authors full names), recipients (of letters), copyists, scripts or languages, authorssubjectsforms, and subjectsformsauthors. The resulting four volumes (two of records, one of indexes, and one in Arabic), were produced by xerography in 1990 and distributed to twelve libraries in Mauritania and abroad (Stewart, 1991 and 1994).
In 198889, while the microfilming of the Shaykh Sidiyya Library was in progress, Stewart and his team used the same computer program, format, and indexing approach to catalog the manuscript collection of the IMRS in Nouakchott. Of this collection, which brings together 72 libraries mainly from the Trarza region in the southwest, Ahmad Ould Mohammed Yahya had maintained a careful handlist of acquisitions and compiled a list of titles of particular interest to historians (Yahya, 19871988). Produced and distributed in 199293, and in very much the same way as Stewarts previous work, the
3,134record, fivevolume Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts at the Institut Mauritanienne de Recherche Scientifique represents a
significant contribution to a general catalog of all Islamic manuscripts in Mauritania, of which it remains the largest and most substantial segment published to date.
Subsequently, Stewarts team developed a second version of the AMMS program which allowed them to add other catalogs and handlists of West African collections housed in Niamey, Niger, Paris, Timbuktu, and Evanston, Illinois, to their database, for a total of almost 20,000 records. Then, in the summer of 2002, after the project had been on hold for almost a decade, all of the 19,778 records were ported onto a Windows platform, the screen was redesigned, and, most significantly, a search engine was created that overcame many of the previous difficulties that had arisen from the diversity of input
parameters. During the decade this project was on hold, new finds of manuscripts in private libraries in Mauritania and Mali continued apace, and the numbers of additional manuscripts now cataloged from new collections may
well eclipse the number of initial entries in AMMSvers2 (Stewart, 2004). The Internet version of the database went live in the fall of 2004, and at the time of this writing remains the only catalog of Arabic manuscripts from West Africa to be accessible online.
A different, more encyclopedic initiative was launched in the late 1980s by the Londonbased AlFurqan Islamic Heritage Foundation with the aim of assessing the contents, conditions, and accessibility of Islamic manuscripts wherever they are located. The World Survey of Islamic Manuscripts was implemented by commissioning countryspecific handlists and catalogs, by training librarians and archivists, and by organizing conferences and seminars on issues pertaining to the conservation of Islamic manuscripts (Sharifi, 1994; Ibish and Atiyeh, 1996). The national catalogs were published in the early 1990s; each volume covers a number of countries (not necessarily from the same continent or region), and within each country individual repositories are listed alphabetically under their respective locations. The section on Mauritania gives firsthand information about collections which have been seen personally by the compiler, Geneviève SimonKhedis, who, in spite of the difficulty of access and research, was able to visit and describe 41 libraries in 14 different locations (SimonKhedis, 1994, 281). Each entry gives the name of the collection and its owner or curator;
the date of establishment; the status (private or public); the conditions of access (e.g., on application); the total number of Islamic manuscripts; a description of its holdings (with information about its founder, provenance of the materials, and their actual condition); and, cataloging information (e.g., published or unpublished catalogs, cataloging in progress, etc.). A chronological list of union catalogs and surveys adds important bibliographical information to what remains a useful and unique reference work.
Postcolonial prospects and prescriptions
A natural effect of the independence (and the consequent need to build institutional mass), the centralizing approach manifest in the attempt to create a national repository became increasingly difficult to justify and sustain when money started to dwindle and the IMRS lost its acquisition power. (A blessed impediment in this case, since it prevented most historical towns, already economically depressed, from losing their only cultural asset and potential source of income.) This, and the growing dependence on international aid and cooperation, with its emphasis on sustainable development through the valorization of local resources, paved the way for an alternative and more sensible approach, based on the understanding that the manuscript libraries are part and parcel of their communities, where they play an important role as repositories of cultural identity and increasingly valuable assets in the tourist economy. Since the midnineties, this second approach has been implemented in either of two ways: by creating collective repositories in the major manuscriptrich towns, or by providing private owners with the financial and technical means to properly preserve their collections at home.
Collective repositories have been, or are in the process of being, established by transferring manuscripts from private homes to a central facility where they can be restored, preserved, stored, and accessed according to scientific principles of conservation. All private collections remain property of their owners, who retain their rights and control over them, while also playing an active role in the administration of the center. This solution was applied for the first time (and with mixed results) in Chinguetti, where private funding was provided by at least two European groups (the French Fondation
RhônePoulenc and the Italian Associazione Culturale Giovanni Lorenzin), a plot of land was donated by the Habott Foundation, and an association of manuscript owners (Nahda) was specifically created to support and coordinate the initiative. After several exploratory missions sponsored by UNESCO or the European Union, and in spite of the diffidence and distrust of the local people, the building of the new manuscript center was finally undertaken in 2003. A similar initiative sponsored
by the Spanish cooperation in Oualata, at the southeastern end of the old OuadaneAudaghost route, succeeded in bringing together seven private collections representing about thirty percent of all local manuscripts. But it succeeded only in part, and largely thanks to the support and active participation of Muhammad Nah Ould Abd alRahman, custodian of one of
the largest private libraries in town, while two other major collections were kept out by their respective owners [2]. In Tichitt, about 200 miles northwest of Oualata, a local notable built a facility to preserve the manuscript collections of his own clan, the Chorfa (Ould Maouloud, 2002, 342). When it was surveyed by SimonKhedis in the early 1990s, the new Abd alMumin Library contained approximately 3,000 items, about one thousand more than the local Maktabat alAwqaf, the municipal library whose holdings are charitable gifts (SimonKhedis, 1994, 305).
More recently, Tichitt has been the beneficiary of two grants of $16,000 each, awarded by the U.S. government through the Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation, a program established by the Congress in 2001 to provide direct small grant support to heritage preservation in lessdeveloped countries. The first grant was to build and equip a facility to house and preserve approximately 7,000 Islamic manuscripts documenting the history of Saharan trade during the Ghana empire. [3] The facility was inaugurated in August 2002
Of course there is a big difference between raising a building and starting an adequate preservation program, let alone ensuring its survival over time, and unfortunately many collective repositories planned so far seem to show the symptoms of a condition diffused among international cooperation projects: once the building is inaugurated and the collections are successfully transferred (if they are transferred at all), the envisioned center quietly and almost naturally atrophies into a storage facility, and the whole initiative rarely moves beyond this initial step in the conservation process. This certainly doesnt help to overcome the natural (and amply justified) suspiciousness and distrust of the manuscript owners, whose decision to grant the custody of their collections and become involved in the management of the new center is what, ultimately, determines the success or the failure of an initiative of this kind. Such decisions, to be sure, are often motivated by personal or political reasons which can be traced to historical rivalries among families and clans, a fact that outsiders dont always recognize or take into proper consideration.
The alternative approach represented by home conservation, in which technical advice and support are catered to individual libraries, is best represented so far by the Réseau des Bibliothèques Traditionelles de Tidjikja (Tidjikja Traditional Libraries Network), a successful initiative implemented in this old caravan town midway between Chinguetti and Tichitt. Membership in the network requires three main commitments: to actively participate in the conservation of the manuscripts; to cooperate with catalogers and conservators; and, to make the resulting documentation available to researchers. On its part, the owners association provides technical equipment and knowhow, and is also responsible for the creation of a centre du patrimoine for the management of technology and materials used in the conservation and restoration process (Ould Maouloud, 2002, 3424).
The passage from the heroic phase of pioneer cataloging to a more comprehensive and strategic approach to conservation occurred in the midnineties, when a number of significant initiatives laid the foundations for projects to come. Between 1995 and 2000, the Centre International de Recherches Sahariennes et Sahéliennes (CIRSS), a research center of the Institut International dAnthropologie (IIA) in Paris, organized four international colloquia with the purpose of assessing the potential for cultural and economic revival in the Sahara, discussing appropriate development strategies, promoting awareness, and soliciting financial and technical assistance from national and international agencies [5]. The proceedings were published in Nouvelle Revue Anthropologique, the journal of the Institut International dAnthropologie, and later collected by Attilio Gaudio in Les bibliothèques du désert (2002) [6].
Contemporaneous with these conferences, two missions were undertaken to assess the contents and conditions of the private libraries in Chinguetti and Ouadane, and to plan a proper conservation strategy. The first was sponsored by the Fondation RhônePoulenc and organized by UNESCO in collaboration with the Fondation Nationale pour la Sauvegarde des Villes
Anciennes (FNSVA), which provided logistical support in the field. Over ten days (October 31 Nov. 10) in the Fall of 1996, the French team visited 33 libraries and had the opportunity to assess about 3,450 items. A number of questions were asked of the owner or custodian of each library, to verify the nature of the ownership, the storage conditions, the approximate number of volumes, the physical conditions of the items, the availability and nature of inventories, the accessibility of the collections, the availability of a budget for acquisitions and collection management, and any collection development initiatives. Based on the information obtained, the team prepared a preliminary report which summarizes the findings and outlines three operational approaches consistent with the alternative between collective repository and home conservation (Arnoult, 2002) [7].
