Santa Fe River Festival

Brontë Sisters Power Dolls

If you're reader of the Brontës, think Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights, please check out this video.

If you're not a fan, check it out anyway to see what all the fuss is about!




If the video doesn't show, click here.

Teen Programs Update

The Teen Anime Club at Main Library will continue throughout the summer. The club meets on the 1st & 2nd Thursday of each month, from 4:15-5:15 pm. Each month features a different anime film, and no registration is required. Call 955-6783 for more information.

The Teen Programs at the Southside Library will be on hiatus over the summer starting in June. This includes the Teen Advisory Board, Teen Book Club, and Teen Anime Club. We are working on when these programs will resume, and will keep you posted.

Have a fun and happy Summer!

Heating Up

Well, folks, it seems as if summer, or at least a nice warm spring, is finally here in Santa Fe. The trees are green, blooms are out, and cottonwood fluff is divebombing my black work slacks. Even with some hefty winds, it's warm out during the day, and the sidewalks are full of shorts-clad visitors.

To celebrate the beginning of summer, I'd like to introduce you to a new blog: Hot Guys Reading Books. The title is pretty self-explanatory, and so far all the photos seem safe for work. The neat thing is that as much as possible we get to find out what these hot guys are reading! So think of it as a way to get interesting reading recommendations regardless of subjective notions of physical attractiveness.

I'd also like to encourage you to submit photos of local guys reading. Imagine what it could do for our fair city if it's known for handsome literate men unafraid to read in public! At the very least, it might shorten next winter by a week or so.

You can submit directly to the blog site, or send an email submission to hotguysreadingbooks@gmail.com.

And now, for some ice cream...


Photo of Ewan McGregor courtesy of The American Library Association, and not an actual photo of a Santa Fe Hot Guy reading a book. If you do get your submission to Hot Guys Reading Books posted, please let us know!

Phone Book Recycling!

While some of you mark Spring with the first crocus shoot, first hummingbird sighting, or final frost, many many more of you celebrate Spring with dozens of phone calls about recycling your phone books. Starting June 1st until the end of July, you can get rid of those pesky outdated tomes at the following locations:

• Tony Anaya State building at 2550 Cerrillos Rd.
• Siler Rd. Offices at 1142 Siler Rd.
• Fort Marcy Complex at 490 Washington Ave.
• Joseph Montoya Building at 1100 South St Francis Drive.
• Southside Library at 6599 Jaguar Dr.
• La Farge Library at 1730 Llano St.

Please drop off at the libraries in the specially-provided recycling dumpsters. Do not take your phone books into the library or put them in the book drops.

Phone Books may also be taken to Buckman Road Recycling and Transfer Station (BuRRT) anytime between 8-5, 7 days a week.

Check here for even more recycling information, and stay tuned for news about the City of Santa Fe's next E-Waste Recycling Day on August 21!

Memorial Day Library Closures

All branches of the Santa Fe Public Library will be closed on Monday, May 31 for Memorial Day.

All libraries will be open regular hours, 10 am - 6 pm, on Saturday, May 29.

Main Library will be open regular hours, 1-5 pm, on Sunday, May 30.

“Who’s Caring for our Babies?”

Town Hall Meeting
Join us to discuss childcare and education for infants & toddlers in Santa Fe.

Tuesday, May 25
6:00 - 7:30 pm
Southside Library
6599 Jaguar Dr. at Country Club Rd.

Without high quality childcare and education in the first three years of life, children start preschool and kindergarten already behind — and often remain that way for the rest of their lives.

The program is geared for parents, caregivers, early childhood teachers and advocates, policy makers, and members of the business community. The meeting is free and open to the public.

The meeting will include a program for young children. Refreshments and childcare will be provided. A Spanish translator will be available.

The program is sponsored by the Santa Fe Community College’s Early Childhood Technical Assistance and Training Program and the Santa Fe County Maternal and Child Health Planning Council.

Elizabeth Gilbert on "showing up"

When thinking about librarians, as I know most of you do most of the time, the first word that comes to mind is probably not "creativity". However, despite our degrees in Library Science, library work is also an art that draws deeply on inspiration, intuition, and insight. The story times and crafts that the children's librarians put together are the most obvious example, but creativity in libraries is evident in other places as well. The thematic displays of books and movies take much creative tweaking. The physical placement of books and other items also presents creative challenges: where do we put the mysteries so that finding them won't be one? Do you need to fold space-time to find the science fiction collection? How can we best design our online catalog and website so you can find all the great resources we provide access to? With space constraints, budget constraints, and staff constraints, many day-to-day issues in the library are solved not merely by the rulebooks of our profession, but by our creativity.

