Journalist Creates German Wikipedia for Me & CITL

It was several weeks ago when journalist Gereon Kalkuhl infomed me, completely unexpectedly, that he has written a German Wikipedia page on me and Chess in the Library! Boy, that sure came as a huge surprise!

Interested in learning more about his motive, I asked Gereon what made him decide to write a Wikipedia page about me and CITL, especially in German. This is his response, word for word:

"The reason why I wrote the article in German is simply that German is my first language.Journalistic work is fun for me. Newspapers and magazines often have inacurate information about chess players. By writing these articles I provide some facts about chess personalities. The article about you I wrote because I like the idea of Chess in the Library and I thought we didn't have enough biographies about Canadian chess players. The only other female chess player from Canada that has an article on de.wikipedia was Nava Starr. I could have written about Natalia Khoudgarian, Dinara Khaziyeva, Johanne Charest, Dina Kagramanov, Diane Mongeau, Smilja Vujosevic or Vesma Baltgailis, but since you lead the Canadian FIDE list..." - Gereon

You can see the article here: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuanling_Yuan. I will also post the link on the right sidebar, under CITL in the Media.

Although I don't understand a single word of the article, the fact that it is there, English or not, is heart-warming. I am touched not because of the sight of my own bibliography, but rather the short paragraph on Chess in the Library. The fact that this organization has become nation-wide, and now aware to Germans across the world, is simply unbelievable. I did not write this blog post earlier because it took quite some time for me to actually believe that I'm not dreaming!

You can see a list of Gereon's other articles here: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Gereon_K.

I want to take this opportunity to give a big THANK YOU to Gereon for helping us spread the word on CITL to the millions of Germans out there!

Victoria Library Juan de Fuca Starts New CITL Session

It was only several days only when I heard from Brian Raymer and Shannon Kenning with regards to the great news of revitalizing the Chess in the Library program at the Juan de Fuca Library after a year of inactivity.

The new session began on Wednesday September 28, 2011 and will continue every Wednesday until November 30, 2011. The first session attracted 16 participants which leaves only 2 more spots in the program open. Below are the details for this location:

Juan de Fuca Library  

1759 Island Highway
Victoria, BC V9B 1J1
250-391-0653

Open wednesdays from 6:30 PM to 7:45 PM till November 30.

I'm so excited to see the program restarted in the west end! Although I had a chance to visit Vancouver this summer for Shad Valley, I have never been to Victoria. However, it is definitely one city already marked down on my "future travel list"! When the day comes for me to fly over to Victoria, I hope to meet the legendary Brian Raymer in person as well as the amazing librarian, Shannon, who made all this possible!

North York Central Library Create Special Chess Display Case

This news is a little outdated but I'm super excited to tell you all that in August this year, NYCL dedicated one of its stand-alone display cases just to chess and Chess in the Library! The display case was placed near the elevator on the third floor and it was there for an entire month, according to Gal.

It actually came as a complete surprise to me when I first saw it. Gal and I was at a meeting with Cameron, the new NYCL "chess manager" to book rooms for next year's festival. Speaking of that, we will have the NYCL auditorium for the ENTIRE day next year! Isn't that lovely news? This was something we've been trying so hard to accomplish for the past 2 days and because of Cameron, our dreams came true!

Anyways, after the meeting we went to the third floor (unintentionally) to put away the chess sets that were just being used for the Saturday program. I actually didn't even notice the display case when I walked by but then Gal suddenly exclaim:"Oh yeah, Yuanling, I forgot to tell you...look at this!" After that I practically was in shock for the rest of the day and it took me a good 10 minutes to examine each and every single detail on it. Take a look for yourself:

Front view - see the trophy??? :O

Side view

Back view - you can catch a glimpse of the 3rd floor front desk. If my eyes don't lie, then is that Tom I see sitting in front of the computer? Haha~

In the middle you can see the CITL Annual Trophy that was won by NYCL this year, so yes, they do have the bragging rights for it. The precious trophy is surrounded by many chess books and tiny chess pieces if you take a closer look at it. However, I am most impressed by the self-made paper chess pieces that are taped around the top of the display chess. It must've taken A LOT of time to draw and cut these out! Here's a close-up:

Don't you think that chess pieces are easy to cut! I've tried it many times before and boy, there are surely many contours! 

Nonetheless, the reason why I was in a shock for so long is because this is the first time that someone voluntarily did something great for chess under the influence of CITL. I didn't even know about this entire project until Gal and I accidentally walked passed it. This was the day I that had been waiting for ever since I founded this program. It shows how enthusiastic NYCL, the second largest library in Toronto, is about chess now, to the point where they take the time and effort to put this together. This display case must also be in high demand and to consider it a possibility of dedicating it to chess makes me thrilled, let alone a reality. However, the significance of this display case far exceeds what can been seen on the surface. It is a representation of a true beginning towards the growing popularity of chess in Canada!