|
 |
Nanette Shaw
State-of-the-art technologies for people with hearing loss will be explored in a day-long conference at the City University of New York Graduate Center on Friday, May 11. The conference will take place from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at The Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, in Manhattan. Cost of attendance is $70. (For press reservations, call 1-212-817-7177.) Held in honor of Harry Levitt and Arthur Boothroyd, Distinguished Professors Emeriti in The Graduate Center's Ph.D. Program in Speech and Hearing Sciences, the conference will provide researchers and clinicians with up-to-date information about new devices and methods of providing auditory information to people with hearing loss. Presentations will encompass established and emerging technologies, including hearing aids, cochlear implants, large-area listening devices, visual access to communication, and access to telecommunication. Methods of determining benefit from hearing technology will also be discussed. Among specific innovations to be covered are: • The use of improved directional microphones and digital noise reduction in hearing aids to make it easier to communicate in noisy environments. • Advances in both the hardware and signal processing capability of new surgically-implanted cochlear implants. • Innovative visual technologies to help the hearing impaired, such as devices that use speech recognition technologies; videoconferencing; remote transcription and interpretation; and telecommunication services that provide a visual representation of speech. The conference is sponsored by The Graduate Center's Ph.D. Program in Speech and Hearing Sciences and Center for Research in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, along with The Lexington School for the Deaf/Center for the Deaf. Speakers will include Arthur Boothroyd, Harry Levitt, and Arlene Neuman (CUNY Graduate Center); Judy Harkins (Gallaudet University); Theresa Hnath-Chisolm (University of South Florida); Susan Waltzman (New York University Medical Center); and Matthew Bakke and Mark Ross (Lexington Center). The Graduate Center is the doctorate-granting institution of The City University of New York, the largest urban university in the U.S. The only consortium of its kind in the nation, The Graduate Center draws its faculty of more than 1,600 members mainly from the CUNY senior colleges and cultural and scientific institutions throughout New York City. Established in 1961, The Graduate Center has grown to an enrollment of about 3,300 students in 32 doctoral programs and seven master's degree programs in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. The Graduate Center also houses 30 research centers and institutes and administers the CUNY Baccalaureate Program. According to a recent National Research Council report, more than a third of The Graduate Center's rated programs rank among the nation's top 20 at public and private institutions, nearly a quarter are among the top ten when compared to publicly supported institutions alone, and more than half are among the top five programs at publicly supported institutions in the northeast. Further information on The Graduate Center's programs and activities can be found on its Web site at: www.gc.cuny.edu. The Seymour B. Durst Old York Library and Reading Room Seymour Durst began his collection in 1962 after visiting Paris, where he found a German edition of an elaborate photographic book about New York City in a bookstore window. Eventually, even the refrigerator in Durst’s townhouse was filled with books (he ate out). He had, in fact, moved twice to accommodate the ever-growing library. Durst assembled his library in a manner that would arouse both the envy and despair of the average librarian. It was organized by what he termed the "Durst Quintessimal System" and filled all but four of the 20 rooms in the house. Each room had a different theme and if a book fell into three different categories he would simply buy three copies, one for each related room. Some of the other rooms/categories include the Postcard & Guide Room, a kitchen closet reserved for NY Historical Society publications, the Art & Theatre Room, the Architecture Closet, the Commerce and Finance Room, the Biography Room, etc. The Reading Room at The Graduate Center reflects those categories of organization, and the furnishings include a rug, table, breakfront, and couches from Durst’s study, along with book cabinets built especially for the room. For research purposes, a database has been created that will be accessible online and will make it convenient to use the material. It may be accessed by going to the Old York Foundations website at www.oldyorklibrary.org. The thousands of items encompass such things as an invitation to the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, which is referred to as "the East River Bridge;" bound editions of Harper’s Weekly from 1850 to 1915; Durst’s own favorite book, E.B. White’s Here is New York; The Bowery on Seventy-Five Cents a Day; an autographed copy of Theodore Dreiser’s My City; and numbered editions of Al Hirschfeld’s 1932 Manhattan Oases (199/200), featuring drawings of city speakeasy bartenders, and the artist’s 1941 depictions of Harlem (445/1000). Among the more rare books, though not directly related to New York City, is an original edition of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense with Paine’s own edits hand-written between the lines. (See press release for more examples.) # # # |