Hurry to see America 24/7!

In November "Window on America" center (Dnipropetrovsk) presented a set of colorful posters America 24/7. New equipment donated to the DOUNB library by the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine was used for this paper display. Bright images, surprising photo angles, panoramas and portraits – all this is part of a unique photo project "America 24/7". In 2003 almost 25 000 professional and amateur photographers for a period of one week were taking photos throughout the country to create a comprehensive picture of contemporary America. DK Publishers issued a photo album containing over 1200 wonderful images. Thousands of copies were sold as each American family would like to buy the photo album and be proud of their country’s beauty. The DOUNB library proudly owns a copy of this album.
 
A set of posters was published later. The “America 24/7”

display at WOA Dnipropetrovsk introduces the patrons to the images of great American cities – New York, San Francisco, and Seattle. The landscapes of states Massachusetts, Vermont, Arizona and Louisiana are also presented. Particularly impressive are the NASA photos from outer space – "Evening Lights of America". Every house has a lit window, the cities blaze with lights; together they add up into a shimmering lace.

Have a look at more pictures, please

Students NMetAU «Discover USA»

Window on America center (Dnipropetrovsk / Ukraine) continues its project “Discover USA”.
Today the Center was visited by a big group of the first and second year students from the National Metallurgical Academy. The students’ major is “Technical Translation”.
Students had an opportunity to learn more about the modern library – full of electronic books, catalogues and gadgets.
WOA Head Svitlana Usenko introduced them to the Window on America center history, its language activities and numerous academic exchange programs in the USA.
For spoken activity staff member Tamara G. offered the students a topic about “Urban Living in the USA”. 

The choice of the topic supported the similar material from the students’ academic curricula. The group was informed about the project initiated by the NYC Mayor Mr. Bloomberg last year. The information was illustrated by several videos. Besides providing smashing sights of Manhattan the films illustrated translation difficulties from English into Ukrainian.
To wrap up the session WOA’s Head S. Usenko invited the students to join the centre’s Clubs and explore the current book display “U.S. Outstanding Men”.
Number of participants – 43 persons (41 students and 2 lecturers).
Have a look at more pictures, please

 

Urban Living

Today’s session of the Gabfest Club (Dnipropetrovsk / Ukraine) was dedicated to the topic «Urban Living». As city dwellers in Ukraine many club members consider their living conditions inferior – with not enough living space. Today we explored the topic of urban living and tried to compare affordable housing projects in Ukraine and in the USA.
To start the ball rolling we watched a video about the Soviet «Khrouschevkas» – cheap  houses from prefabricated  blocks that allowed millions of Soviet people to improve their living conditions after WW2. 
It turned out that in New York City a similar project was initiated last year by Mayor Bloomberg. The «My Micro NY» building will be the first multifamily building in Manhattan to be built entirely from prefabricated modular pieces. The Mayor stated: «The growth rate for one- and two-person households greatly exceeds that of households with three or more people, and addressing that housing challenge requires us to think creatively and beyond our current regulations».
The group watched several videos illustrating the topic of space-optimizing in modern urban life. Micro-living phenomenon triggered heated debate about strong and weak points of the «affordable housing» projects. The group was particularly impressed by the videos about a transformable flat displayed in the Museum of New York. The videos with tips about living in tiny spaces were also enjoyed by all the present.
The session was very educational and urged some interested club members to explore the topic further - for their own home improvements.
Participants number – 27 persons.