Secrets and Surprises at Chicago's Famed Shedd Aquarium

There is a secret life thriving behind the scenes of Chicago's famed Shedd Aquarium.

Though they often go unseen, the aquarium's library and archive play crucial roles in supporting Shedd's aquatic creatures. The library recently reopened in a new location after being closed for nearly 9 months.

Here are some surprising facts I learned by going "behind the scenes" of the Shedd Aquarium with Manager of Information Services and Archive, Alisun DeKock:

1. Hops grown in Shedd's sustainable gardens were turned into a limited-run beer called 'Penguin Hops' by Chicago's Revolution Brewing. During its initial run, one dollar was donated to Shedd Aquarium for every beer sold, which equated to a $2,500.00 donation.

2.  The library boasts 30+ VHS tapes in its collection, which DeKock points to with pride. On a serious note, the library boasts more than 6,000 books and 80 active periodical subscriptions. DeKock described the newly acquired database access as "A real boon to the researchers at the aquarium." Researchers, aquarists, tour guides, and trainers use the library resources.

3. John G. Shedd is rumored to have said, "Live your life clean and upright. So live that you not having to fear from publicity." Much easier advice to follow in a pre-Facebook world. The archive housed at the aquarium features extensive materials on John G. Shedd's personal and professional life. The archive also has documents from the early planning stages of the aquarium, which highlights letters exchanged between Shedd and founders of other aquariums and zoos.

Epigrams, Maxims and Miscellaneous by John G. Shedd--quotes and quips that
show Shedd's personal philosophies and thoughts can be found in the archive. 

4. Much like Chicago's Field Museum and Adler Planetarium, the fortune amassed for creation of the aquarium came from Chicago's once-booming catalogue industry. 

5. The aquarium integrates iPads into exhibits to display information about different species. This is less expensive than the old custom-built information kiosks (remember those?) and iPads are easier to replace and their content is easier to modify. And guess who writes the informative content for the iPad displays? Shedd's own librarian, Alisun DeKock.

6. There is an incredible Great Lakes exhibit featuring lots of touchscreens and interactive exhibits, including a sturgeon-petting station. They also have a sea lamprey and other invasive species on display.

7. Alisun's pick for favorite creature at the Shedd Aquarium? The Seadragon. 

The name fits.

8. My picks for favorite creatures at the Shedd Aquarium? Caiman Lizard, Seahorses, Bubbler Jellies. 

9. January is an offseason for visitors to the Chicago area, so plan your Shedd Aquarium trip for the new year and avoid the crowds!

The Water Library had a great experience visiting the Shedd Aquarium. A special THANKS to Alisun DeKock for showing us all the secrets and surprises. 

Great Lakes Restoration Success Stories Map

The Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition, an association comprised of more than 120 environmental and conservation groups, has produced an interactive map that highlights the
successful federal restoration projects that abound throughout the Great Lakes.  Users can peruse the map and discover projects that are positively impacting the environment and economy. Examples of projects include ones that combat invasive species, contain toxic pollution, curtail polluted runoff, and support habitat restoration.  There is certainly more work that needs to be accomplished, but this map is useful in highlighting the positive impact many project already underway have had in safeguarding our treasured Great Lakes resources.

Additional reading/viewing on the topic of Great Lakes restoration:
Access the Great Lakes Restoration Success Stories Map
Read Great Lakes Echo's story about restoration projects in Michigan
Watch Revitalizing Local Waterfront Economies: The Great Lakes Legacy Act video

Book Review: Going Full Circle

Join husband-wife team Mike Link and Kate Crowley as they hike around the world’s largest freshwater lake, Lake Superior. The couple adds adventure memoir author to their already numerous list of titles such as, naturalists, travel writers and parents & grandparents.  Their recounting of the five-month's long hike through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ontario is compiled in this award-winning, recent addition to the Water Library's collection, Going Full Circle: A 1,555-mile walk around the World's Largest Lake. Their walk is filled with personal observations, scientific information, and passages that are certain to connect readers to the awe and beauty of the Great Lakes region.  There is also an abundance of information available of their website: http://www.fullcirclesuperior.org which they use to continue their advocacy of fresh water resource issues.