Less than two years later, the Italian nongovernmental organization Movimento Africa 70 undertook two missions to Chinguetti (May 2431 and June 1125, 1998) to assess the social, economic, institutional, and environmental situation of the town, and to prepare a municipal development plan focused on five interconnected and interdependent priority issues: water resources, sand removal, road maintenance, culture (i.e., architecture and manuscript libraries), and tourism. The holistic approach and comprehensive scope of these two missions are reflected in the composition of the international team, which included a sociologist, a social economist, a head of technical services, three technical assistants (provided by the European Union and concerned with road maintenance, water resources, and sand removal), an architect, a book conservator, an expert of tourism development, and a tour operator. The preliminary report, Étude de faisabilite dun projet de developpement communal a Chinguetti, was submitted on June 25 to the Nouakchott office of the European Commission. A survey of fifteen libraries (the same visited by the RhônePoulenc mission in the Fall of 1996) allowed the book
conservator, Marco Sassetti, to assess the physical characteristics of the manuscripts (age, watermarks, covers and binding, paper and ink, calligraphic aspects, etc.), to photograph a number of them, and to provide a diagnosis based
on statistical and typological data. His observations and comments on the conditions of the manuscripts differ substantially from those of the RhônePoulenc team, which by comparison seem rather superficial and predictable, if not slightly prejudiced. Sassetti, in particular, notes that
Contrairement à lopinion courante des visiteurs dailleurs, selon laquelle les manuscrits se trouveraient en
état dabandon à cause de la négligence des propriétaires, ... les susdits compte tenu de conditions environnementales difficiles et de labsence de moyens et de maîtrise des techniques ont mis en place des actions de sauvegarde à de
différents niveaux.
Contrary to the opinion of many visitors, who see the poor conditions of the manuscripts as a result of their owners neglect, ... the latter, in spite of the harsh environment and the lack of technical expertise, have de facto implemented protective measures at various levels.
One of these measures is the reconstruction of 208 manuscripts, commissioned by the Habott family and made possible by a number of scholars who, over a period of four years, collected pages that had been scattered around the country. Another is the replacement of manuscripts dispersed after members of a local family, the Ahl Tolba, relocated to Nouakchott or abroad. A third is the traditional bindings and protective sleeves in decorated leather, which another family had locally made for about one hundred of their volumes. Conservationwise, Sassetti points out the relative advantages of a
desert climate, especially the lack of humidity which helps to preserve the older manuscripts, penned on paper made of cotton fibers (whereas paper manufactured in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries tends to be less resistant), and warns against the risks of a sudden transition to artificially controlled climatic conditions. In recommending that the manuscripts remain with their owners, as part and parcel of the local community, the study emphasizes the link between ownership and cultural identity, as well as the strong sense of locality underlying both concepts. Similar importance is given to the juridical status of the manuscripts as defined by the Mauritanian law, which makes them eligible for protective and conservative measures [8].
The feasibility report prepared by Movimento Africa 70 includes an action plan addressing each of the five priority issues. The section on culture (i.e., manuscripts and their repositories) recommends that improvements of existing buildings focus on preservation issues (especially protection against the dust) as well as on their accessibility to visitors. At the same time, it proposes the creation of a manuscript center (Centre dArchéologie, Codicologie et Herméneutique des Manuscrits Arabes Mauritaniens or CACHMAM) equipped with an exhibition hall, a reading room, and a conservation laboratory where manuscripts can be analyzed, cataloged, preserved, restored, and reproduced. The description of the center reflects Sassettis expertise and deep conservation approach, particularly in the architectural requirements of the building and the guidelines for descriptive cataloging, the latter seen also and most significantly as an essential preparation to effective preservation.
The latest and most ambitious conservation initiative is still in progress and, for want of a detailed plan, regular updates or partial results, can be judged only by its avowed purpose and scope. These are nothing less than to locate each individual collection and repository in the country, to inventory its holdings and to assess their conditions, with the view to planning an appropriate, scientifically sound, and economically sustainable strategy for the longterm conservation of manuscripts. Launched officially on September 15, 2003, with a rather optimistic timeframe of six months, the project is the result and culmination of more than two decades of diplomatic and institutional initiatives on the part of the Mauritanian government, beginning with the ratification of the UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World
Cultural Heritage in 1981. A second significant step was the creation, in 1993, of the Fondation Nationale pour la Sauvegarde des Villes Anciennes (FNSVA) [9] within the office of the Secretary of State, with the mission to plan, organize, and implement initiatives aimed at the protection and preservation of the ancient towns of Ouadane, Chinguetti, Tichitt, and Oualata (Ould Dadi, 2002). This paved the way for the inclusion, in December 1996, of the four ksour in the UNESCOs World Heritage List, with the motivation that they constitute exceptional examples of settlement built to serve the important trade routes of the Sahara Desert, and which were witness to cultural, social and economic contacts for many centuries. [10] This allowed Mauritania to apply for funding from the World Bank (IDA) and UNESCO (World Heritage Centre), to implement the pilot project Sauvegarde et Développement des Villes du Patrimoine Mondial de Mauritanie (Protection and Development of the World Heritage Towns in Mauritania). However, by the time a loan of five million dollars (#3401MAU) was approved by the World Bank in May 2000, a more ambitious and farreaching conservation strategy had been developed by the government in Nouakchott.
Launched in November of the same year, the Projet de Sauvegarde et Valorisation du Patrimoine Culturel Mauritanien (PSVPCM) [11] has become the operational framework for the planning, development, and implementation of any initiatives pertaining to the protection, restoration, preservation, and conservation of cultural heritage, both tangible (archeological sites, architectural works, manuscripts, etc.) and intangible (poetry, music, oral tradition, etc.). Among the various initiatives planned by its orientation committee are the creation of six regional museums, a general inventory of Mauritanias archeological sites, and four centers for the care and conservation of ancient manuscripts (in Boutilimit, Kaédi, Tidjikja, and Tichitt); the establishment or rehabilitation of twelve mahadras (traditional schools); a workshop to pinpoint the kind and level of legislative action needed to protect the countrys cultural heritage; and three conferences: on the future of the mahadras, on Mauritanian traditional architecture, and on the protection, preservation, and valorization of its ancient manuscripts. The three conferences took place in Nouakchott in February, March, and April 2002, respectively. The latter was held in conjunction with the opening of an exhibition of manuscripts at the National Museum; its program comprised four workshops (on the identification and accessibility of collections; the conservation of manuscripts; players and partners; and, the valorization of written heritage); and ended with the official adoption of a set of general and particular recommendations for the protection of documents and collections, and for the technical aspects of establishing a library. Drafted by JeanMarie Arnoult, these recommendations were subsequently included in the conference proceedings, together with a cataloging manual and a glossary of French and Arabic terms used in manuscript conservation (Actes du colloque international sur le manuscrits mauritaniens, 2002).
Funded by the World Bank and conducted in collaboration with the Union Nationale des Associations de Propriétaires des Manuscrits (National Association of Manuscript Owners), the new cataloging campaign availed itself of 36 scholars who were selected, trained by an expert from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and sent in the field with an
unusual variety of navigation and orientation equipment, including allterrain vehicles, compasses, and GPS instruments. (While press releases were eager to stress the training and technological components of the campaign, no mention was made of the technological and methodological aspects of the cataloging process, and no information either was provided on the nature, characteristics, and format of the catalog or database tobe.) [12] As it turned out, the project unofficially ended when the cataloging was still in progress, and Mauritanians, after yet another disappointing experience with international cooperation, are now looking for a way to continue the work autonomously
In the meantime, the seeds of a new or revived cataloging project could have been planted during the Journées des villes mauritaniennes du patrimoine mondial, a fourday conference held on April 1114, 2005, at the Maison de lUNESCO in Paris. Both, the theme and the program of the conference [14] seem to show, more openly than in previous incarnations of this event, an overarching political aim, almost an urge, to validate and substantiate the
trilateral cooperation (la coopération tripartite) between UNESCO, the Mauritanian government, and the World Bank. A cooperation whose results, albeit partial (even questionably and disappointingly so, as in the case of the cataloging campaign), are in fact sampled and showcased by the various presentations, as well as by the accompanying exhibition
Villes de mémoire Anciens ksour de Mauritanie.
