Livermore has a beautiful new state of the art Civic Center Library.
Unfortunately, it has made the national news for misspelled names on the mural near the entrance.
The mural is a beautiful circular art display, featuring a variety of images, and names of authors, artists, philosophers, scientists, and more.  It incorporates world and local history, events, and places.

Mural Words, Names, and Descriptions
The Famous Misspellings
Book Misspellings

Library Interior

The entrance to the Livermore Library.  The Mural is surrounded by benches with granite books.

The Mural, February 23, 2008

Words and Descriptions

Note that the following is unofficial.  The words were taken from photographs that I took of the mural.  Descriptions are from research on the internet, and encyclopedias.  Most of the information came from Microsoft Encarta 2004, and  www.Wikipedia.org.  In some cases I may have misinterpreted what was meant.  In a few cases I could not determine what was meant.  I did not put in descriptions of some of the more generic terms.

The artist's description of the mural can be found here.

The Misspellings

The Livermore Library Mural has received a lot of press about the misspellings.  There are generally considered to be 11 misspellings in the original mural, although not everyone seems to agree on which names make up the 11!  There are 13 total in question.

Below is a list of the misspellings, or alleged misspellings, and their approximate locations on the Mural, as well as the current status.

* Position:  12:00 is closest to the library entrance doors.  6:00 is closest to Livermore Ave.

Update on the misspellings:

The Livermore City Council voted 3-2 to pay the artist $6,000 plus travel expenses to correct the misspellings (the original fee was $40,000).  The changes were made from August 7 through 10, 2005.

8 misspellings were corrected.  The artist had brought three additional tiles to replace as requested by the city.  These were for Schumann, Theseus, & Böcklin. As the work progressed, there was a danger that the physical integrity of the mural would be compromised, as the work required sawing and drilling.  It was decided that the final three names would be retouched rather than replaced.  This will be done at a later date.  The three replacement tiles are to be displayed at the library in the future along with a description of the mural (My own description appears above).

As far as the other two names:

"Katcinas" is officially considered to be an alternate spelling.  "Kachinas" is by far the most common spelling, with "Katsina" being listed as an alternate (but not "Katcinas").  One source lists the "Kat'cina Mosa" as the Hopi spelling for the Cat Kachina.  I.E., a very specific one.  So if it is referring to the specific Cat Kachina, it is spelled correctly from my research.

Dante Aleghieri is also officially considered to be an alternate spelling.  My research does not agree with this conclusion (but I've been known to be wrong before - just ask my wife).  It should be "Alighieri".  The listed spelling can be found in searches, but appear to be typos, as even where this spelling is found, most of the same article spells it Alighieri.

Photos of some of the more well known names (prior to being fixed):

Book Misspellings

It has been pointed out to me that there are few misspellings on the granite books which surround the murals also.

The author of Lonesome Dove is Larry McMurtry, not McMurty (last "r" missing).
This one is on the outside, opposite the library (the library doors can be seen through the gap)

It is the Scarlet Pimpernel, not "Pimpernal"
This is on the inside, left side (about 9:00 of 12:00 is toward the library)