Books and Babies Program comes to Main Library in January!

Our popular, Books And Babies Program begins at the Main Library, 145 Washington Avenue, on Tuesday, January 7th. This program features books, songs and crafts for children 6 months to 2 years old. It is never too early to start your child on the road to reading! Please call the library to register or for more information about this FREE program. Beginning the week of January 6th, 2014, join us: 

• Tuesdays from 10:30a.m. to 11:00a.m. at the Main Library, 145 Washington Avenue (505) 955-6783.
• Wednesdays from 10:30a.m. to 11:00a.m. at the Oliver La Farge Branch, 1730 Llano Street (505) 955-4863.
• Thursdays from 10:30a.m. to 11:00a.m. at the Southside Branch, 6599 Jaguar Drive (505) 955-2828.

This free program is sponsored by a grant from the Brindle Foundation

Year-end sale at Southside Branch Bookstore

Year-end sale at Southside Branch Bookstore. Everything is half-off! Books for all ages, media, CDs. December 27-January 4. Bookstore Hours are 10a.m.-4p.m. Monday through Saturday.

Library Holiday Hours

Santa Fe Public Libraries will close at 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 24, 2013 and will be closed on Wednesday, December 25, 2013 in observance of Christmas. Libraries will also close at 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 31, 2013 and will be closed on Wednesday January 1, 2014 for New Year's Day.

Local Authors Table at Main

Stop by and check out our new Local Authors table here at the Main Library. The table is located in the front lobby and the books do not need to be checked out, just put them back on the table when you are finished with them.

Friday Afternoon Art: "Gingerbread" Houses, December 20 at Main

Our New Website is LIVE!!!

Check out our great new website at the same old address: www.santafelibrary.org/. Let us know what you think and a big thanks to our tireless webmaster!

Public Libraries are the Best!

There's been a slew of articles from the Atlantic Monthly and the Chicago Tribune in recent days that affirm the fact that we appreciate our public libraries and value their contributions to our communities. Stop by the Santa Fe Public Library this holiday season and let us know how much you care!

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/12/americans-still-care-about-their-public-libraries/282250/

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/public-libraries-are-better-than-congress-baseball-and-apple-pie-say-americans/282312/

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/books/chi-library-future-20131212,0,2880286.story

Thanks to the Parks Crew for Decorating the Main Library

Our City Parks crew put up the evergreen swags on the front of the Main Library portal and the Main Library sign today. They were treated to cookies by the Library staff.

Thanks to supervisor Donald Marquez, "The Library is no longer the ugly step-sister of City buildings" said Library Director Pat Hodapp.

People stopped to touch the real greenery and inhale the fresh, evergreen aroma. Our thanks for a job well done!

Don't Miss the Alternative Gift Market!

Didn't get to the Alternative Gift Market last weekend?  Never fear, there's a whole extra weekend coming up!

The Alternative Gift Market is open  all weekend at the DeVargas Mall, Saturday 9-8:30 and Sunday 10:00 until 6:30.

There are also special performers this weekend! Here is the schedule:

Saturday, December 14  10:00-Noon   Dahlia Cummings, guitar, songs and stories for the whole family especially the little ones.

Saturday, December 14    1:30pm Wise Fool's fantastic stilt walkers will be at the store entrance--meet the elf and two amazing birds. They are over 12 feet tall!!

Sunday, December 15   2:00pm Family Story time by Walter Cook, Children's Librarian

The AGM provides people with the opportunity to purchase gifts that provide urgently needed assistance to local and international organizations providing shelter, medical help, food, working to reduce illiteracy and assisting homeless veterans, among other projects. People can choose from close to 60 different items. The choice literally runs from A to Z. This popular type of market is held through the US. All donations are tax deductible.

Among those participating are:
• The Santa Fe Public Library and Books For Babies, where books can be purchased for newborns and for the Library to provide books for the thousands of children seeking books to check out. Last year almost 200,000 library children’s books were checked out! Books are needed to replenish the book collections which provide a wide selection for parents at the libraries.  New mothers are given a book to take home from the hospital through Books For Babies. These two needs are supportive of early literacy efforts.
• La Familia provides free dental care and other health assistance
• Santa Fe’s Interfaith Shelter provides safe shelter
• Veterans helping veterans works to support homeless veterans
• Esperanza provides housing and help for abused women and their families
• The Alternative Gifts International is a non-profit which offers dozens of projects that can be supported worldwide in the areas of health, education, literacy and humanitarian causes. They provide an alternative for donors to designate charitable gifts through carefully selected agencies around the world.