Although I'm not in a profession that's counted in the creative class, it was a watershed moment when I saw the TED lecture by writer Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame. While the creative torture she describes is not as pronounced in librarians as in, say, Southern novelists and dramatists, we wrestle with our own creative conundrums just the same. And to let you in on a little secret, scratch the traditional veneer of a librarian, and you're more than likely to find a poet, a painter, a dancer, or an actor underneath. So no matter our day jobs, we can all be artists; according to Elizabeth Gilbert, we all have genius. Turn off your phone for the next twenty minutes, and enjoy.




Click here if the video doesn't show. It's worth it!

Mapping the Disaster

It may be difficult to envision the magnitude of the Gulf Coast Oil Spill. While we can watch the news or hear about it from Gulf-dwelling friends, it's still not an easy thing to get a handle on. Google has created a tool using Google Earth that will allow you to compare the area of the oil spill with the size of your town or city. If you don't currently have Google Earth on your computer, the site makes it easy for you to click and install the plug-in. You can then compare it to cities like Manhattan or Paris, or type in the name of your town.

Another group, The Louisiana Bucket Brigade, has created a site of first-hand accounts of the spill, all linked to a map so you can get an idea of the size of the affected area. There are also several other interactive maps out there, one by the New York Times to track the oil spill. You can set that map back to April 22nd and see an animation of the spread throughout the Gulf.

These resources were all featured on the blog Free Technology for Teachers. Thankfully, those of us not in school can still benefit from this information. If you'd like to find out how to help, Take Part has a useful directory of organizations that need volunteers, donations, and other forms of assistance.

Children's Crafts

Make a Splash! Read!

Summer Craft Programs

Free programs for children ages 6 to 12 with the Summer Reading Program.
All materials are provided.
Registration required.

Coral Reef Craft
Make it Swim with Life!

Tuesday, June 15

Main: 3:00 - 4:00 pm
Southside: 3:00 - 4:00 pm

Wednesday, June 16
La Farge: 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Rainbow Wind Chimes
Make Beautiful Music!

Tuesday, June 22
Main: 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Southside: 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Wednesday, June 23
La Farge: 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Sea Serpent
Create Your Own
Sea Creature!

Tuesday, July 6
Main: 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Southside: 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Thursday, July 8
La Farge: 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Fish Windsock
Catch the Fish Tail!

Tuesday, July 20
Main: 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Southside: 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Wednesday, July 21
La Farge: 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm

For more information and to register, call:
La Farge Children's: 955-4863
Southside Children's: 955-2828
or Main Children's: 955-6783

Sponsored by the Friends of the Santa Fe Public Library.

Educators at Heart

Many of you are already acquainted with Kiva, a microlending program that helps out entrepreneurs in developing countries. I've recently come across a similar site that provides small loans to students pursuing higher education. Called Vittana, the principle and process are pretty much the same. You pick a student, lend an amount of money starting at $25, and you can track the student's progress. Once they've received their degree and are earning a paycheck, you get the loan back.

Since education seems to be one of the first casualties of any sort of budget struggle, here's a way to help reverse that trend. However, I did a search for students looking to pursue Education as a field, and not one turned up. Accounting, however, seems enormously popular. Perhaps as word spreads, more students will make use of this microlending service.

Summertime Story Time

The Santa Fe Public Library announces its Summertime Story Time! All kids ages 2-5 are welcome to attend this free program. They can enjoy stories, songs, finger games, puppets, and crafts.

Don't forget, the Summer Reading Program — Make a Splash! Read! — kicks off on Tuesday, June 1st. Kids from birth to age 12 can register at their local library for reading logs and prizes. Check out our schedule of events, and stay tuned for our fun Summer Crafts!

PreSchool Story Time Schedule

La Farge
Tuesdays
June 8th – July 27th
2 & 3 years: 10:30 am – 11:15 am
4 & 5 years: 10:30 am – 11:15 am


Southside
Wednesdays
June 9th – July 28th
2 years: 10:30 am – 11:15 am
3 to 5 years: 10:30 am – 11:15 am


Main
Fridays
June 11th – July 30th
2 – 5 years: 11:00 am – 11:45 am

Open enrollment.

