Spring Booksale This Weekend!!

Join us for the Friends of the Santa Fe Public Library Spring Book Sale at the Main Library, 145 Washington Avenue on April 1st and 2nd at the Main Library.

Hours: Saturday April 1 from 10:00AM to 1 PM it will be for members only ($10.00 memberships available at the door). Saturday afternoon 1 PM-4 PM open to the general public and Sunday 1 PM-4 PM, open to the general public. Sunday is Bag Day. Be sure to come in and hunt for bargains.

Hundreds and hundreds of books—better books in the Southwest Room, individually priced, and inexpensive books in the upstairs Community Room. CDs, videos and DVDs are also for sale. All items have been donated to the Friends of the Library to sell to raise funds for new books for the Library. All proceeds from the book sales go to the Library’s book fund.

Plumbers Are Installing... Electricians Will Follow

The architects' March 27th report on 'New Work' at the Southside Library this week sounds kind of boring: "Curb and gutter is being formed at the east side of the parking area. Light pole bases are being poured. The pour for the curb and gutter is scheduled for tomorrow [that was Tuesday] at 7:00 a.m. Plumbers are installing the hot boxes. Electricians will follow. Concrete block has been delivered today, and work will start on the retaining wall for the Children’s Patio. Joists and decking is continuing to go up. Structural steel at the portals is being installed. Sprinkler sleeving will be installed in the drive areas in the next day or so. Proof rolling was... done in the parking area."

But the visuals are dynamite. For more photographs visit the Progress page.

Lannan Spring Schedule

In April and May, the Lannan Foundation's Readings and Conversations will be bringing a number of interesting authors to town for the end of this year's season. Even if you miss the programs--two of the April authors are already sold out--your neighbors may be reading some of these works, or you may hear the talk on the radio, or you could wait a little while and then listen to it via the web, as Lannan is now putting up podcasts of each program (the podcast of Antonia S. Byatt's March 15 program is available; we're not sure how soon after the event it went up on the web.)

In April, Mario Vargas Llosa will appear on April 5th; C. D. Wright will appear on April 19th; Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove on April 26th. In May the schedule will be T. C. Boyle (May 10), Stuart Dybek (May 17), Eduardo Galeano (May 31).

We have books by each of the authors. For Vargas Llosa and Galeano we have both English and Spanish editions. Links above take you into the catalog. Vargas Llosa's official web page, en Español.

Browser Report

Internet Explorer is still the browser of choice for the visitors to our web pages, but the proportion slowly decreases as more users adopt Firefox or start using the Safari browser for Macs. This month 77% of visitors are using Internet Explorer, 15.5% are using Firefox (or Mozilla/Netscape), and 6% are using Safari. A year ago the proportion of people using Internet Explorer was 82%.

One of our readers sent us a link to a screencast about how to create a library lookup bookmarklet which sits on your browser toolbar, and picks up an ISBN from a bookstore page (as long as the URL contains an ISBN number) and searches for it in a library's catalog with one click. (It would of course work for our catalog as well.) Bookmarklets are an interesting idea; I use several for other purposes, and the LibraryLookup one might be just right for you if you are not already streamlining your catalog searches with either our Firefox search plugins or Firefox's Quick Searches. But even if you are not interested in LibraryLookup per se, watching the little video is a trip: the mellow voice goes on and on, clearly explaining while events unfold on your screen. The cursor moves, the screen scrolls, things happen. All help manuals should be like this.

New Books About Climate Change

We have a number of new books about climate change. They make grim reading. The winds of change : climate, weather, and the destruction of civilizations by journalist Eugene Linden and The weather makers : how man is changing the climate and what it means for life on Earth by Australian mammalogist and paleontologist Tim Flannery are both readable. Both try to be as current as possible with research and events (both mention Hurricane Katrina, for example). The Flannery book has more in the way of references and other scholarly apparatus, and also has an action chart ('Check fuel efficiency next car = Up to 70% reduction in transport emissions').

Also there is Field notes from a catastrophe : man, nature, and climate change by Elizabeth Kolbert, based on her series of articles in the New Yorker; Thin ice : unlocking the secrets of climate in the world's highest mountains by Mark Bowen, a profile of climatologist Lonnie Thompson's studies of high mountain glaciers; and a section in the popular new book Why geography matters : three challenges facing America : climate change, the rise of China, and global terrorism by H. J. de Blij. These five titles are just some of the newest ones. If you are interested in pursuing the topic, you might try clicking a likely looking subject heading and then sorting with newest on top to see what you get.

