Event Notebook
January 2009
Expert
Coming up soon and going on well into the spring, we’ll be bringing in a Professor of Strategy and Policy from the U.S. Naval War College to lecture on The War for American Independence. Dr. Stanley Carpenter is a United States Naval Officer, Active and Reserve since 1979, and an expert on British Military and Naval History and the American Revolutionary War, and if you saw his resume like I did, I can pretty much guarantee that you’d be blown away just like I was. Dr. Carpenter is a widely published author with many articles and several books to his name, and the list of his areas of expertise is long and broad.
Having recently arrived at Barrington Public Library and still seeing it with fresh eyes, I’ve often been amazed at how many specialized and authoritative speakers talk here and wondered how it is that the Library is able to attract them. The answer that I keep coming up with is that it’s the type of audience that shows up for Library programs. The people who come are consistently receptive, curious, educated and very sharp, and what lecturer or performer wouldn’t want to work with an audience like that?
Dr. Carpenter usually lectures to Naval War College students who arrive with some background in the topics that he teaches, and he’s told me that he’ll revise the lectures that he gives here so that people who don’t have specialized training in warfare will still receive the full benefit of his talk. However, I warned him that at this library there will be experts in the audience, too—it’s just that kind of place—and he needs to be ready for their well-informed questions at the end of the hour in addition to everyone else’s.
The War for American Independence: A Lecture Series with Dr. Stanley Carpenter will take place on Tuesdays at 7:30 PM on 1/27, 2/10 & 17, 3/3 & 31 and 4/14.
I hope to see you there.
Wil Gregersen
Community Services Librarian