Conclusions and recommendations
In the hundred years since Mauritanian traditional libraries first drew scholarly attention from outside of Africa and the Islamic world, and particularly in the four decades since independence, efforts have been made primarily to locate, assess, and describe their manuscript collections, which for the most part are scattered over a desert area twice the size of France, stored away in questionable or alarming conditions (if not literally buried under the sand), and comprise between a few dozen and several hundreds items. While most collections have been inventoried, and some also partially microfilmed, no complete and exhaustive survey has been published yet that systematically and thoroughly describes each individual repository in the country. (The only significant step in this direction remains Geneviève SimonKhedis 1994 contribution to the World Survey of Islamic Manuscripts, which, as we have seen, is far from exhaustive). This is
a major setback in the conservation process as it limits the availability of accurate data and relevant information on the repositories and their holdings, particularly their nature and characteristics, typology, geographical distribution, physical and storage conditions.
Another major handicap is the lack of a general catalog of all the manuscripts preserved in Mauritania, added to the fact that many collections have been only partially cataloged, while some havent been cataloged at all, and there may also be a few whose existence or location remain vaguely or barely known. This is a bit disappointing, not to say discouraging, especially if we consider that cataloging is the area in which most and the best work has been done so far. To be fair, if such work has produced only partial results, and if such results dont stand comparison with standard catalogs of Arabic
manuscripts produced in the last 25 years or so, [15] this is largely due to the pioneer conditions in which cataloging in Mauritania has been done (and, to some extent, continues to be done), whether in the sunbaked, sandblasted desert towns, with neither electricity nor running water, or in the poorly equipped facilities of
national institutions such as the IMRS in Nouakchott. But it is also a consequence of the lack of coordination and integration of individual efforts, of their limited scope and vision, and of their being conceived primarily with a narrow bibliographical aim, rather than as part of a comprehensive, longterm conservation strategy.
Another challenge for the bibliographer as well as the curator and the conservator, is represented by the variety of provenance, appraisal, cataloging, organization, and preservation issues arising from the complex evolutionary history and makeup of most libraries, which typically bring together several collections developed over a long period of time, and that in some cases are themselves in the process of being merged with other collections, as a consequence of the recent creation of common repositories in many manuscriptrich areas.
Because of the composite and promiscuous nature of many collections, it is often difficult to separate library from archival materials, particularly when books and manuscripts present, in addition to a commentary on the text, marginal
notes or inserts recording information on their owners, family matters, or even local historical events. So far, however, handlists, catalogs and surveys have focused almost exclusively on manuscripts, ignoring printed books and archival
documents, as well as the archival value of library items and the fascinating issue of how and to what extent these different kinds of materials relate to each other, both physically and otherwise. If on one hand such limited scope can
be justified in practical terms (manuscripts first, books and archival materials later), on the other it reveals the predominance of literary over archeological interests, and of scholarly over curatorial agendas. A natural, if not inevitable, consequence of the double nature of the book, which is physical container and intellectual content, body and soul, at the same time. The amount and type of data collected for, and provided by, existing handlists and catalogs
shows their purpose as being mainly to identify and briefly describe the items listed, without much or any concern for their conditions, restoration, and preservation. While this is obviously enough to fulfill the bibliographical needs of linguists, historians, and other literary scholars (whose interests are traditionally limited to, as well as defined by,
the intellectual contents of their sources), it scarcely provides the level of information required to develop a sound and appropriate conservation plan.
In order to serve bibliographical and curatorial purposes, and to effectively contribute to the preservation of both the intellectual content and the physical characteristics of the materials considered (whether manuscript or
printed, library or archival), a catalog should be part of, or rather conceived as, an integrated electronic database providing full bibliographic description as well as detailed information on important aspects such as:
Since data and information alone, without the possibility of comparing and combining them, are unlikely to produce relevant knowledge, such a database should be extensively crossindexed and searchable in a variety of ways, offering for example the opportunity to retrieve items based on their author, date, subject, owner, and repository, as well as their physical characteristics (paper, ink, calligraphic style, etc.), their conditions, and their conservation, reproduction, and dissemination status (including restored, microfilmed, and digitized versions, publications and translations, exhibitions, and inclusion in other bibliographic resources). If, in spite of all the opportunities offered by information technology and the Internet, such a catalog or database has not been conceived yet, let alone developed, it is largely due
to the fact that most initiatives of this kind are still planned, implemented, and evaluated by literary scholars (particularly bibliographers and historians) rather than conservators, curators, and librarians. Thence the need to develop
and implement a more inclusive approach which sees the book, whether manuscript or printed, as a physical object whose material and technological aspects are as relevant as its intellectual contents. Such a view would result in the development of catalogs and databases designed to meet a wide range of scholarly and curatorial purposes and needs, including those of book historians and archeologists, restorers, conservators, librarians and exhibition curators.
Overall, the case for the manuscript libraries of Mauritania seems to have suffered from the fragmentary and inconsequential nature of many of the initiatives implemented so far, some of which involuntarily duplicated (or
intentionally ignored) previous efforts, while others failed as a consequence of their reliance on the shifting sands of international cooperation. Another serious drawback was the inability to promote and publicize, in an adequate manner and to a sufficient degree, a number of noteworthy initiatives and the consequent failure to generate significant scholarly attention and interest, particularly in the Englishspeaking world [16]. As a matter of fact, virtually all literature on the desert libraries of Mauritanian is in French, Italian, or Spanish and consists primarily of newspaper or magazine articles [17].
The combined disadvantages of linguistic isolation and promotional inadequacy become even more evident by comparison with the Malian situation as represented by the Timbuktu Libraries Project, a comprehensive manuscript preservation and
cultural promotion initiative launched in 2000 with funding from the Ford Foundation and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD). Masterminded by John O. Hunwick of Northwestern University and R.S. OFahey of the University of Bergen, in Norway, two leading authorities on Islam in Africa and the general editors of the prestigious Arabic Literatures of Africa series, the project has generated a significant amount of interest, both within and without the academic world, thanks to a sustained promotional effort which included press releases, magazine, newspaper, and journal articles, conferences, seminars, a project Web site, [18] and also a fine exhibition of manuscripts at the Library of Congress [19]. These two initiatives further point to the absence, in Mauritania, of a similar effort to collect and make available through a well organized, carefully maintained, and regularly updated official Web site, all the information and the documentation produced, and therefore all the explicit knowledge generated, by any study, mission, project, or initiative conducted so far, independently from its accomplishments or its results. The ultimate goal of such initiative should be to provide virtual access to the digitized manuscripts, organized by location (Ouadane, Chinguetti, Tichitt, Oualata, etc.), then by library, then by subject area, genre, and/or topic, and accompanied by a transcription of the Arabic text and a translation in at least two languages, French and English.
As a consequence of this lack of documentary resources, the impression a researcher invariably gets is that, much more than the libraries themselves, the information about and around them seems to be buried under the sands particularly those of international cooperation and institutional bureaucracy or neglect, which in the long run may prove more treacherous and obliterating than the dunes of the Great Desert itself.
[1] Discussed at Oxford University in 1970, the thesis provided the basis for Islam and Social Order in Mauritania: A Case Study from the Nineteenth Century (with E.K. Stewart, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), which remains Stewarts major booklength contribution to the study of Islam in West Africa.
[2] Located farther south and west, and closer to Timbuktu than to any other Mauritanian ksour, Oualata is geographically and culturally more Sahelian than Saharan. In terms of international cooperation, the town is considered more or less Spanish
territory, since most research and preservation work, starting as early as the mid1970s, was done by Spanish groups such as the Foundation El
legado andalusí (Corral, 1985 and 2000).
[3] The Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation 2001 Report, http://exchanges.state.gov/culprop/afcp/report.pdf (accessed 28 September 2005).
[4] Signature dun accord de financement entre le PSVPCM et lambassade des USA, AMI press
release, 6 August 2002. It is worth mentioning that, since the inception of the program, funds were granted to support at least four other initiatives
directly related to the preservation of Islamic manuscripts in North and West Africa. In 2001 and 2002, Mali received $14,942 and $25,000 to support,
respectively, the Day of the Book, a public education initiative related to the Timbuktu Manuscripts Project, and the The Ink
Road/Chemin de lEncre, an international symposium on the preservation, safeguarding, and applied research of ancient African and
Islamic manuscripts. In 2003 Niger received $16,650 for the electronic preservation of a collection of more than 4,000 Islamic manuscripts from
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and Algeria was awarded $17,550 for the preservation and documentation of the Zawiyat Ali bin Umar Manuscript
Collection in Algiers, which includes over one thousand manuscripts from the eleventh to the eighteenth centuries. For a description of the program and individual projects, see http://exchanges.state.gov/culprop/afcp/ (accessed 28 September 2005).