For more information, call:
La Farge Children's: 955-4863
Southside Children's: 955-2828
or Main Children's: 955-6783

Sponsored by the Friends of the Santa Fe Public Library.

We Are Verbed

Because nothing would ever get done around here without verbs...



Click here if the video doesn't show.

Bike to Work Week

May 17-21

Events include:


Saturday, May 15

Eldorado
4pm
Join the folks from SpinDoc for a ride around the Eldorado community. The ride will begin at SpinDoc in the La Tienda Shopping Center and be customized based on attendance and level of riders. Riders, led by SpinDoc instructors, will cruise around the Eldorado community on mostly paved trails (some gravel surface) finishing at the Lamy Station Café with food and drink specials. Call SpinDoc, 466-4181, or visit www.spindoc.com for more info.

Tuesday, May 18

4-6 pm & 6-8 pm
Bicycle Maintenance 101 (English)
Presented by the Chainbreaker Collective at 1515 5th St

5:30 pm & 6:30 pm
Fix a Flat
Presented by REI in the courtyard at 500-a Market Street

Wednesday, May 19

6-7 pm
Flat Tire Clinic
Presented by The Broken Spoke at 1403 Second St.

6-7 pm
Women Only In Depth Fix a Flat
Presented by the Pedal Queens at Chainbreaker Collective 1515 5th St.

5-7 pm
Commuter Bike Display and Demo
Presented by REI in the courtyard at 500-a Market St.


Thursday, May 20

6 pm
Flat Tire Clinic
Presented by The Broken Spoke at 1403 Second St.

6:30 pm
What Tools to Have and How to Use Them
Presented by Rob and Charlie's at 1632 St Michaels Dr.

7 pm
Concourse de Elegance (Bicycle Beauty Pageant)
Presented by Mellow Velo at The Santa Fe Farmer's Market

4-6 pm & 6-8 pm
Bicycle Maintenance 101 (Spanish)
Presented by the Chainbreaker Collective at 1515 5th St.

5 pm & 6 pm
Fix a Flat
Presented by REI in the courtyard at 500-a Market St.


Friday, May 21

BIKE TO WORK COMMUNITY CELEBRATION
at the Santa Fe Railyard Plaza

7 am – 10 am

FREE food, coffee, t-shirts to the first 350 people to sign a pledge to ride often, prizes and giveaways - take a swing at the piñata - FREE Bikeways maps - bicycle check-ups by experts - Youth helmet fitting by Christus St. Vincent Hospital volunteers - Santa Fe Trails bus/bike rack demo - music provided by Jakatu Marimba! Join a convoy to the Railyard from your neighborhood, route details and maps will be available online.


Saturday, May 22

10 am
Community/Family Ride hosted by Second Street Brewery, 1814 Second Street.

The ride, which will make a big loop, starts and ends at the restaurant and includes the Rail Trail and Arroyo de los Chamisos trails. It will last around an hour. Afterward, participants are invited to the brewery for the crawfish boil, which participants can enjoy at a discount.

For more information please contact Rachel Wexler, City of Santa Fe (505) 955-4010 or by email at rfwexler@santafenm.gov.

*Workshop participants get free GCCC passes.

Check out the City of Santa Fe website for updates and more information.

Dusty Roadrunner

for Earth Day Preschool Story Time

We love our library! Here at the Southside Library, Dusty Roadrunner, the mascot for Keep New Mexico Beautiful, Inc., a non-profit that promotes civic pride and beautification, visited again this year for our Earth Day theme for Preschool Story Time. We sang Earth Day rhymes, like “We’re not litterbugs.” Big story books were read on gardening, picking up trash, and stories about honoring our earth. These are big subjects for 2-5 year olds. But we make it fun, especially when we have guests like Dusty to support our teaching about love of books and reading and learning about everything under the stars. The children planted their own sweet pea seeds to take home for planting, and get their picture taken with Dusty. The mascot loves libraries, feels comfortable in them, as he does everywhere he goes.

Post and photo by TT @ SS

Geodesic Genius

R. Buckminster Fuller, 1895-1983, was a well-known philosopher, designer, inventor and more. Among laypeople, he's best known for his invention of the geodesic dome. While people who knew him refer to him as "Bucky", there's no denying that his works can be intimidating. So if you'd like an introduction to his life and work, but aren't quite ready for one of his tomes, the following video is a perfect place to start.

CommUNITY Days / El Dia de la Gente

17th Annual!
Saturday, May 15
Santa Fe Plaza
10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Local non-profit organization booths will be on the Plaza from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Entertainment will start at 10:00 a.m. and end at 10:00 p.m.

