Verso

Eight million manuscripts. Seven miles of shelving. A third of a million items used by scholars in a 12-month period. A snapshot of the scale of the task faced every day by stacks staff of the manuscripts department.

Check out what's coming up in the way of conferences and lectures this fall at The Huntington. Many visitors might not know about the array of offerings, but every year, as the academic year gets under way

Tuesday night, PBS will premiere "Death and the Civil War," an installment of "American Experience" produced by Ric Burns and inspired by the 2008 book This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, by Drew Gilpin Faust.

Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies has made the short list for the 2012 Man Booker Prize, the most prestigious literary award for books written in English by authors from the Commonwealth of Nations, the Republic of Ireland, or Zimbabwe. Mantel's papers are housed at The Huntington.

With fall fast approaching, work is under way to get the 2012 Fall Plant Sale ready to go, so be sure to put us on your calendar. The sale takes place Friday, Oct. 12, through Sunday, Oct. 14. Friday's hours will be noon

Huntington conferences often bring together scholars who present research in progress and then go on to gather the material into a volume of essays for a new book. On Sat., Sept. 8, The Huntington hosts a conference that acts as a kind of afterword to a book published in 2010.

Paints are composed of pigments, normally mineral or plant based, and a binder, which is a sort of glue that holds the pigment together. Oil paints use an oil binder, such as linseed or walnut oil. By contrast, tempera uses eggs as a binder.

Neil Armstrong, who died Saturday at the age of 82, was a member of a select group—astronauts who walked on the moon. And as the first man, he occupied an even higher stratosphere, keeping company today in the public consciousness with Sally Ride