[5] The first colloquium (Chinguetti, November 1995) focused on the ancient caravan towns. The second (Milan, May 1998), on the ancient manuscripts from Sahara and Sahel, was organized in collaboration with the Centro Studi Archeologia Africana (CSAA) and in conjunction with the opening of the photographic exhibition Biblioteche del deserto (Desert Libraries), the first ever to show Arabic manuscripts from Mauritania. The third, on the Mauritanian cultural heritage (Nouakchott, November 1999), passed a resolution to publish a Saharan anthology in five volumes, in French and Arabic, on the ancient caravan towns and their endangered libraries. This was followed, a year later, by a fourth colloquium held in Timbuktu and focused on the future of cultural tourism in the Sahara. The Milan exhibition was followed, three years later, by a more comprehensive traveling show entitled Sahara: Antiche biblioteche del deserto. Esploratori italiani dimenticati Sahara: Ancient Libraries of the Desert, Forgotten Italian Explorers), organized by the Institut International dAnthropologie in collaboration with the Centro Studi Archeologia Africana and the Italian association Itinerari Africani. Based on iconographic and ethnographic materials, and accompanied by conferences
and the projection of documentaries, it opened in July 2001 and toured a number of cities in northern and central Italy, including Turin, Milan, Verona,
Ferrara, and Florence.
[6] Attilio Gaudio (19302002) was a major force behind the efforts to promote scholarly and institutional interest
for the desert libraries of Mauritania. Born in Italy, he spent most of his professional life as a correspondent in North Africa and professor of
anthropology in Paris, where among other things he was director of the Institut International dAnthropologie. His extensive knowledge of the peoples and civilizations of the Maghrib and western Sahara is documented in a number of books, a few of them specifically devoted to Mauritania and its cultural past. His premature death, in the summer of 2002, put a damper on the initiatives and the activities of the CIRSS, including the colloquia and the planned Saharan anthology.
[7] JeanMarie Arnoult is Inspecteur Général des Bibliothèques at the French Ministry of Education and Research, a consultant for UNESCO (which commissioned from him a report on the damage to archives and libraries caused by the war in Iraq), and an expert of book and manuscript preservation. His longtime involvement in the Mauritanian libraries is documented, among other things, by a preparatory study on the conservation of the manuscripts in Chinguetti and Ouadane. The report, commissioned by UNESCO, is currently classified.
[8] With the exception of those in national institutions such as the IMRS, the ISERI, or the National Library, virtually all collections in Mauritania are owned by families or held and managed by religious institutions (such as mosques, zawiyas, and madrasas) as charitable trusts (waqf). In either case the idea of ownership is strongly related to that of benefiting the entire community, an important reminder of the tribal and nomadic roots of Mauritanian society.
Juridically, the status of the libraries and their holdings as cultural heritage (biens culturel) is defined and protected by two enactments, one (loi 72.160, 31 July 1972) regarding specifically the manuscripts, and the other (arrêté 00589/95, 4 December 1995) more broadly concerned with the four ksour of Ouadane, Chinguetti, Tichitt, and Oualata. As it turns out, such provisions are not as widely known as one would assume, even to those who should be most aware of their implemental value. Marco Sassetti called my attention to a passage of the RhônePoulenc report, in which the author condescendingly (and mistakenly) states that la notion de patrimoine national
nexiste pas sur le plan juridique; il ny a pas de législation permettant éventuellement un classement au titre de monument historique
induisant protection par des dispositions technique (the concept of national heritage doesnt exist juridically, as there is no legislation that allows for the classification as historical monument and consequently ensures any protective measures).
[9] See http://www.mauritania.mr/fnsva (accessed 28 September 2005).
[10] See http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&id_site=750 (accessed 28 September 2005).
[11] See http://www.tourath.mr/index.htm. (accessed 28 September 2005).
[12] See Recensement et catalogage des manuscrits ancien mauritaniens, AFP press release, 16 September 2003; Démarrage de la campagne de recensement et de catalogage des amnuscrits, AMI press release, 16 September 2003.
[13] Laura Alunno, electronic letter to Graziano Krätli, 9 March 2005. Laura Alunnos interest in the desert libraries of Mauritania dates back to the early 1990s, when she started visiting the country for various NGOs and development projects. Recently, she has been involved in new project, led by the University of Siena, to catalog the libraries of Chinguetti.
[14] See http://www.mauritania-today.com/francais/news/journees-villes-mauritaniennes/index.html (accessed 28 September 2005).
[15] See, for example, Adam Gacek, Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1981), and Arabic Manuscripts in the Library of McGill University (Montreal: McGill University Libraries, 1991); Miroslav Krek, Arabic Script Manuscripts in American Institutions (Weston, Mass.: ULASMAI, 1992); and Nikolaj Serikoffs catalog of the Arabic manuscripts preserved in the Wellcome Library,
http://library.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTL038891.html (accessed 9 May 2005).
[16] A couple of exceptions are worth mentioning, if only because they confirm this point. The Italian mission
Fly Shuttle 2000, which combined technological innovation, extreme sports, and cultural preservation, is one of those initiatives which, in spite of their originality and results, are typically disregarded by the scholarly community. (In the Spring of 2000, six Italian sailors reached Chinguetti aboard the Fly Flash, a Leonardesque sail car designed and built by skippers Mauro Melis and Alessandro Bertagna. The purpose of the expedition was to deliver, in a sustainable yet spectacular way, a hundred pH neutral storage containers donated to the local libraries by book conservationist Marco Sassetti.) A more traditional and scholarfriendly initiative, the alreadymentioned traveling exhibition Sahara: Antiche biblioteche del deserto. Esploratori italiani dimenticati, does not seem to have traveled far enough to draw more than local attention, thus limiting its impact to the few Italian cities which had the privilege to host it.
[17] An Englishlanguage exception, although not a scholarly one, is Louis Werners article in Saudi Aramco World.
[18] Hosted by the Web site of the Centre for Development and the Environment, Senter for Utvikling og Miljø (SUM), of the University of Oslo, the Timbuktu Libraries Project pages, available at http://www.sum.uio.no/research/mali/timbuktu/project/index.html (accessed 28 September 2005), include a detailed description of the project, information of its financing and progress updates, a photo gallery, and links to a variety of scholarly and institutional resources.
[19] Ancient Manuscripts from the Desert Libraries of Timbuktu, on display from June 24 to September 3, 2003. The 23 items, 20 from the Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library and three from the Library of Cheick Zayni Baye of Boujbeha, were first digitized and mounted on a
parallel online exhibition, which can still be viewed at http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/mali/
(accessed 28 September 2005).
Actes du colloque international sur les manuscrits mauritaniens. Nouakchott: Projet de Sauvegarde et Valorisation du Patrimoine Culturel Mauritanien, 2002.
Africa 70. 1998. Étude de faisabilite dun projet de developpement communal a Chinguetti. Nouakchott, n.p.
Arnoult, J.M. 2002. Patrimonie écrit et identité culturelle. In Le bibliothèques du désert, ed. A. Gaudio, 31929. Paris: LHarmattan.
Arnoult, J.M., G. Simon, and A. Ould Ahmed Salem. 1999. Conservation des manuscrits de Chinguetti et de Ouadane, étude préparatoire au traitement scientifique des manuscrits, bilan bibliographique. Paris: UNESCO.
Corral, J. 1985. Ciudades de las caravanas: alarifes del Islam en el desierto. Madrid: Blume.
Corral, J. 2000. Ciudades de las caravanas: itinerarios de arquitectura antigua en Mauritania, 19781981. Seville: Junta de Andalucía, Consejería de Cultura.
Gaudio, A. 1978. Le dossier de la Mauritanie. Paris: Nouvelles Editiones Latines.
Gaudio, A., ed. 2002. Les bibliothèques du désert: recherches et études sur un millénaire décrits. Paris: LHarmattan.
Ibish, Y., and G. Atiyeh, eds. 1996. The Conservation and Preservation of Islamic Manuscripts. Proceedings of the Third Conference of AlFurqan Islamic Heritage Foundation, 1819 November 1995. London: AlFurqan Islamic Heritage Foundation.
Lydon, G. 2004. Inkwells of the Sahara: Reflections on the Production of Islamic Knowledge in Bilad Shinqit. In: The Transmission of Learning in Islamic Africa, ed. S.S. Reese. Leiden: Brill.
