It’s August Already?

How can another month have come and gone? I am still keeping a light schedule for August, but you can look forward to September when we will provide a more extensive range of classes.

The Basic Skills class will be Tuesday, August 7 and the More Basic Skills class will be Tuesday, August 14, both from 10:00 am to 12:00 noon. On Thursday, August 23, I will be having the Internet 1 class from 10:00 to 11:30 am. Finally, last but not least, the last of our Summer Tech classes, Photos on the Web, will be held Wednesday night, August 29 from 6:30-8:00 pm.

I’m really looking forward to this last class, Photos on the Web, because it gives me an opportunity to share some great ways of saving and sharing all those photos that are sitting on your computer. We will be looking at a number of different websites that provide not only storage space, but give you all sorts of ideas and ways to manipulate, share and print your photos. So come on down and check it out! Remember, space is limited, so try to show up around 15 minutes before class time.

I’ve enjoyed teaching this series and plan to do something similar again soon. It’s always fun to look at what’s new out in Cyber World and I love sharing what I find with you! I am always coming across cool ideas, websites, products, etc. that I think you would find useful and have often been frustrated that I have no way to share them with you. I have found a solution!! I have started another blog “The Tech Librarian” for just that purpose! So please come on by and visit me there!

Janice

Anne Sheehy Moritz presents “Magical Herbs”

If you missed our Whimsical Wednesday program on July 11: “Magical Herbs”, you missed out on a fun, yet informative evening where participants got to sample foods prepared with fresh herbs, created rosemary sachets and filled bottles of essential oils flavored with spearmint or lavender to take home. Anne Sheehy Moritz, a local master gardener, talked about how easy it is to grow herbs that are free of pesticides in your own garden.

The bruschetta was delicious and as Anne claimed, once you’ve tasted cream cheese with fresh chopped chives, you’ll never want to eat the prepared stuff again! As she talked, the meeting room quickly filled with the scent of rose oil. A few drops of the oil on a simple tea light was all it took to transform the room into a heavenly oasis!

The Whimsical Wednesday programs were scheduled as part of the Adult Summer Reading Program at the West Palm Beach Public Library. If you missed out on the other Whimsical Wednesday programs, our last program will be on July 25 when Bryan Shawn will present a hypnotism show in which some of the participants will actually be hypnotized! The show will begin at 6:30 pm in the West Palm Beach Public Library meeting room on the first floor. Hope to see you there!

Tammie McKenna Tubbs, Events Coordinator

NPR Morning Edition

Interestingly, this morning on NPR’s Morning Edition there was a story entitled ‘Potter’ Readers Can Explore Other Collections .  After reading the article I wrote about yesterday, it was interesting to hear another view of the influence of Harry Potter on our culture. The story began with these words: “What will youngsters read when Harry Potter is over? The popularity of the boy wizard suggests parents might suggest other series: Shelves in book stores are loaded with them.”  The link above will take you to NPR so that you too can listen to Lynn Neary’s comments.

 Janice Collins

Harry Potter and the Death of Reading

My daughter, who is currently in a graduate program in Library Science at FSU, just sent me this article “Harry Potter and the Death of Reading” by Ron Charles which she saw in the Washington Post. It is certainly an interesting article and gave this librarian much to think about. Let me first say that I am not a super Harry Potter fan, though I have enjoyed the movies. But it is not what he is saying about Harry Potter as much as what he is saying about people in general that I take objection to. He does cite a number of sources which support his various theories and of course I can’t argue with them, but…

I have been a reference librarian for the last four years and I am amazed at the diversity of material that is checked out here at our library. Yes, of course, all the best sellers but in the last few weeks, we have placed requests for patrons that run the gamut of both nonfiction and fiction. Patrons come in looking for books that they have heard about in a number of places: The Palm Beach Post, NPR, Oprah, New York Times Book Review, Parade Magazine, and many others. Recent nonfiction requests have included such titles as How to Master the Art of Selling by Tom Hopkins; Marching Powder: A True Story of Friendship, Cocaine, and South America’s Strangest Jail by Rusty Young; and The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty by Julia Flynn. These books will soon be a part of our collection. Fiction favorites include A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. Truly we have a great number of readers  in West Palm who enjoy quite a variety of books.

And yes, we do have a whole list of people waiting for that next Harry Potter book: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. We have ordered a large number in preparation for July 21 when it comes out!

So, read Mr. Charles’ article and let us know what you think and if you want to see for yourself what else is new at your library, check it out here!

Janice Collins

Impromptu Graduation at the Library

Yesterday, we had a record attendance at our weekly Beginning Spanish Conversation Group – 12 people came.  For 1 conversation, and 1 instructor, 12 is a bit much.  So our clever instructor Oscar took the stategy of divide and conquer.  He recruited his friend Omar, a guy from Honduras who enjoys coming to the library to improve his English, to work with the more beginner participants, while Oscar worked with the more advanced ones. 

But something else still needed to be done to keep the group to a feasible size in the weeks to come.  So Oscar consulted with Lino, who’s in charge of the Intermediate Spanish Conversation Group, and they talked numbers and levels and decided it was graduation time.  They encouraged the most advanced student from Oscar’s group to try out Lino’s group next week and see how she feels.  She comes to practice every week faithfully, and she’s hoping to put her Spanish to good use at the new job she’s taken in Miami.  So she was willing to graduate to the Intermediate group and accept the challenge.  Let’s hope it works out well for her. 

Meanwhile, she has enjoyed the Beginning group so much that she plans to start bringing her husband to it….which brings us back to the numbers problem, doesn’t it?  Oh well, I’m sure we’ll just keep working it out! 

By the way, if anyone’s interested in either of these Spanish conversation groups, they both meet on Mondays from 6:30 – 8pm.  No need to register or attend every week.   

Here’s Oscar in action, by the map.  Omar’s in the blue shirt.

Here’s Lino with one of the intermediate students.

Tara Moreno ~ Hispanic Outreach Librarian

Hipsters at the library?!

Stereotypes are everywhere! When I’m out and about, many people ask me what I do and  I always get shocked looks when I proudly reply, “I’m a librarian.” Many people laugh while questioning the truthfulness of my statement. At this point, I try to explain to them what a wonderful place WPBPL is! My friends gawk at me when I say they can check out video games at the library. Many can not believe the library serves wine after hours every second Friday. Hip librarians equal hip library programs!

Even the New York Times has figured out how hip librarians are. Check out what my uber-cool, Young Adult/Teen Librarian friend Julie emailed from the New York Times, in the Style Section, too!

Rock on~Miss Jenn

Waiting Longer for Harry Potter

I know a lot of people that are eagerly awaiting that 7th Harry Potter book, but I know some people that are going to have to wait much more than 19 days. The original English version comes out July 21, and then it’ll start getting translated into who knows how many languages for people around the world.

On the Hispanic-interest listservs that I subscribe to, book lovers are anticipating the Spanish version for late 2007 or early 2008. I guess it takes that long to do a quality translation of a 700-page novel – the title alone takes a lot of thought. It might be called “Harry Potter y la Mortal Santifica,” but I’ve also seen 2 other possible titles for it. Anyway, the hype and the news about the English version must be whetting people’s appetites across the Spanish-speaking world already. So, if you’re a Harry Potter fan, be glad you can read English and don’t have to wait too much longer!

Reserve your copy from the library here.

Check out our summer reading program Magic Happens @ Your Library.

Check out our Harry Potter summer reading program for kids.

Tara Moreno ~Hispanic Outreach Librarian