There are a lot of news stories this week about melting ice, rising sea level, etc., mostly because of articles in in the March 24th Science Magazine; its cover story is "Climate Change: Breaking the Ice." The content doesn't appear to be available free online. Our copy of the print magazine should be along in a couple of days.

Cam Touring

If you want to see how the world looks right near us, you might try the Plaza cams in Santa Fe or Taos, or some of the other cams around northern New Mexico:

the train yard in Chama (or try this one);
Red River;
PNM's burrowing owl cam in north Albuquerque :-)
Taos Mountain;
a bunch of Weatherbug cameras around the state;
a bunch of Weathernet cameras around the state;
an Albuquerque rooftop camera pointing at the Sandia Mountains;
east of the Sandias, Paa-Ko Live cam;
a Canyon Road Cam at the corner of Paseo and Canyon; or
a number of Taos and Angel Fire cams, on one page.

Some cams are individual people's web cameras apparently stuck out of windows in their houses. Local author George Johnson's website, Santa Fe Review, has two cameras; at the moment one is pointed at Tom Ford's (future) house, and one at the Davis mansion under construction up above the Santa Fe Institute. The people at mellinger.com have two, Taos Mountain and a big view looking out over the valley. There must be others. Please tell us about any New Mexico web cameras you know about, especially the non-commercial and non-organizational ones that people have set up just to look out at the world.

About To Move to the Next Phase

The last piece of steel for the South Side Library, and a green tree to sit on top of it, will be raised on Monday afternoon, April 10.

Jupiter's New Red Spot, Red Jr.

We can't resist passing on the Space Weather News for March 23, 2006: "ZODIACAL LIGHTS: When the sun does down tonight and the glow of sunset fades away, another glow will take its place--the Zodiacal Lights. If you live in the northern hemisphere, this is the best time of year to see them. They stretch upward from the western horizon forming a pale luminous triangle visible from places with dark skies. Zodiacal Lights are faint but pretty, and worth a trip to the countryside to see.

"MEANWHILE ON JUPITER things are getting weird. Two anti-cyclones are bumping into Jupiter's new red spot, "Red Jr." Together, the trio strangely resemble Mickey Mouse. Visit http://spaceweather.com for more information and pictures of Jupiter and the Zodiacal Lights."

You too can receive these entertaining emails about the universe. There's a 'subscribe' link at the top of their page.

April News

The Friends of the Santa Fe Public Library will be having their Spring Book Sale on April 1st and 2nd at the Main Library. Saturday April 1 from 10:00AM to 1 PM it will be for members only (memberships available at the door). Saturday afternoon 1PM-4PM and Sunday 1PM-4PM, open to the general public.

(The next sale, the Summer Book Sale will take place June 10-11.)

The Friends of the Library has been offered a great fundraising opportunity from our two local Borders stores. April 8 & 9 are designated as our Borders Benefit Days. 10% of all purchases made with the Benefit Days coupon on those two days will come to the Friends and be directed to the South Side Library Fundraising Campaign. In addition, the coupon guarantees 10% savings on all purchases, so you save and contribute to the Friends at the same time. Don't forget your coupon! You will be able to pick up extra copies for your friends at all three libraries, or print it now.

The Library and the South Side Library Campaign are happy to report that the raising of the last pieces of steel, called the topping out, for Southside Library will happen Monday, April 10, at 3PM. Flags and the traditional green tree will be raised to the top of the building. Yaay. (Rides on the crane will not be offered.)

The La Farge Library will be celebrating "El Dia de los Ninos," Saturday, April 29th, 2:00--2:45PM. This is an annual nationwide celebration of
children and books. This year in honor of the occasion the Santa Fe Public Library will have the Wise Fool New Mexico theatre group present their program "A Look Inside". The program is a participatory journey through the magical world of puppetry. Details about this program (and other news) are available on the Library's news page.

Update on the Southside Library Collection

The Southside Branch Library collection is growing! We now have 6544 items showing in the catalog and “shelf ready” for the Grand Opening. A couple thousand of these items are gifts that were processed by library staff in-house. These are piled high in boxes in the Technical Services area. The rest of the items are our initial orders from vendors. These are sitting at the vendor warehouses, awaiting shipment until the building is ready for occupancy.