Moore, M. 2001. Conservation Documentation and the Implications of Digitisation. Journal of Conservation and Museum Studies 7 (November), http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/conservation/jcms/issue7/0111Moore.pdf
(28 September 2005).
Ould Cheikh, A.W. 1987. Rohkatalog der arabischen Handschriften in Mauretanien. Islam et Sociétés au Sud du Sahara 1, 109113.
Ould Dadi, E. 2002. Le plan daction pour la sauvegarde et le développement des villes anciennes de Mauritanie: Oualata, Tichitt,
Chinguetti et Ouadane. In Le bibliothèques du désert, ed. A. Gaudio, 97111. Paris: LHarmattan.
Ould Hamidoun, M. and A. Heymowski. 196566. Catalogue provisoire des manuscripts mauritaniens en langue arabe préservés en Mauritanie. Nouakchott and Stockholm, n.p.
Ould Maouloud, M. 2002. Pour une stratégie de sauvegarde et de valorisation du patrimoine manuscrit. In Le bibliothèques du désert, ed. A. Gaudio, 33148. Paris: LHarmattan.
Rebstock, U. 1985. Rohkatalog der arabischen Handschriften in Mauretanien, 3 vols. Tübingen, n.p.
Rebstock, U. 1989. Sammlung arabischer Handschriften aus Mauretanien: Kurzbeschreibungen von 2239 Handschriftenein heiten mit Indices. Wiesbaden:
Rebstock, U. 2003. Catalogue of Manuscripts in Nimah and Wallatah. London: AlFurqan Islamic Heritage Foundation.
Rebstock, U. and A.M. Yahya. 1997. Handlist of Manuscripts in Shinqit and Wadan. London: AlFurqan Islamic Heritage Foundation.
Sharifi, H. 1994. AlFurqan Islamic Heritage Foundation: Its Scope and Achievements. IFLA Journal 20, no. 3: 28493.
SimonKhedis, G. 1994. Mauritania. In World Survey of Islamic Manuscripts, vol. 4, ed. Geoffrey Roper, 279307. London: AlFurqan Islamic Heritage Foundation.
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Stewart, C.C. 1994. Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts among the Ahl AlShaykh Sidiyya, 4 vols. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign.
Stewart, C.C., and K. Hatasa. 1989. Computerbased Arabic Manuscript Management. History in Africa 16: 403411.
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Scientifique. TMs (photocopy), 5 vols. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Stewart, C.C. 2004. A database of West African Arabic manuscript collections (formerly known as AMMS). West African Arabic Manuscript
Database, 1 November 2004. http://www.arabic.uiuc.edu/history.htm (5 May 2005).
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microfilmés de lIMRS traitant de lhistoire. Al Wasît: Bulletin de lInstitut Mauritanienne de Recherche
Scientifique 12: 6089.
About the Author
Graziano Krätli is International Program Support Librarian at Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
Email: graziano.kratli [at] yale [dot] edu
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.
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Jul 10
Posts: 14
kidderman1 says:
When filling in insurance forms for a motorcycle do I have to tell them I was cought speeding in my car, In all the years I have been riding (passed my test in 1961) I took ten years out to bring up a family I have never been cought speeding riding a bike, Plus they dont take into account no claim bonus from a car to a bike
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Aug 12
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zanderh says:
you have to declare any endorsed fines or items that are on your driving license. As you have a single license (with many restrictions/entitlements), any speeding fines you received in your car will affect any insurance you apply for on any entitled vehicle.
Aug 02
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eatcs01 says:
They ask you "Have you ANY motoring convictions in the last 5 years".Now is that so hard to understand?ANY convictions in the last 5 years (regardless of what vehicle you got them with) must be declared.
Apr 06
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ACIC says:
You need to tell them.Regards Andrew Campbell, Bikelawyer MCN Legal Expertwww.bikelawyer.co.uk
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MCNcompare says:
Kidderman1, the majority of insurance companies DO need to know about previous convictions and 'hiding' them could mean your policy will be null and void if they find out at a later stage.
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Most people say you have 30 min get your PWO shake in after a workout, but does hat include if you do cardio. Like if I workout for an hour, but then do cardio for 45 is my anabolic window gone because I didn't take my shake right after I worked muscles?
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The Republicans are spinning the federal power under which Chief Justice John Roberts rationalized the constitutionality of the individual mandate as either a boogeyman to scare everyone with or as a "See, I told you so!" political ploy.
Either way, making "a kind of tax" something Democrats need to run from or argue against is totally unnecessary.
Instead, the idea that those who can afford to buy health insurance but choose not to and should therefore pay a 'tax" is perfectly in keeping with the basic notion of individual freedom in this country as laid out by our founding fathers. That is, as free people, individuals are free to do whatever they choose, so long as those actions do not infringe on the rights of others.


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…and a heaping helping of sexism.
North Carolina congressional candidate and state senator David Rouzer, speaking to a Tea Party Express rally on Sunday:
ROUZER: When we get [Romney and Ryan] in you are going to see a big change, you're going to see number one that America is going to be respected again around the world. You're going to see all this turmoil that's taking place, you're going to see them look up and say guess what, the American people have spoken and maybe we need to cut it out a little bit, maybe we need to tone it down a little bit, because now we have real men in the White House.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: No girly men!
ROUZER: That's right, no girly men.
Is he saying all the men in the Obama White House are gay? Well, that would put him way out into tinfoil hat territory with the far electronic cigarette usa right nuts who think happily married President Obama is secretly a coke-snorting homo who's had some of his ex-lovers killed. No, I'm not going to link; these people don't need any more attention. Perhaps he simply thinks the men are sissies. Which, of course, makes them too much like women, and we can't have that.
Steve M. has written quite a bit lately about the fever dreams of some right-wingers who see themselves as the heroes in an apocalypse they seem to crave. I'm sure Mr. Rouzer sees himself as one of the he-men leading the charge toward war with Iran or any other country that irritates him, kicking them into submission and walking away with only a few manly scratches.
Personally, if I had to choose someone to lead the charge against an oncoming apocalypse, it wouldn't be Mr. Rouzer. It would be a girl. This girl:
h/t Think Progress


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Del Mar Race Track
- JAB Aug 2, 2006 11:06 PM
Anything chowish in the immediate area?
For lunch I frequent Red Tracton. Gothic Sandwitch, Shrimp on Ice, Lobster Bisque, are some favorites. Also good steaks and chops.
A super Mexican frequented by the horsemen used to be Tony's Jackal. I am relatively sure that it is still around.
Tony Jackal's is still around, but I think Fidel's is much better. For a great carne asada burrito try Randy's Market, on Stevens in a little shopping center near Fidels. I think it's one o fthe best I've found in San Diego.
re: JAB
I have been to Fidel's and Don Dhuy in the past year. They are very different in all regards. Fidel's is much more of a 'scene' with the bar standing prominent. Food is standard - beans, rice, meat, tortilla - in some form or another. The only thing I have ever had there that I thought was above average is the tortilla soup. Food wise I think Fidels is pretty much like Chevy's. Fine, but no particular reason to go. The drinks are usually pretty good.
Don Chuy on the other hand is a hole, in comparison. Nice enough, but basically vinyl, hanging little flags, and a bartender watching TV. The food is substantially more interesting and better then Fidel's. I don't think it will blow you away, but it is very good. I particularly like La Montana (a mountain of various meats) and anything with nopales. For drinks - go with beer (or horchata - can be good, can be okay).
So, if you want to hang out with a marguerita and lament the idiot jockey on the five-horse while eating a non-descript burrito and weird thin salsa - go to Fidel's. If you want to have a Negro Modelo and a plate of nopales (while complainging about the idiot jockey on the three-horse), go to Don Chuy. Or both, have tortilla soup and a drink at Fidel's and walk to Don Chuy to eat (they are about a block apart).
Just my thoughts.
re: rotochicken
Have to agree with rotochichen, if not totally write off Fidels, sorry PGB. The salsa is despicable, they should be ashamed. I would put the food even below Chevy's, Taco bell is more like it, except Taco Bell has better salsa! Go to the Fish Market, get grilled fish or if you need some grease, the fried dishes are good.
re: Pablo
If we all agreed there would only be one Mexican restaurant in the area. But comparing it to Chevy's is like comparing Ruth Chris' to McDonalds.Fidels has great salsa fresca for ana additional 80 cents. Have you ever tried it?
I frequent Fish Market because of the fresh fish, but it's not a great restaurant. They rarely change the menu and have had the same boring veggoes with most dishes for the last 10 years. But their bread is great.
