Image from the Boston Athenæum September 2018 Newsletter ©2018 Boston Athenæum

The Boston Athenæum started Members’ Choice in January 2018, to create opportunities for members to share their own work or to bring speakers of their choosing to the BA. Members’ Choice provides small-group programming to supplement the events organized by Athenæum events staff.

The Members’ Choice format allows for more interaction and discussion between speaker(s) and audience than events for larger crowds.

Nancy Upper’s Members’ Choice presentation, UNDERSTAND THE AMPERSAND, showed how the ampersand rose to worldwide popularity, why the ampersand fascinates us, and what keeps the ampersand thriving.

Upper opened with a poetic view of ampersand ubiquity. The slides that followed led viewers through ampersand history, psychology, qualities, triads, and the ampersand’s digital explosion.

Upper closed with calls to action:

• DRAW one or more unique ampersands. EMAIL your work to nancyupper@comcast.net. Your &(s) could appear, with full credit to you, in Upper’s books or on her website nancyupper.com.
• PHOTOGRAPH ampersands. POST your ampersand photos on Upper’s Instagram page @uppersandmedia.