Next up for this adventurous couple is a 4,500-mile trip by bicycle and boat along the Mississippi River to the Gulf.  

If you are a Wisconsin resident and would like to check out this or any other book, please fill out our book request form. If you are a UW student, faculty or staff, please request books through the Library Catalog.

Take Home Some Water Cinema

Wisconsin's Water Library has a large collection of DVDs on water related topics.  With a wide range of subjects, such as environmental advocacy, recycling, drinking water, the Great Lakes, oceans, shipwrecks, invasive species, and weather extremes, you're certain to find something that interests you.

So all are encouraged to check out a selection this summer!  

Browse the library catalog listings for all the DVD's in Wisconsin's Water Library's collection.

If you are a Wisconsin resident and would like to check out these DVD's or any other item, please fill out our book request form. If you are a UW student, faculty or staff, please request books or DVD's through the Library Catalog.

Book Review: Voices From The Sweetwater Seas: A Great Lakes Anthology

Would you like to dive down and explore the Leopard Frog Cave system near Tobermory, Ontario?
 

Attempt to break the speed record for the 600 plus mile trip from Chicago to Detroit?  

Or join a canoeist as he paddles more than 28,000 miles in one continuous journey?  

William F. Keefe has written profiles of Great Lakes adventurers who did all of these feats as well as 30 others who have accomplished remarkable environmental, artistic, recreational, or commercial achievements in the region.  Assembled as one anthology, Voices from the Sweetwater Seas is a welcome addition to our library's collection.

In informal interviews the subjects, men and women, Americans and Canadians, paint descriptions and relate narratives that show clearly, and sometimes poignantly, why the Lakes are a challenge, a means of making a livelihood, an esthetic treasure, a storehouse of wonders great and small, an inspiration, and a geologic miracle. (excerpt from book's back cover)

If you are a Wisconsin resident and would like to check out this or any other book, please fill out our book request form. If you are a UW student, faculty or staff, please request books through the Library Catalog.

Plan Your Spring Getaway With The Wisconsin Coastal Guide

 

As we welcome the Spring Equinox and find ourselves on the precipice of warmer weather and longer hours of daylight, our thoughts are on planning our Spring getaways.  We have the perfect tool to aid you in your vacation planning.  David Hart, UW Sea Grant's staff GIS Specialist was instrumental in developing the Wisconsin Coastal Guide, an amazing resource to help you plan a Great Lakes excursion.  

The Wisconsin Coastal Guide website provides useful information about the Great Lakes Circle Tour, a tour that connects many coastal access sites with natural and cultural attractions to be found along Wisconsin’s Lake Michigan and Lake Superior coasts.  Tour planners can access schematic maps and descriptions of each lake’s circle tour route.  The website also provides information on each of the coastal cities and towns found along the way; including attractions, lodging, parks, and general tourism resources.

The maps featured on the site also offer links to external web content about individual Great Lakes attractions. Panoramic photos were taken at hundreds of public access sites and scenic vistas on Great Lakes shores, so you can preview today where you will hope to visit later.

Spend these last few weeks of blistery cold weather planning your warm weather Great Lakes vacation!

Other Great Lakes region tourism resources:
The Great Lakes Information Network (GLIN)
Great Lakes Commission: Great Lakes Circle Tour

Further resources for planning your Great Lakes tourism route:
WisconsinHighways.org
MichiganHighways.org
OntarioHighways.org

Great Lakes Drought Satellite Evidence

Image courtesy of NASA

Today we want to share Great Lakes Echo's blogger James Dau's article about evidence provided by NASA satellite imaging of the impact drought conditions continue to have on Great Lakes groundwater.  Dau highlights images constructed using NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites that were created between January 8-14, 2013.  He goes on to conclude that "Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, northern Wisconsin and Minnesota, and areas along the Indiana-Illinois border show particularly low groundwater levels."  Average levels appear in white in the map shown here, while below average areas appear in red.  Certainly snowstorms can help alleviate these drought conditions over the winter months, and clearly we could use more snow precipitation if we hope to improve our groundwater storage.  Fascinating NASA imaging tool and great reporting by Great Lakes Echo.

