Stories from the Delta

Mr Moaparankwe Mpho, former Water Affairs colleague of Pete Smith, at opening of Pete Smith's Delta exhibition

"Pete Smith worked with the people who lived in the Delta because he knew what they knew was important."

Stories from the Delta

Mr Forembi Forembi, former Water Affairs colleague of Pete Smith

"Pete Smith taught me how to read maps, so that I could move long distances in the Delta where I had not been before, just by following maps."

The exhibition, Pete Smith's Delta: Pioneering Biodiversity Conservation in the Okavango opened in Maun yesterday evening, featuring a live storytelling session with some of the late Pete Smith's friends and colleagues who travelled and worked with him in the Delta. The exhibition also previewed the new web-based resource developed by HOORC's Library, GIS Laboratory and University of Botswana Library Services Archives team, based on digitized versions of Pete's annotated maps. The exhibition continues until Saturday, May 23rd in African Art and Images at the Maun airport.

New at HOORC's Library: The Gentle Subversive

As HOORC's Library prepares for events to commemorate the life and knowledge of Okavango researcher Pete Smith, we are reminded that people who are passionate about their work can have enormous influence on other people and, subsequently, policies. The gentle subversive : Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the rise of the environmental movement by Mark Hamilton Lytle, published in 2007, tells the story of the marine biologist whose book Silent Spring helped launch the modern environmental movement. The Gentle Subversive offers a compact life of Carson, shedding light on the process that led to this influential book. It includes a bibliography of books and articles by Carson, and a good index. You can find the book in HOORC's Library.

New in HOORC's Library: Binocular stargazing

Binocular stargazing by Mike D. Reynolds explains how to choose binoculars and use them to observe everything from comets to solar eclipses, making the point that the low magnification, wide field of view and ability to use both eyes allow people to explore the night skies on a more compelling level. Chapter 12 focuses on the skies of the southern hemisphere, and a large reference section points the reader to useful resources -- books, atlases, periodicals and web sites as well as manufacturers of equipment. You can find the book in HOORC's Library.

August earthquake in Ngamiland

Image from Google Earth

Several weeks ago an earth tremor rattled the house of HOORC Library Assistant Joseph Matshelo, among other Maun residents. Now data about the earthquake has been sent to us by Dr. A. Cichowicz of the South African Council for Geoscience, through Professor T.S. McCarthy of the University of the Witwatersrand Okavango Research Group. The earthquake of August 16th (20:21 GMT) had a magnitude of 4.4, and the epicentre was located at 20.033 deg S and 23.184 deg E, which puts it on the Kunyere fault at the junction of the Marophe and the Kunyere rivers (see Google image). In HOORC's Library, you can find the Encyclopedia of earthquakes and volcanoes.

Botswana elephant tracking on Love Earth

Love Earth , a popular site developed by the BBC, combines Google Earth with photographs, video and narrative to describe tracking of selected wildlife, including elephants in northern Botswana by the Elephants without Borders project.

Designed as a promotion for the BBC's film, Planet Earth, the site also has pages that describe how the film was made.

New in HOORC's Library: Ecological Literacy

Ecological literacy: educating our children for a sustainable world, edited by Micheal Stone and Zenobia Bralow from the Center for Ecoliteracy, points out that efforts to build sustainable communities cannot succeed unless future generations learn how to partner with natural systems to their mutual benefit; to become "ecologically literate." Reports and essays offer examples of place-based, values-driven ecological education from schools and other learning centres, as well as readable essays -- especially thought provoking is On Watershed Education by American poet laureate Robert Hass. Teachers and environmental outreach workers can find the book in HOORC's library.

New in HOORC's Library: Mechanics of Earthquakes and Faulting

The second edition of The mechanics of earthquakes and faulting by Christopher H. Scholz points out that understanding of earthquakes and faulting processes has developed significantly since publication of the first edition of this book in 1990. This revised edition explains the connection between fault and earthquake mechanics, and describes the central role of the rate-state friction laws in earthquake mechanics, which provide a unifying framework within which a wide range of faulting phenomena can be interpreted. You can find the book in HOORC's Library, and read a review of Scholz's memoir, Fieldwork: A Geologist's Memoir of the Kalahari on the New York Times on the Web site.

Lunar eclipse

Photo from web site of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa

Okavango natural history guide Richard Randall visited HOORC's library this week and alerted us to the upcoming total lunar eclipse that will be visible from southern Africa the night of March 3rd, 2007. You can find more information about the event on the site of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa. In HOORC's Library, you can find Night Skies by Peter Mack.