According to our March 6th report, we currently have 12,500 adult titles on order with Baker &Taylor. End of February, our children’s vendor BWI reported that there were approx. 5,000 children’s titles on order. B&T and BWI are our major vendors for the project under the state contract, but we will also be ordering materials from smaller and specialty vendors. Our librarians are busy selecting more titles for fiction and nonfiction, and new orders are sent to the vendors weekly. In addition, we just ordered over 400 new DVDs. We’ve included films from the American Film Institute’s Top 100 List, Academy Award winners, and the highest circulating video titles from our current collection. Library staff will be processing these over the summer.

You will be seeing the Southside copies, with the message "Unavailable" more frequently as you peruse our library catalog. All these bright, shiny, new materials will be available when our Southside Branch Library opens in Fall 2006!

Just Added to the Database

The Just Added to the Database list is freshly updated. Not so much new fiction was ordered (or added from donations) in the past couple of weeks, but there's lots of nonfiction, media materials, childrens' books, large print titles...

Some of the more seductive nonfiction titles include How the Indians lost their land : law and power on the frontier by Stuart Banner; Feet to the fire : the media after 9/11 : top journalists speak out, edited by Kristina Borjesson; a major book of Richard Avedon photographs, Woman in the Mirror : 1945-2004; a biography of Maimonides by Sherwin Nuland; and a book about mass media and language, Slam dunks and no-brainers : language in your life, the media, business, politics, and, like, whatever by Leslie Savan.

Garth Nix has a new fantasy novel, Sir Thursday, book four in his Keys to the Kingdom series. There's a new Santa Fe book, The essence of Santa Fe : from a way of life to a style by Jerilou Hammett , Kingsley Hammett, and Peter Scholz; audio versions of Greg Iles' Turning Angel and John Lescroart's The Hunt Club, and of David Halberstam's The education of a coach, also very new. What else? An IMAX DVD about Antarctica, the four Matrix titles on DVD, and, oh, a couple hundred more titles.

Take a look at the list. As always, you can place holds on the titles that aren't actually here yet.

Numbers, Numbers

We have updated the Library Facts and Statistics page. It is always just a snapshot, but this time particularly the numbers are not a longterm statement of reality. As we build the collection for Southside, and then open up such a large new branch, everything about our numbers will change a lot.

Some of our favorite numbers: we will have $1.3 million in new materials when the Southside Library opens; and, at the moment, 23% of all our items were donated. That's 64,616 separate useful things that are in circulation which came directly from our users. (Thanks.)

Looking Good

We don't have a construction report this week, but the Southside Library is looking good... Last week's construction notes mentioned not much new: structural steel, steel studs. Work on the parking lot.

This picture was taken on March 13. Construction photos are always available on the Progress page (but this most current set isn't there yet; check on Monday.)

Writers' Room

The Southwest Literary Center of Recursos de Santa Fe will be having an Open House and Grand Opening in their new Writers' Room on Saturday from 1 PM to 5 PM. The Writers' Room is located upstairs at 826 Camino de Monte Rey (between St. Francis and Pacheco). Their web page says, "Join us for nibbles and visit the new Writers Room. A library, a classroom, a room for readings or just a quiet place to work on your novel. Wireless access available. Caffeine coming soon."

There's a nice story in the Albuquerque Journal about the project, but it is unfortunately not available online except from inside the library. Those who are familiar with the famous 24x7 Writers' Room in New York City need to know that at present the Recursos space is only available by appointment. Or go visit on Saturday and talk to them about it...

Santa Fe Librarians, Santa Fe Book

Librarians are normal people. Being published makes them happy :-)

At the end of the month, two Santa Fe librarians will have a new book out: Breakfast Santa Fe Style: A Dining Guide to Fancy, Funky, and Family Friendly Restaurants.

Kathy Barco is the Youth Services Coordinator at the New Mexico State Library; Valerie Nye is an assistant professor and Serials Librarian at the College of Santa Fe. One grew up in Los Alamos, the other is a native New Mexican. Both came back to New Mexico after years away because they pined for, well, everything about the place—definitely including the food. Just think of the fun they had doing the research for this book.

It's not in our catalog yet, but will be soon.

Internet Access on Saturday the 18th (Not)

Please be sure to call and check before coming into the library for internet access on Saturday, March 18th.