I think Fidels has some of the best fajitas anywhere. They include chili peppers, green onions, a very generous portion of meet, fresh avacodos, tomatoes, and excellent cheese. The meat is very good. Only all white chicken and excellent beef. Everything is fresh. If you judge by its popularity, the place is very crowded after the races get out. It's not for the bar, but for the food. On the downside, I agree the place could use a remodel, but it consists of many add-ons from what was once a barber shop. And the wine list is poor.
I live in Solana Beach and frequent all the local restaurants mentioned and we go back to Fidels time after time. It's also extremely reasonable. Tony Jackal's is also good, but has very odd selction of food.
I think we will have to agree to disagree. I mean no offense with this post, but....
I think many people will take 'all white chicken' in any dish as a significant negative. And, if we are going to judge by popularity I think we'll have to concede that Taco Bell is the best Mexican restaurant in the world.
I also have to say that people crowd into Fidel's because it is large, has many seating options (indoor, outdoor, bar, bar tables, large tables, small, etc.) and has a 'scene'. Fidel's is a convenient place to hang-out after the races or work or whatever with a stiff marguerita and some friends (oh, and eat something too).
On the other hand NOBODY goes to Don Chuy for anything other than food - and many people won't go at all because it looks so...not Del Mar (okay SB). If you put Don Chuy's food into Fidel's and Fidel's food into Don Chuy, Don Chuy would close and Fidel's would be at least as popular.
On the other hand my boss loves Fidel's (but has never eaten at Don Chuy).
Again, I mean no offense, I just don't feel right sending a fellow 'Hound to Fidel's without a contrasting opinion.
Have you thought about eating at the Del Mar Turf Club. IT is a very nice expereience, you get a nice table with a TV for the whole day of racing. The service is very good and you will be positively suprised by the quality of the Del MAr Thoroughbred's food. They have a great menu and the table makes the whole experience very comfortable. They do have a dress code, you will need a blazer, but it is very comfortable.
Enjoy and good luck.
There are few sandwiches in existence that I enjoy more than a corned beef sandwich from the carving stations at Southern California thoroughbred horse tracks. Usually rye, mayo, butter, tons of pickles and lots of thick-sliced corned beef.
Don Chuey's food and ambiance reminds me of the mexican restaurants in Phoenix and Tucson.
The best thing about Red Tracton is the lounge pianist. Last time I was in he was singing a musak version of "Doctor in my Eyes"....classic. Red Tracton's might also be the only restaurant still serving green goddess dressing. The place still seems to attract a few "wise guy" types from the track with some pretty interesting fashion choices on the women.
Their steaks are on par with the best in San Diego.


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South Pool @ Windsor Hills - so close to Disney!
6BR / 4BA - Sleeps 14 - Kissimmee Villa
This is a premier property in the best location! What puts us a cut above the rest?? 1. Only 2 miles...
I am a retired school teacher and my husband is a farmer. We have three children, two of whom are still in University and our oldest who is married and they have two children.
What we like most about our Florida home is having four generations all staying together there. Also, because our family is quite spread out, vactioning here allows us to all be together under one roof which makes my heart happy! :)
Of course, getting a little break from our snow in the winter isn't a bad thing either!
My husband's favourite thing to do here is going to the water parks. My favourite is roller-coastering, preferably in the front row! We also love going to the beach and going on dolphin-watching tours. We have been to Nascar (Daytona 500), professional baseball during spring training (New York Yankees vs. Toronto Blue Jays), professional hockey when our beloved Winnipeg Jets come to Tampa to play, and even took in a pro basketball game when we went to see the Orlando Magic in action.
We also like going to Old Town on a Friday or Saturday night to take in the live entertainment and admire the classic cars. And go-karting is a family favourite activity.
Biking is another favourite and we have thoroughly enjoyed the West Orange Trail. There is a magnificent tree along this trail that we always stop to admire. And we love stopping for lunch in Winter Garden with all its quaint little shops and sidewalk cafes. We plan to check out the Seminole trail next.
There is really an endless variety of things to do and we look forward to exhausting all the possibilities throughout the years to come. We hope you find some favourites of your own while you are here!
Here is my property:
6BR / 4BA - Sleeps 14 - Kissimmee Villa
This is a premier property in the best location! What puts us a cut above the rest?? 1. Only 2 miles...


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33 European languages in danger of extinction
Four languages spoken on British territories are among the endangered lingos, according to the report from language expert Christopher Moseley at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies.
Four languages spoken on British territories are among the endangered lingos, according to the report from language expert Christopher Moseley at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies.
In Malaysia, there's literally a term for the time it takes to eat a banana.
Many world languages may become extinct due to economic growth, a new study suggests. Already today, several of the world's nearly 7,000 languages face a serious risk of extinction. "For example, Ainu, a language in Japan, is now seriously threatened, with only 10 native speakers left," said lead study author Tatsuya Amano at the University of Cambridge in England.
If you mostly read English or other Romance or Germanic languages, you've been spoiled for choice with digital fonts. The Latin alphabet has long been the subject of intense typographical exploration, with thousands of fonts available in more styles and weights than most non-designers would ever think necessary. Readers of non-Latin scripts -- like Chinese, Hindi or Hebrew -- have never enjoyed such diversity.
Montreal is an attractive place to form a startup, if you can tolerate the snow. The rents are significantly lower than in any other major Canadian city. The universities, including "Harvard of the North" McGill, churn out thousands of highly skilled job applicants. There's universal health care. There are concentrated enclaves of young, creative minds, and the kind of nightlife that attracts them. The city has become a beacon for the gaming industry, and a burgeoning startup scene has begun to flourish.
While English is the most popular language on Twitter, it may surprise you that the majority of published tweets are not in the mother tongue of the company's founders. Just over one-third (34%) of all tweets were in English in September. With 16%, Japanese is the second-most popular language on the microblogging network, while Spanish clocks in at third place.
Want to say "Merry Christmas" in Swahili, Dutch or even Klingon? Watch this 40 second video.
Vine, the app that allows users to shoot and share short six-second videos with their followers, has expanded into 19 new languages. Vine posted the news on its blog Thursday, and says the language options are currently available for both iOS and Android users.
Designed for companionship, a new toddler-sized robot can hold a conversation in 19 different languages. Built by Paris-based robotics company Aldebaran and infused with language-learning software developed by voice-technology company Nuance, the robot has a voice that doesn't sound much older than it looks. The android can walk, brace itself if it falls and will develop its own personality as it gets better at speaking through repetition.
Let's start with the dull stuff, because pragmatism. The word "because," in standard English usage, is a subordinating conjunction, which means that it connects two parts of a sentence in which one (the subordinate) explains the other. In that capacity, "because" has two distinct forms. It can be followed either by a finite clause (I'm reading this because [I saw it on the web]) or by a prepositional phrase (I'm reading this because [of the web]).
Microsoft researchers are working on ways to use the Kinect's body-reading capabilities to understand sign language inputs. Microsoft Research Asia and the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Computing Technology has collaborated to use the Kinect to help with computer sign-language recognition. As shown in the video above, they've demonstrated the Microsoft Kinect's ability to translate signs by tracking hand and body actions.
During the course of every coding project, a software developer must make dozens of decisions. Sometimes this involves solving a problem unique to a particular domain space or a particular architectural issue. Other times it's about which language is best for a job. That is actually one of the most critical pieces of getting a project right. Too often, languages are applied to a problem space where another language would be better.
Had enough of machine-based online translation services such as Babelfish or Google Translate? Ackuna is a crowdsourced translation project, connecting individuals around the world with human translators who can give you just the right phrasing. The free-to-use site is a side project of Translation Services USA.
The non-profit network Tibettruth has launched an online campaign to make Facebook specify Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, as a part of Tibet -- rather than China. Tibettruth calls itself an advocate for justice, human rights and independence for the people of Tibet. On its website, which details how to file the online petition, Tibettruth says: We are asking that Facebook kindly review its current profile format to enable Tibetans to select, as their hometown Lhasa, TIBET.
The Internet is gaining users each day -- mostly in non-English speaking regions. That's because the web's reach is spreading fast. While it took 30 years to get two billion people online, the Internet is now adding one billion new users every four years. Smartling, an enterprise translation management company, created this multilingual, interactive HTML5 infographic to show who is using the Internet today around the world.
Thanks to the efforts of 13,000 volunteers worldwide, Twitter is now available in Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu, according to a company blog post. Twitter had been working on translating and localizing these right-to-left languages since January 25. These languages posed unique challenges for Twitter.
Twitter announced languages read right to left would be coming to the Twitter Translation Center, beginning with Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu. Twitter will become fully available in those four languages later this spring, once volunteer translators have completed their work. The company said in a blog post Wednesday it has made sure tweets and hashtags will work in right-to-left languages.