Read Jame's Dau's entire article "When in Drought: Satellites show low Great Lakes groundwater" here

Learn more about GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) here

Learn more about Groundwater with our Water Research Guide here

Mapping Threats to the Great Lakes

The Great Lakes Environmental Assessment and Mapping Project (GLEAM) three year study  culminated recently in the release of a comprehensive map outlining the impact of environmental "stressors" on the world's largest freshwater system.  The environmental stress map was developed by academic researchers and environmental organizations, representing both the United States and Canada, drawing upon the latest and best data from federal and state agencies as well as non-governmental organizations and individual researchers.  UW-Madison's own Assistant Professor, Peter McIntyre is one of the project's leaders.  

The map complements the report published online for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).  Ongoing Great Lakes restoration efforts are aided by offering this "merged high-resolution spatial analyses of environmental stressors with mapping of ecosystem services for all five Great Lakes"according to the PNAS report. Thirty-four individual stressors were considered, including coastal development, agricultural pollutants, over-fishing, climate change, invasive species and toxic chemicals.  Users are now able to scan the entire 900+ mile chain of lakes, zoom in, and see evidence of environmental impacts to the scale of one half a mile.  Truly an outstanding tool for promoting discussion and aiding actions taken to restore and protect our Great Lakes resources.

View the full map at the GLEAM website here
Access the full PNAS report "Joint analysis of stressors and ecosystem services to enhance restoration effectiveness" is available here
Read the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's article about GLEAM here 

Book Review: Mighty Fitz

When it first went into service in 1958, the Edmund Fitzgerald was one of the largest and most expensive freighters ever built.  Its tragic demise on November 10th, 1975 was to become one of the most legendary shipwrecks ever witnessed in America's inland waters.  Lifelong resident of the Great Lakes region Michael Schumacher has written twenty-five documentaries on shipwrecks and lighthouses.  We are pleased to add his latest book, Mighty Fitz: The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald  to the Wisconsin's Water Libraries collection. 

Schumacher delves deep into the history of the ship, describing her many years on the Great Lakes, the fateful wreck, search efforts, and the subsequent controversy and investigation.  Booklist concludes that Mighty Fitz is "a thoroughly admirable addition to Great Lakes history."  We agree and encourage you to check it out.

If you are a Wisconsin resident and would like to check out this or any other book, please fill out our book request form. If you are a UW student, faculty or staff, please request books through the Library Catalog.

For more on Great Lakes Shipwrecks:

Browse Wisconsin's Water Library's Recommended Reading List on Great Lakes Shipwrecks here
Visit Wisconsin's Great Lakes Shipwrecks website here
Publisher The University of Minnesota Press' official website here
And finally, watch a clip of musician Gordon Lightfoot performing his song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald  here

2012 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement

The United States and Canada recently revised and signed the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.  Originally conceived in 1972 as an outcome of the Boundary Waters Treaty to address phosphorus pollution, it was revised in 1978 and expanded with the stated goal “to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the waters of the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem.”  This latest revision restates these commitments and expands the provisions to address the following concerns:

• Aquatic Invasive Species
• Habitat Degradation
• Algae Blooms
• Toxic Chemicals
• Discharges from Vessels
• Management of the Nearshore Environment
• Effects of Climate Change

Seen as a useful step forward for both countries to identify priorities and create policy, the agreement has also raised some criticism for it's lack of legal standards for pollution and penalties for those who violate the terms of the agreement.

Read the entire 2012 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement here
Great Lakes Law blog reports concerns about the public's input into the agreement here

Ghost Ships of the Schooner Coast

Underwater archaeologist Tamara Thomson doesn't just photograph shipwrecks- she captures wrecks in our very own Midwestern Great Lakes. Stop by the Wisconsin Historical Museum to see her breathtaking underwater photography of the Rouse Simmons, Home, and other wrecks.

Photo via Wisconsin Historical Society

The exhibit,  "Ghost Ships of the Schooner Coast," was developed by the Wisconsin Maritime Museum, with support from the Historical Museum, as well as our friends at the UW Sea Grant. Click here for more information about the exhibit, or here to see Great Lakes shipwrecks resources at the Water Library

 Photographer Thomson explains part of the exhibit to a crew from the UW Aquatic Sciences Center.