There will be major electrical work going on at City Hall on Saturday. Our internet connection goes out through the City's computer room, so there will probably be no internet service for the whole day. If there is a change in the timetable we will let you know.

3.141592653589793238462643...

Π
The date being 3.14, it's National Pi Day. Math departments and math clubs around the country are having recitation contests, pie-eating contests, curious musical performances... And this year you could celebrate it as the "300th Anniversary of Pi. The sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, p, was first used for the familiar value 3.1415… in the publication, Synopsis Palmariorium Mathesios, authored by William Jones in 1706."

The first thousand digits (thank you, Wikipedia):
3.
1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510
5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679
8214808651 3282306647 0938446095 5058223172 5359408128
4811174502 8410270193 8521105559 6446229489 5493038196
4428810975 6659334461 2847564823 3786783165 7245870066
0631558817 4881520920 9628292540 9171536436 7892590360
0113305305 4882046652 1384146951 9415116094 3305727036
5759591953 0921861173 8193261179 3105118548 0744623799
6274956735 1885752724 8912279381 8301194912 9833673362
4406566430 8602139494 6395224737 1907021798 6094370277
0539217176 2931767523 8467481846 7669405132 0005681271
4526356082 7785771342 7577896091 7363717872 1468440901
2249534301 4654958537 1050792279 6892589235 4201995611
2129021960 8640344181 5981362977 4771309960 5187072113
4999999837 2978049951 0597317328 1609631859 5024459455
3469083026 4252230825 3344685035 2619311881 7101000313
7838752886 5875332083 8142061717 7669147303 5982534904
2875546873 1159562863 8823537875 9375195778 1857780532
1712268066 1300192787 6611195909 2164201989

Didn't It Snow? (Yes, It Did.)

Snow/water equavalent readout on top of the mountain (1)(2) moved up to (only) 9% of average this morning, and our longterm prospect for water supply this year is not much changed. But the trees in our neighborhoods are a lot happier at the moment.

Yesterday morning we got 3-to-5 inches here in town, says the newspaper. Melting fast.

Kiddie Lit

La Farge reports: "Story Time is going great. The group is still growing and the parents and children are very enthusiastic... Here is the list of books we read on March 7, 2006: Way up high in a tall green tree, by Jan Peck. The wild little horse, by Rita Gray. Bonny's big day, by James Herriot. Runaway pony, by Krista Ruepp. For our craft we did a put-together horse with a multi-colored yarn mane and tail. The children colored them beautifully."

Story Time meets on Tuesdays. There are two parallel sessions: Story Time for 2 & 3-year olds from 10:30 to 11 AM; Story Time for 4-5-6-year-olds from 10:30 to 11:15 AM. To register or for more information, call the La Farge Children's Room at 955-4863.

Speaking of Reviews

Often, especially for newer titles, the catalog has LOTS more information available about a title: summaries, tables of contents, information about characters and settings for fiction ('title profile'), first chapters, brief reviews. Click on the 'More About This Title' button, or on the cover image—you may find a table of contents that helps you conclude that, yes, now that the rush is over on Jared Diamond's Collapse you want to get hold of it; or a first chapter excerpt from Michelle Martinez' new title, The Finishing School, that makes clear that really you aren't interested; or a review of The inheritance of loss that makes you rush to put a hold on it. There are even large cover images.

The other day we had a patron who wanted a list of the Plainsmen series by Terry Johnston. The series lists are a little buried, but pure gold to people who like to read in order. Find a book in the series; hit the cover image or the "More" button; chose the "Title Profile;" at the bottom of the Profile click "Series" and voila! sixteen Johnston titles listed in order.

Important note: If you don't see anything when you click on the cover image or the button, take a look at the settings in your popup blocker. You want to tell it to allow windows opened by syndetics.com .

It's Just... Spring

The end of a dry winter in a dry place. There's a dusting of snow on the mountain, the first for weeks; the apricot trees are in bloom against the sunny east wall of City Hall.

That snow hasn't helped us much. This morning's snotel readout (1)(2)(3) has the snowpack in our mountains at 4% of average.

People Also Want To Read...