Twitter has announced the launch of the service in five new languages: simplified and traditional Chinese, Hindi, Tagalog and Malay. This brings the total number of languages Twitter is available in to 17. Like many other online services, Twitter is mostly relying on volunteers for translation. To join in, head on over to Twitter's translation center. Twitter also announced that it would soon add six new languages to the Translation Center: Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Polish and Hungarian.
Facebook is announcing a new tool, Translations for Facebook Connect, that will tap into the wisdom of the crowd to help webmasters and site owners translate their websites and applications for an international audience. The technology is based on the same solution Facebook developed for itself when it decided to make the site available in multiple language.
hi5, a social network that already enjoys much of its success abroad, is continuing its international expansion, launching in 10 new languages today. Similar to Facebook, hi5 has been asking its users to translate the site into localized versions around the globe. This approach allows the social network to enter just about any market it desires, without spending major cash on attempting to effectively reach different cultures.
So there are two items to do with YouTube that are making their way around the tech news world. One to do with big billboards that would take up a good portion of the site's front page real estate - if only briefly upon visitors' initial arrival; and another to do with captioning, for the hard of hearing and those who don't happen to speak all the languages of the world.
Editor's Note: If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion in "The Startup Review" series, please see the details here. STARTUP DETAILS: Company Name: MeGlobe 20-word Description: MeGlobe is a Web-based instant messaging application that provides real-time language translation. CEO's Pitch: Although technology has exponentially increased the rate of globalization, language barriers still keep us worlds apart.
Facebook's use of the Translations application to localize the popular social network across the globe has worked so well that it's going after 55 more languages, from Latin to rumantsch grischun, according to a report on CenterNetworks. Having covered most of the major languages considered prerequisites for going global, Facebook is hoping to really dig down into the world's wealth of communities by leveraging its user base to provide versions of its site to even more people.


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Paris Hilton
Paris Whitney Hilton (born February 17, 1981) is an american celebrity and heiress to her father Richard Hilton's real estate fortune. She is a socialite, model, entrepreneur, actress and now singer. Hilton's debut album Paris was released on August 22, 2006. The album featured Hilton's first single Stars Are Blind which premiered in Canada this June. The single was officially released in America in July. The album also features Hilton's follow up single Turn It Up. She worked with Scott Storch, Three Six Mafia, Fat Joe and Jadakiss on the album. Her latest single is Nothing In This World.
Similar artists: Ashley Tisdale, Hilary Duff, Britney Spears
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A few months ago, Apple announced the new iPhone5. To us though, the most interesting part wasn't the new hardware, but some subtle animation on the "Design" page. Obviously Apple wouldn't use Flash to do animation on their site. And the HTML5 video tag doesn't really allow video to be used as a design element the way it was used on these pages. The type of motion didn't look like something that could be easily achieved with CSS.
So what was going on? Fortunately, we didn't need to dive too deep, as @dbloom had already done some research.
A few months later, the fruits of that work are ready to show - we're excited that Phosphor is now available on the Mac App Store, and we're eager to see what folks do with it. In the spirit of Phosphor's beginings, here's a sample iPhone screencast:
You can see more demos on our phosphor product page and gallery, or visit the App Store.
Phosphor takes each frame and breaks it up into macroblocks - 8x8 blocks of pixels - much like most video codecs. Then, it looks at each macroblock to see if it's similar to any macroblocks it has previously encountered. For example, if your image mostly consists of a solid black background, Phosphor only needs to store a single 8x8 black macroblock, and then repeat that block as needed. When operated in a lossless manner, Phosphor only looks for blocks that are identical. In the default lossy mode of operation, Phosphor looks for blocks that are very similar, but not necessarily mathematically identical. For example, if the video you're analyzing has been previously compressed, the codec may have introduced subtle noise (even though it may not be visually apparent). Lossy operation allows Phosphor to account for this.
After discarding all of the redundant macroblocks, Phosphor writes the remaining blocks into new images. These can be either JPEG, TIFF or PNG files. There's nothing special about them - you can open them in any application that knows how to open images. Below is an example of the files Phosphor outputs for a composition.
You'll see a placeholder still of the first frame of video. This is displayed while your page is loaded. Then you'll see one or more "atlas" images. These are the simplified macroblocks written out in the file format chosen. It may look like a mess, however, Phosphor also saves out some instructions to tell the browser how to display these. These instructions are stored as the JSON and JSONP object files. You can open these files too - they're just text. Inside, you'll find an encoded set of instructions to tell the Phosphor framework where to place each macroblock, and when to display it. There are also some configuration values. The actual encoding standard is a bit too technical for this blog post, but visit our GitHub repository or check out our documentation for details.
There are a few advatages of this technique over other video and animation technologies. Compared to a format like HEVC or H.264, this type of compression is relatively primitive. But it's far more efficient that transmitting entire frames, which was previously the only type of transmission available for this type of interactive, scriptable and standards-based animation.
HTML 5 video: iOS devices won't play video tags in the DOM, they instead open in a standardized player. Apple also stops them from auto-playing on iPhone. To support all the modern browsers, you'll need to deploy mutliple codecs. Phosphor will work out of the box on all modern browsers. Our compositions also support alpha, full layering, and custom frame metadata which video tags do not.
GIF: GIFs have less scriptablity. They play as soon as loaded. Colorspace is limited to 256 colors and alpha channel is binary only. For most content they are much larger files than Phosphor assets. For instance, the iPhone composition above is 7mb in GIF and less than 500kb in Phosphor.
Flash: Bwhahahahaa! Flash. Yes, use that.
Releasing Phosphor is really just the first step - since it's powered by web-standards technology and an open JavaScript framework, we know that developers will find uses for the application we haven't even begun to imagine. We hope you'll take a look, and show us your results!
Check out our phosphor product page and gallery, or visit the App Store. If you're interested in extending our player framework, you can fork it on github.


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Now that hundreds of horses are getting vaccinated from the West Nile virus, many people are wondering if there will a vaccine for humans.
Right now there isn't one because the humans aren't likely to catch the disease. Horses are more vulnerable because they can't protect themselves from mosquitoes. Most people wear insect repellant and also have protective clothing when they're near mosquitoes.
But vets say there maybe a vaccine for humans down the line. More research and test must be done before it can be developed.
wsaw.com: Extended Web Coverage
West Nile virus Facts
How is the West Nile virus Spread?
Symptoms of the Virus
Protecting Yourself
Source: www.vdh.state.va.us contributed to this report


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Houston Whisker Sitter
In your home pet care
- Categories: dog walking / sitting
- Address: 19030 Piney Way Dr Map
- City, State: Tomball, Texas Country: United States Postal Code: 77375
- Phone: 832-279-2557 Fax: On File
- WebSite: http://www.houstonwhiskersitter.com
- Email: Houston Whisker Sitter Contact: Rachel Abbott
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Whether on vacation, stuck at work or just need to give that puppy an afternoon break, Houston Whisker Sitter can take care of your needs. We take care of your home and pets while you are out of town, bring in the mail, water plants, whatever small things might need to be done.
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Japandroids with Cadence Weapon7th Street Entry, MinneapolisJuly 3, 2012See Also: Slideshow: Japandroids at 7th St. EntryThere were plenty of reasons for everyone who packed into the Entry last night for the sold-out Japandroids show to celebrate. Not only were we mere hours away from observi ... More >>
Literally and figuratively bookended with fireworks, Japandroids' Celebration Rock is the most widely acclaimed rock record in recent months. Vancouver's Brian King and David Prowse's 35-minute album ferociously confronts the pressures of post-adolescence in the same vein as the band's previous o ... More >>
GZA commissions the Hood Internet for new track, Johnny Cash vs. QOTSA & more of the week's best mashups.


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Synopsis Here you will find a list of Committee for Employment and Learning research papers published during 2013.
This paper provides spreadsheets detailing European Commission Legislative, non-legislative and status unknown proposals Q3 2014
Download PDF
This Briefing Note provides a short summary of currently available statistics on blind or partially sighted persons living in Northern Ireland.
This paper discusses examples of good practice policy for the promotion of gender equality within the labour market. The paper will initially briefly discuss the Gender Equality Strategy for Northern Ireland. It will then briefly discuss the policy used in Finland, Denmark and Austria.
This paper discusses issues that may be of note to the Committee for Employment and Learning. The issues discussed in this paper are:
• Northern Ireland Economy and Labour Market;
• Zero hours contracts; and
• Unemployment amongst older workers.
Research and Information Service
This paper provides a brief discussion regarding how the number of young people Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEETs) is calculated.
