Lecture Series

When Thomas Keneally, the man who wrote Schindler's List, steps to the podium today and inaugurates the Free Library's new lecture series called "Rebuilding the Future," a new era will have begun. Library officials call it "rebuilding the library," an ambitious agenda they have developed to raise visibility - and money - so that the institution is as relevant 10 years from now as it was 50 years ago. "The Free Library of Philadelphia is a winner," Stephen T. Bell, the library's new deputy director for marketing, said yesterday in an interview.

In a testament to wit, irony and social commentary, about 90 people packed the house at Camden County College to find out about "Becoming Janeites: The Society of Jane Austen. " They were eager to share in the initial discussion of a five-week lecture series of their favorite author, led by Elizabeth Steele, a member of the Jane Austen Society of North America (www.jasna.org). The third lecture, "Why We Love Jane Austen," is scheduled for Thursday. "People are crazy about Jane Austen," Steele said.

There's a renewed fascination with all things Irish, say two Camden County College professors, and it has little to do with St. Patrick's Day being celebrated tomorrow. Interest in the potato famine and Irish immigration began before the release of Gangs of New York, nominated for 10 Academy Awards, according to the two women, whose grandmothers came from Falcarragh, Donegal County, Ireland. The film explores the 1840s exodus from Ireland and the resulting culture clash in America.

The year is 1940, and a string of Baptist congregants lines a Kentucky river waiting for a man and woman to be dunked and saved. The image is one of about 165,600 pictures taken between 1935 and 1942, when government photographers toured the country documenting rural life during the Great Depression and later the nation's mobilization efforts for World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt used the photographs, taken by the Farm Security Administration...

Touring the Andalusia estate in Bensalem Township, participants listen to guide James Biddle (center, black jacket) discuss the mansion, estate grounds and family history. The tour was part of a lecture series sponsored by the Bucks County Community College Historic Preservation Program. Saturday's tour was preceded by a morning lecture at the college.

There's been a firestorm over the Smithsonian Institution's plans to mark the 50th anniversary of the state of Israel. Only a few years since the Enola Gay flap, the prestigious organization has blundered into another mud fight in which its credibility has been challenged and damaged. There's plenty of blame to go around. At this point, the Smithsonian has been hit from two different directions. Critics called its initial plans for a 50th-anniversary lecture series an attack on Israel and its current government.

Marguerite Goff has yet to see the acclaimed "Treasure Houses of Britain" exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, but she has some ideas about it. "It's just a fabulous heritage that we're looking at, and so much of it relates to our own history - just a whole bunch of things that make it particularly exciting," she said Friday. Goff, director of continuing education at Rosemont College in Lower Merion, has organized a lecture series at the college to make the Washington exhibit come alive.

It is a simple but empowering slogan: Think Globally - Act Locally. And in Africa, Asia and the Amazon rain forest, these words are having an enormous impact on the people who are struggling to save their cultural identity and natural resources. For a close-up look at grass-roots conservation efforts in these regions, West Chester University and the Brandywine Valley and Red Clay Valley associations have joined to present a free lecture series at the university, starting Tuesday night.

The new year is bringing an array of programs, for enrichment and entertainment, to religious institutions in the area. NEW YEAR'S FESTIVITIES The Revs. Scot and Paula McCosh, the husband-wife pastoral team at Prospect Hill Baptist Church, 703 Lincoln Ave., Prospect Park, have organized a coffeehouse for young adults from 8 p.m. New Year's Eve to 12:30 a.m. at the church. Admission will be free, and coffee and desserts will be available at a modest cost. Four bands are lined up to provide music.