Irina and I recently did a site visit to the Alvar Aalto Library at Mt. Angel. We met with Victoria Ertelt, the Head Librarian, and Br. Simon  Hepner , O.S.B, the Library’s “Book Mender”. Victoria was kind enough to show us some of the older books in the library, the oldest dating back to about 1290 A.D. Br Simon showed us some of the equipment and supplies in the Mendery, where he repairs broken books from the library, and also binds journals for long term storage. One of these days I’ll get around to uploading some of the photos and videos I shot for a multimedia project I did for the Library’s 25th Anniversary.

 Gangs are a problem in many countries, including El Savador, where the problem is critical. This short documentary “exposes” the problem well. It is centered around the work of a Catholic Priest in San Salvador, who ministers to a community hit hard by gang violence. While the film does not provide many “answers”, it does show how gang violence is related to the lack of opportunities for and criminalization of youth. The film is produced by a Dutch media nonprofit for Al Jazeera focusing on a Catholic priest’s work. Bit of a twist!

Now that I am out of work, I’m looking forward to getting this set up. And Arturo just reminded me that we need to have the site in Spanish too!