Coastal Heritage Magazine: Oysters

"Lowcountry Living Shorelines: Restoring Carolina's Reefs," is the topic of the current issue of Coastal Heritage Magazine.  The magazine is available in print in the BDC Research Room.  For your convenience, the Sea Grant Consortium posts Coastal Heritage Magazine online at http://www.scseagrant.org/Content/?cid=626.


Public libraries have a broad range of customers.  Some customers prefer juicy tidbits of visual information.  If you are one of these customers, view the "Beaufort County History Moments "Oysters" segment hosted by Natalie Hefter. (She spends a lot of her time at Coastal Discovery Museum dealing with school groups.  Accordingly, she delivers the crucial information that one needs to have quickly. Beaufort County History Moments are a collaboration of the County Channel,  Beaufort County Planning Department, Beaufort County Library and the Coastal Discovery Museum).

For our customers who prefer to indulge their curiosity more deeply, some of the suggested reading materials that end the largest article actually can be accessed online, read in the BDC, found within our subscription databases, or borrowed through our circulating collections.

The "Shellfish Reefs at Risk: A Global Analysis of Problems and Solutions" report (2009) is available for download through the Nature Conservancy website using this URL: conserveonline.org/library/shellfish-reefs-at-risk-report/@@view.html  An update is found at http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/habitats/oceanscoasts/explore/shellfish-reefs-at-risk.xml.

The Oyster by William K. Brooks published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 1996 is actually a republication of the original book published in 1905. The 1905 edition is available from Google books.  URL: http://books.google.com/books?id=yCOUY6ww6PMC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

The South Carolina Digital Library has Burrell's South Carolina Oyster Industry: A History online at digital.tcl.sc.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/oyster/id/122.  We have print copies in the BDC under call # SC 664.94 BUR.

Ernest Ingersoll's The Oyster-Industry, 1881 is available online at archive.org/details/oysterindustry00inge.

Jeremy B.C. Jackson and others, co-authored  "Historical overfishing and the recent collapse of coastal ecosystems" in Science magazine, vol. 293, no. 5530 (2001).  The article is available through our subscription EBSCO Academic Search Premier database.  You can get the current passcodes from any of the regular branch libraries as long as you have a valid Beaufort County Library card. 

You can borrow Mark Kurlansky's The Big Oyster (2006) through the SCLENDS catalog. 

Bluffton Branch will share its copy of The Unnatural History of the Sea by Callum Roberts (2007), call number 909.09 ROB with anyone who has a valid BCL or SCLENDS partner library card.

You can even get the recipe for "Oyster Dressing" from one of our Local History & Nature pages.  

In the BDC we have a vertical file on "Oysters;" a document of the exhibit text of a 1996-1997 Beaufort Museum exhibit called "Time & Tide: A Century of Oystering in Beaufort County," and a delightful audio-interview segment about "Oysters / Bluffton Oyster Factory" by Joni Kost on the "Postcards from the Lowcountry" DVD.  

In other words, we have plenty to share on the topic of oysters!  Yum.  Yum.

Coastal Kingdom

Our natural environment is full of wonders.  Coastal Kingdom, an award-winning, educational program showcases plants and animals from Lowcountry habitats.  It is a partnership between Beaufort County Government and the LowCountry Institute on Spring Island and stars naturalist Tony Mills.

Sharks, snakes, bats, and raccoons are among the animals covered.  

Tune in to watch Coastal Kingdom on the County Channel seen on Comcast channel 2, Hargray channels 9 and 143, Time Warner Cable Hilton Head Island Channel 66 and  Time Warner Cable Sun City Channel 63. You can also watch on the web at www.coastalkingdom.com, YouTube or on the home page of the County website at www.bcgov.net.

DVDs of some segments are available in the BDC as well as in the local history section at your branch library under call # 508.7579 COA.

In Honor of Earth Day

Mark the 42nd annual Earth Day by learning a bit about local animals, plants, minerals and the ecosystems here in Beaufort County via our library's Local History & Nature web pages! 

Animals:  Lovebugs;  Snakes; Spiders

Plants: Marshes; Oak Trees;

Minerals: Beach Sand

Today also happens to be the date of the annual Parish Church of St. Helena's service held on the grounds of Old Sheldon Church.  The service has been held on the 2nd Sunday after Easter for more than half a century. For the notice about the service held in 1957, see the News & Courier clipping. The BDC has a vertical file on many of the churches formed within Beaufort (and Granville) County, including St. Helena's Episcopal and Prince William's Episcopal (Old Sheldon) churches.  Drop by the Research Room and we'll be happy to show them to you. 

Naturalist Shares His Book on Lowcountry Flora and Fauna

We are pleased to host Naturalist and Photographer Marvin Bouknight on Wed., April 20th in a BDC@ Beaufort Branch program on our area's plant and animal life. We are starting the program at 6 pm.