This paper provides a response to questions asked by the Committee for Employment and Learning during a briefing on the European Commission Work Programme.The paper provides further information on:
•Partnership Agreements for the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF);
•The Consultative Partnership Group; and
•The previous use of Partnership Agreements.
Spreadsheets detailing the EU legislative and non-legislaive proposals for Quarter 2, 2013.
This paper provides a brief discussion of the 3rd International Symposium on Expertise in Sustainable Society (ISESS).
This paper considers the perceived barriers to employer led training programmes designed to encourage young people into employment.
The Briefing Note is written in response to a question raised in the Committee for Employment and Learning with regard to the nature of skills shortages in Germany.
This paper provides spreadsheets detailing European Commission legislative and non-legislative proposals 2013 Q1.
This paper provides a response to a number of questions raised by the Committee for Employment and Learning following a RaISe briefing on the European Commission Work Programme 2013 for the 1st Quarter of 2013.
This paper discusses the work experience programmes as they operate in Great Britain and the implications of the recent court judgement on the Sector Based Work Academies.
This paper discusses the Work Programme in Great Britain and its Providers.
This paper discusses the European Social Fund and how it is allocated to applicant organisations in Northern Ireland. The paper will also discuss the most recent funding tranche (Call 2, Priority 1) including the funding streams, the assessment process and the amounts allocated.
This paper provides an overview of how The Living Wage is calculated and who benefits.
This paper briefly compares the employment legislation of Northern Ireland, Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland in the context of the review of employment law by the Department for Employment and Learning.
This paper provides a discussion of the Northern Ireland Economy and Labour Market. It includes consideration of economic growth, employment and unemployment and levels of economic activity.
The following paper discusses CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire - the European Organisation for Nuclear Research) and possible opportunities for Northern Ireland.
The following paper considers the potential impact regulation has on employment levels and labour market flexibility.
This paper briefly discusses the methodology used in the United Kingdom and the European Union to gather data for the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and working age definitions.
This Briefing Note provides information on the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and the links it has developed with CERN.
This short Briefing Note provides the Committee for Employment and Learning with the most up-to-date data available on the Department for Employment and Learning's (DEL) forecast outturn for the current financial year.
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Humidity 71%
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Jul 31, 2014 3:30 PM by Dave Fields
Evangeline Parish Sheriff's Office announced the arrest of woman accused of crashing an elderly woman's vehicle after she allegedly robbed her and carjacked her.
On Monday morning at 7:08 a.m., deputies said they responded to a complaint that a woman had "conned an elderly lady into driving her to the hospital. According to the report, the suspect, Kimberly Voohries, 27, of Ville Platte allegedly stuck an object into the driver's side and told her to give her money, or she would "cut her."
According to deputies, the victim told Voohries that she could cash a check for Voohries in a local business and she drove to that location. Deputies explained that Voohries took off on Belaire Cove Rd. in Ville Platte in the driver's vehicle after waiting in vain for the driver to return from cashing the check.
Voohries was apprehended after she crashed the vehicle into a ditch just off of Belaire Cove Rd. She was charged with attempted armed robbery and theft of motor vehicle.
14 hours ago


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Posts Tagged 'nonprofit marketing'
Featured Posts
8 Reasons Nonprofits Should Ignore the Millennial Hoo-Hah
Let's be clear right from the start – I'm not saying we should ignore the Millennials, I'm saying ignore the hoo-hah. If you are not sure what hoo-hah means (and I'm not talking about any meaning you would find in an urban slang dictionary!), READ MORE
Creating The Perfect Welcome Email for Your Nonprofit
Sign Me Up
Lately I've been seeing a lot of great stuff about creating an email welcome series. Which I think is a GREAT idea. But it got me wondering how many nonprofits even have ONE great welcome email let alone a SERIES. So I cruised 100 larger well-known nonprofit's websites and signed up to be on their email lists. READ MORE
15 Fun Things To Make Your Nonprofit's Home Page Stand Out
1. A Donate Now button that says Thank You when you roll over it – off to the side, not on the actual button. How cool is that? READ MORE
5 Key Factors for a Successful Nonprofit Engagement Plan
Three things lodged in my brain from a recent AFP Orange County luncheon meeting that featured 2 high profile donors telling their stories. One was Joann Leatherby's story about breaking into someone's house to steal a gun (to help a battered woman), the second was the statement (confirmed by both) READ MORE
The Perfect Place for Your Donate Now Button
Where in the World
When you're developing your nonprofit website, the big question is often WHERE do we place the Donate Now button? Should we have it on the page more than once? How big can we possibly make it? READ MORE
7 Nonprofits Taking Advantage of Special National Holidays in their Marketing
Chasing Events
When 9/11 came up, there was some discussion about how appropriate it was for a nonprofit to acknowledge the date and how far they should go in trying to capitalize on the READ MORE


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You're leaving Wedding Paper Divas to see the Deal of the Day at our parent site, Tiny Prints.
You won't be able to dismiss this by usual means (escape or click button), but you can close it programatically based on user choices or actions.
"We didn't have the opportunity to take engagement photos but still wanted something that would feel personal. This was perfect for us! "Outdoorsy", simple, fun, but elegant. The paper quality is great and the image is exactly what I expected it to be. The only thing I would say is the default font for your names can be a little tricky to read at first glance; we capitalized the first letters of our first/last names, which seemed to help, but overall it's not a huge deal. I loved being able to add our return address to the envelop in a font that matched the cards, too! Overall, love these and very satisfied."
"I love these save the date cards. The design is simple but gorgeous! Fits perfectly with our beach themed wedding. I was able to customize the color of the font, But I wish the color of the star could be changed as well. Overall I was very satisfied with this product!!"
"I was very impressed with the design and the quality of the paper. It's very sturdy for a postcard. I am getting married in November, so I was looking for an elegant Fall design. The text is clear and to the point. Very easy to read and to post for an easy reminder. Also the customer service was excellent! They were very helpful when I called the next day when I needed to edit words before printing. I highly recommend this design for a fall wedding or any wedding paper diva product."
"Wedding paper divas has become my favorite thing about wedding planning so far! They are always perfect and get it to you fast!"
"I got my save-the-dates 5 days early so that was a plus! I was originally concerned that it was going to be too small but, then I looked at them and they were the perfect size. Not too small and not too large either. :) I didn't know what to put on the left side on the back of the postcard. So I just wrote a little funny note so a couple of close friends then I did a rubber stamp for the other's and they looked amazing!! Again you don't have to do the little note/stamp on the side it looks great without it, just something extra that I did. :D Enjoy!!"


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The Le Salon Essentials Cat Deshedder with charcoal handle is recommended for long-haired breeds. This deshedder rake is a specialized tool that helps remove mats and reduce shedding.
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From a career resurgence to a svelte new frame, see how the star's remade her life after splitting from husband Peter Facinelli
Credit: Kyle Rover/Startraks
Updated: Monday Oct 08, 2012 | 06:00 AM EDT
By: Kiran Hefa
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Following 11 years of marriage, Jennie Garth and Peter Facinelli announce their split on March 13, 2012, noting that they remain devoted parents to their daughters, Luca, 15, Lola, 9, and Fiona, 6. The divorce coincides with the filming of her new CMT reality show, Jennie Garth: Little Bit Country. "[It's] what I need and what the girls need right now," she says of moving to a Santa Ynez, Calif., ranch.
Copyright © 2014 Time Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.


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Sound Field Rendering for Distributed Audiences
In this paper, an investigation into the localisation accuracy of Higher Order Ambisonic sound elds with reference to Vector Based Amplitude Panning (VBAP) is presented. The analysis is considered in relation to listeners who are not located in the acoustic sweet spot. The performance of velocity, energy, in-phase and psychoacoustically optimized Ambisonic decoders are compared over a horizontal-only 8-channel array. Results demonstrate that 3rd order Ambisonics with energy decode gives equivalent localisation performance to VBAP for o -centre listening.
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Search Result
Search Tags: metro board of directors
White House reneges on part of $150M pledge to Metro
The federal government committed to giving Metro $150 million per year in 2010 in exchange for the transit agency matching the federal funds and adding two new positions for federal appointees on the Metro Board of Directors.
Tags: Barack obama, Vince Gray, Metro, Tom Downs
Metro leader gets, then refuses, bonus
The Metro Board of Directors recently offered General Manager Richard Sarles a performance bonus because of his accomplishments over the past year. But before any numbers could even be discussed, Sarles turned down the bonus offer.
Tags: Adam Tuss, Metro, Richard Sarles
Report: Metro missing mark on working escalators
Metro hasn't met its goal for escalator availability in months, and it doesn't look like things will improve any time soon.
Tags: Metro, Adam Tuss, Mary Hynes
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