Entertainment includes:

Blue Heaven Jazz
Balle Español
Groupo Herencia
Chicano Groove
The Albert Martinez Band
Illusent
Sorela
Sol Fire
Lumbre del Sol

All parking in City owned lots will be free. Handicap and zoned parking will be enforced.

For more information, call Laneia Gonzales at (505) 955-6933.

Make a Splash! Read!

The 2010 Summer Reading Program is ready to go! Starting on Tuesday, June 1, children from birth to aged 12 can register at all three branches.

Check out the Make a Splash! Read! page for more information about programs and prizes.

A Lovely Volunteer Tea

Over 25 volunteers were fêted at this year's Volunteer Tea. The staff turned out in large numbers to thank the people who do so much for the library year-round. Several staff people in particular really added to the occasion. One has a flair for decoration, and live piano music even led to a sing along!

Lots of great food and tea was to be had, and the consensus?

"It was a blast!"



A big thanks to all the Library and Friends volunteers. Volunteers gave a total of 10,208 hours throughout the libraries in the last fiscal year. We couldn't open our doors without you.

If you'd like more information about becoming a volunteer, check our FAQ page.

Photos by RA @Main

Who knew we were so intriguing?

Recently I've been fielding questions from both patrons and friends alike about some of the nuts & bolts involved in Library Land. While I'm always happy to talk about libraries and librarians until the wee hours, I thought it would be helpful to post some of these answers for those of you who don't want your ear talked off. So consider this a crash course in Everything you ever wanted to know about libraries but were afraid to ask.

Q: Are you volunteers?
A: About 99% of the people you see behind the desks at the library are employees. Reference Librarians usually have not only a college degree, but also a Masters of Library Science degree. Other Library staff come from a variety of backgrounds and bring a wide range of skills and expertise to running the place. Also, we couldn't open our doors without the help from volunteers, whether they shelve books, work the booksales, or assist on other library projects.

Q: Are all of your books donations?
A: While the Santa Fe Public Library gets hundreds of thousands of items donated each year, only a portion of those get added to the collection — the rest get passed on to the Friends of the Library book sales. The Library has a book budget, and it also benefits from the periodic GO Bonds to freshen up the collection. For the past couple of years, over 30,000 items were added each year across all three branches.

Q: You already have books. Why do you need more?
A: Imagine if you went shopping for socks just once in your life. That's it! You have socks! But think of what would happen to those socks over time. While we're hoping that people don't wear books and CDs and DVDs on their feet, library items suffer from the same fate as other inanimate objects: wear and tear, breakage, obsolesence. New books and movies and music come out every week, and we keep up with these so you're not stuck reading the same dog-eared copy of Jane Eyre for the zillionth time.

Q: If you're buying all these new items, how do you find room on the shelf?
A: There's a little-known and very misunderstood library practice called weeding. We go through the items on our shelves and remove things that are in bad condition and out-of-date. As an example, books about the moon published prior to 1969 are going to have incomplete information and thus removed from our shelves. For a humorous look at the ongoing world of weeding, I cannot recommend the blog Awful Library Books highly enough.

Q: Are librarians out to conquer the world?
A: While the jury is still out on this, I think it's safe to say that we have no intentions of taking over the world. We just want to make people a little more informed, a little more entertained, a little more empowered, and sure, a little bit happier than they were before they used the library.
Look It Up graphic from Librarian Avengers. Sock graphic from eHow.

Santa Fe Youth Symphony Association

Friday, May 7, 2010 - Mozart y Mariachi & Mariachi Estrella
St. Francis Auditorium
6:30 PM

Saturday, May 8, 2010 - Charlie Parker & Miles Davis Jazz Ensembles
St. Francis Auditorium
7:00 PM

Sunday, May 9, 2010 - Intermezzo String Orchestra, Youth Philharmonia & Con Vivo!
St. Francis Auditiorium
1:00 PM

Sunday, May 9, 2010 - Youth Symphony Orchestra
St. Francis Auditorium
3:00 PM

These SFYSA concerts are free and open to the public.

May Library Exhibits

Main Library
Granny’s Time To Paint
Watercolors
by Suzanne Schuetz

Southside Library
Mosaic Mirrors
Recreation of tiles, mirrors, pottery & found objects
embedded in old cupboard doors
by Linda Maradol

For more information, check our Art page.

For upcoming events, check our Calendar and Children's pages.