He will have copies of his book, South Carolina's Lowcountry ... Naturally available for sale and will autograph your copy should you request it.

Richard Brooks of Bluffton Today wrote a review which includes images from Bouknight's work.

You can view some of his bird photographs on the Carolina Bird Club Photo Gallery page.

The Island Packet interviewed him last Fall about carnivorous plants.

His sense of humor is sure to come out during his presentation. Please make plans now to attend what is certain to be an informative and entertaining BDC@ The Branches local history program in two weeks.

For Budding Coastal Ecologists

To supplement the "Keeping the May River Wild" program earlier this month, I prepared two lists of library materials about coastal ecology and documentary film-making to share with participants and online customers.

You can find the lists on coastal ecology through the "Coastal Ecology" bookbag I am sharing through the SC LENDS catalog. You can see the contents of the bookbag on "Documentary Film-making," too!

The coastal ecology hand-out includes links to online information in our "Local History and Nature" web pages on the marshes, shrimp, snakes and spiders, tides, sea foam, etc. Please contact me (gracec@bcgov.net or telephone 255-6446) if you'd like a hardcopy of the hand-out.

On this Thanksgiving Day, I hope that you are as thankful as I am for the bounty of nature in whose midst we reside. We should always be mindful of its beauty and its fragility. Happy Thanksgiving.

Book Recommendations: Tideland Treasure and Woodland Walks

Staff from our Hilton Head Branch Library offered 5 suggestions for summer reading at the beach, including these two book by former HHI resident, Todd Ballantine. While the BDC Research Room is closed, I am borrowing freely from the work of others to keep Connections of interest to our readers.

Tideland Treasure is the ideal book to bring on walks on the beaches of Hilton Head Island and the Southeast coast. This book grew out of a 5-year span of articles that were published in Island Events Magazine. It is charmingly handscripted and replete with his drawings of typically observed plants and animals of the beaches and salt marshes of Hilton Head Island and the Southeast coast. He even offers ecologically friendly tips such as: Beachgoers should leave living sand dollars on the beach and/or in the surf. Once a sand dollar is bleached white by the sun then it is dead. Dead sand dollars can be picked up.

His companion book, Woodland Walks, is an introduction to the ecology of the Southeastern coastal region. The author once served as a resident naturalist for the Sea Pines Plantation. This book will guide visitors on Hilton Head’s parks and nature preserves, and is also recommended to nature lovers.

This is not to say that a book about the ecology of Hilton Head Island doesn't have applicability to the other sea islands in South Carolina. It most certainly does. So, if you're visiting Hunting Island in Northern Beaufort County, bring along either book and you're sure to learn more about the flora and fauna surrounding you.

Beaufort County Library has multiple copies of both titles in our holdings. Visit our catalog to reserve your copy from one of our branch libraries.

Rose on "Native Plants" Tuesday

The final program in the Spring BDC @ The Branches series is Tuesday, May 25th. Laura Rose, Clemson Extension and President of the South Carolina Native Plants Society, will present a program on (appropriately) "Native Plants." Join us in Bluffton Branch, from 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm to learn about the fabulous and hardy flora in our area.

To learn more about the program, click here.

Guide to "Green" Archival Collections in SC

The Archives and Special Collections Round Table of the South Carolina Library Association (SCLA) has posted a "Guide to 'Green' Collections in the Palmetto State." The term “green” is defined in a broad context and includes topics ranging from public health to conservation to nuclear waste to gardening. Although this guide is meant to give librarians an idea of the variety of information resources available in South Carolina, anyone interested in "green" topics may find the guide of interest in locating primary source documents.

We submitted this entry:

The Beaufort District Collection (311 Scott Street, Beaufort) holds historical files on the fight against German chemical producer BASF Group (then known as Badische Anilin and Sodafabrik; it wanted to locate a factory on Victoria Bluff), Port Royal Sound survey reports pertaining to estuaries and water supply, and a few public health dissertations on microfiche based on studies conducted in Beaufort County.

Come visit us to research these materials about green topics. Usual hours of operation are Mondays through Fridays, 10 am until 5 pm but with the holidays upon us, there are closings. You can call ahead to make an appointment or to ask questions about our materials or schedule: 843-470-6525.

Unfortunately, we are still hemmed in the 1st floor room so we cannot seat more than four researchers at a time.

Let's Go Fishing!

We've begun National Fishing and Boating Week (NFBW) sponsored by the Recreational Boating & Fishing Foundation (RBFF), a non-profit organization dedicated to growing participation in fishing, boating and aquatic stewardship.

To celebrate, South Carolina's Department of Natural Resources is sponsoring two free fishing days on June 6-7. According to the SCDNR's news release "Free fishing days allow people who would like to try the sport of fishing to go without having to purchase a license." DNR has loads of information about fishing and boating, and their program, SC Reel Kids, which encourages youth to go fishing.