We've updated the list of the titles with the most holds on them, Books You're Willing To Wait In Line For (what we call among ourselves 'the manyholds list'.) There are no surprises at the top of the list, lots of people waiting for

• Nothing but trouble / Michael McGarrity
• The year of magical thinking / Joan Didion
• The 5th horseman / James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
• The Old Wine Shades / Martha Grimes
• Sea change / Robert B. Parker
• Death dance / Linda Fairstein
• Saving fish from drowning / Amy Tan

But on beyond the bottom of what we show on the web page—past The glass castle : a memoir, by Jeannette Walls ; Postwar : a history of Europe since 1945, by Tony Judt—we have a very long list of titles that at least a handful of people are waiting for. Videos such as March of the Penguins and Islam, Empire of Faith (which we have in both VHS and DVD). Titles back in demand or forever in demand: In Cold Blood and The Da Vinci Code, presumably because of movies; the sound recordings of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander and Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. There's yet another new Alexander McCall Smith with the usual charming title, Blue Shoes and Happiness; Sylvia Browne's newest book, If you could see what I see; audio versions of Claudia Funke's Inkheart & Manuel Ruiz' The Four Agreements; intriguing, well-reviewed fiction titles like Kiran Desai's The inheritance of loss; new non-fiction like Dogs of God : Columbus, the Inquisition, and the defeat of the Moors by James Reston, Jr.

There's no particular reason to single out some rather than others. It's just that it's endlessly interesting for us, what people want to read...

Tax Oops

You probably don't want to hear this, but if you missed the various news stories, you do need to know. According to a story in the Santa Fe New Mexican on February 24th, the IRS expects us to pay income tax on the state energy rebate that we received last fall. If you've already filed your Federal income tax, you are expected to amend your return with a 1040X form (available from the IRS website). The New Mexico Taxation and Revenue site confirms this, and includes the information that you may enter the rebate amount as 'Other income' on line 21 on Form 1040; as 'unemployment compensation' on line 3 of Form 1040EZ; or as 'unemployment compensation' on line 13 on Form 1040A. Stories the following day said the IRS ruling might be challenged.

The March 4 Albuquerque Journal had a couple more stories (sorry, they're not available for free online), including another story which said accountants are still in doubt whether the IRS is correct to rule that the rebates are taxable.

If you don't remember how much your rebate check was, you're certainly not alone... Perhaps you can use the rebate schedule on the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department website to figure it out.

What's New?

...or in some cases, what's so new it's not here yet? The various What's New lists have been updated. You can place holds on anything you see, whether it's already arrived or just been ordered.

Media materials, Southwest titles, etc. Take a look at the lists.

Andé — A Program Worth Planning Ahead For

The Andé Marimba Band will be playing at La Farge Library at 2 PM on Saturday, March 18th, 2006. Andé is a seven member young adult co-ed band that plays all over Northern New Mexico. They currently play on six marimbas of varioius sizes, hosho (shakers) and a drum set. Most of the songs Andé Marimba Band play are traditonal songs from the Shona people of Zimbabwe. Some of the songs Andé plays are composed for marimba in the traditional style by modern Shona and American composers.

It's not possible to be within earshot of Andé without starting to dance around to the music. They're terrific.

More Building Day By Day

Nothing especially new to report on the site of the Southside Library. They just keep adding more result to what they're already doing: structural steel going up; pouring concrete retaining walls.

The most recent construction progress photos are always available on the progress page.

'What We've Got In Common' : Playing With Librarything

Librarian bloggers were buzzing last week about the newest feature on LibraryThing.com. LibraryThing is a website where people can list and track their personal books online, creating a catalog of their own library; and as of early last week the users were also able to begin cleaning up the collective database by lumping editions together which are really the same book.

LibraryThing is an enormous lot of fun to play with. Not only is there finally an entirely workable web-based tool for cataloging your personal library--a tool changing and improving right before our eyes with the work of programmer Tim Spalding, and an already large community of users-- but it comes with the pleasures of social networking, if you care to play. It will show you how many librarything users also have your book, how many others of your books you share with each of those people, what other books they have, what 'tags' (subject headings or sorting terms) they used, what reviews they have posted... you can communicate with each other.

You may enter up to 200 books for free. To explore a little, go to the zeitgeist page. You may get addicted to looking at people's tag clouds and author clouds. The most-owned books among the 26,472 users are the Harry Potters, The Hobbit, The Da Vinci Code, and Pride and Prejudice. ??Pride and Prejudice?? Read some of the kudos on the buzz page.

The phrase above, "what we've got in common," comes from one of the conversations on the librarything blog.