SCDNR has free fishing tackle loaner sites around the state, including at our own Hunting Island State Park. Rangers will teach kids how to fish from the pier on some Friday afternoons. Just be sure to pre-register with the folks at Hunting Island State Park!

Fishing and boating have long been part of lowcountry culture. The fishing photographs in the Donner Collection attest to that!

Outdoors columns about local fishing and hunting conditions appear in all the area newspapers, printed or virtual. The online only Beaufort Tribune runs an Outdoors Features column by Charley Webb. You can find Outdoors SC featured in the printed and online versions of the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.

As the anonymous author says: "A bad day of fishing is better than a good day of work." Besides which, one must agree with John Gierach that "The solution to any problem -- work, love, money, whatever -- is to go fishing, and the worse the problem, the longer the trip should be." Now, go wet a hook!

Spring has sprung in Beautiful Beaufort by the Bay

The Lady's Island Garden Club has produced a self-guided tour of significant trees throughout downtown Beaufort. A couple of stops include botanical specimens in the gardens around the Library facility at 311 Scott Street including the Library's Bradford Pear trees as one enters the Beaufort Branch building. Here's what The Beaufort Tree Walk has to say about Pyrus calleryana 'Bradford':"

When in full flower in the spring, it looks like clouds of white...

I could not agree more. Seeing it in full bloom, reminds me that the world is a beautiful place and all our problems minute in comparison to the magnificence of our natural environment. Just seeing it in full flower made me glad that Beaufort is my home.

The Lady's Island Garden Club has put some copies of the booklet in the brochure rack near the Circulation desk for you to walk around out lovely town looking at trees, while breathing in the jessamine, horse manure, and pluff mud scented air. (Where else is there such nectar for the nostrils?) Copies of the book are available while supplies last...

If Edgar Allan Poe were alive, he'd be 200 today!

January 19 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849).

Since BDC Connections deals with advocacy for libraries and archives, matters of an historic, cultural, or environmental nature in a quite small geographical location, and best preservation practices for family treasures and library materials,

Q: What is the connection Poe has to South Carolina that touches on one or more of the BDC Connections themes?

The short answer is:
He, like many others, served part of his military duty in coastal South Carolina and became inspired by our natural beauty to write a tale of historical fiction about it.

The Edgar Allan Poe Branch Library on Sullivan's Island in Charleston County is named in his honor. Poe was stationed on Sullivan's Island as a private in the United States Army in 1827 and 1828 and used the island setting as the background for his famous story of pirates and lost treasure, "The Gold Bug." For an updated approach to "The Gold Bug," (including a YouTube preview of a film release), try this.

I recommend these Poe related websites:
The Edgar Allan Poe Collection at Enoch Pratt Free Library

Nevermore 2009 for information about Poe sites in Baltimore

Poe Revealed, 1809-2009 offers curricular material for Teachers and Students studying the literary contributions of Poe

Times Topics: Edgar Allan Poe includes commentary and archival articles from the New York Times about Poe sites and historical fiction about Poe.

Novels About Poe

FIC HAT
The murder of Edgar Allan Poe : a novel by George Egon Hatvary (Available at BLU, HHI)

FIC PEA
The Poe shadow : a novel by Matthew Pearl (Available at BEA, BLU, HHI)

FIC SIL
Disquiet heart : a thriller by Randall Silvis (Available at BEA, HHI)

Other authors who write in a Poe connection are Linda Fairstein and Laura Lippman.

ETV's Knowitall.org: Drop In and Surf a Spell

ETV's Knowitall.org offers multiple educational resources to assist parents, teachers and children. Keep It Real offers teens real consequences for unhealthy risk-taking behavior; Knowitall Healthy! displays award-winning student videos and offers tips to be fit, healthy and well; teens can step up and be heard at the Ready to Vote site; view streaming videos on Instant Replay; take an interactive tour through S.C. history on Road Trip!; and much more.

Connections to the history, culture, and environment of Beaufort County are particularly strong in the GullahNet portion of the website, featuring the talents of Beaufort's own "Aunt Pearlie Sue."

You can find loads of information about South Carolina's wonderful natural environment through Sandlapper Online, the electronic version of a magazine long dedicated to describing attractions and activities in the Palmetto State, profiling interesting South Carolinians, and chronicling South Carolina's fascinating history, through text and photographs in each and every issue.

It's not just for the K-12 crowd. Anyone, of any age, can benefit from the resources provided at Knowitall.org.

Visit ETV's Knowitall.org site now.

Estuary Week is Sept. 24 - September 30

Our web pages contain a wealth of information on topics about local history, culture and environment. This week we highlight a crucial resource for our area: estuaries and marshes. To participate and learn more, read "About the Marshes of the Lowcountry," by our own Information Services Coordinator, Dennis Adams.