[In the photo: Cookies are being served to the 3rd-6th grade student choir of Santa Nino School. Our reindeer elf with the Santo Nino choir director, Kathleen Echols, who performed at the De Vargas Mall Alternative Gift Market event.]

Poet Laureate Jon Davis Reading Rescheduled for Sunday, December 15, 2013 at 3 p.m.

City of Santa Fe Poet Laureate Jon Davis to

Host Poetry Reading at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe

Sunday, December 15, 2013 at 3 pm

On Sunday, November 24, from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m., City of Santa Fe Poet Laureate Jon Davis will host “Santa Fe Poets 2,” the second of six readings that will take place over the next nine months at various venues in and around Santa Fe. Each reading will feature a different group of five poets reading with the poet laureate.

At this first reading, Davis will read from a new manuscript, Reply All, and from his most recent book, Preliminary Report, published by Copper Canyon Press in 2010. In addition to being Santa Fe’s fourth poet laureate, Davis is director of the new Low Residency MFA Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts, where he has taught for 23 years.

The other readers will be Lauren Camp, host of KSFR’s poetry and music program, Audio Saucepan, and author of author of This Business of Wisdom (West End Press, 2010); Joanne Dominique Dwyer, a facilitator for the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project and author of Belle Laide (Sarabande Books, 2013); Jamie Figueroa, a Jack Kent Cooke Arts Scholar who attends IAIA’s MFA program and teaches at the New Mexico School for the Arts; dg nanouk okpik, an Alaskan Native (Inupiaq-Inuit) and author of Corpse Whale (University of Arizona, 2012); and Arthur Sze, Santa Fe’s first Poet Laureate, now a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets whose ninth book, Compass Rose, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press in 2014.

For directions to the Institute of American Indian Arts' campus, visit the website: http://www.iaia.edu/about/directions/

For more information, call Jon Davis at 424.2365 or e-mail him at jdavissimo52@gmail.com.

Established in 2005, the Poet Laureate program actively promotes poetry and the spoken word as integral parts of our civic life.

Friday Afternoon Art: Gift Making, Dec. 13 at Main

City of Santa Fe Parking Division Offers Holiday Perks

Before you get too excited, this does not apply to the pay lot at the Main Library. 

The City of Santa Fe's Parking Division is offering several holiday parking perks to encourage Santa Fe residents and visitors to shop local. For next three weekends they include: all City-owned parking garages and the Water Street parking lot are allowing customers to park for free for two hours. The promo begins this Saturday, December 7 and 8; December 14 and 15; and December 21 and 22.

For those same weekends the Santa Fe Downtown Merchants Association are sponsoring free two-hour parking at parking meters that have a white bag over them (honor system applies). The regular daily rate will go into effect after the two-hour time period.

Also, a gift for the person who has everything, the Parking Division is giving an extra 10% discount on CashKey reloads. Bring your CashKey to the Parking Division office, 500 Market Street, Suite 200 (in the Railyard above REI) now until December 31 to reload your key, or give a reloaded CashKey to a friend or loved one!

Don't forget to take advantage of the City's free Santa Fe Pick Up shuttle service, with stops located at the Santa Fe Depot (Montezuma St.), Sandoval St. (North Bound, next to the 1st District Judicial Complex), PERA parking lot (Old Santa Fe Trail and Paseo De Peralta), four along Canyon Rd., E. Alameda (Alameda and Paseo De Peralta), Cathedral Pl., Washington Ave. (next to the Main Library), Lincoln Ave. (next to City Hall), Palace Ave. (next to the Fine Arts Museum) and Sandoval St. (South Bound, next to the Eldorado Hotel).  

Call the Parking Division, 505-955-6581 for more information. Shop Local, Park Local. 

SFPL Winter Reading Program (WRAP), Dec. 20 - Jan. 5

(Click image to enlarge)

Open for Business!

All library branches will be operating on regular schedule today, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by yesterday's early closure.

All Libraries Closing Today at 2 p.m.

All branches of the Santa Fe Public Library will be closing at 2 p.m. today, Thursday, Dec. 5, because of inclement weather. Be safe out there everybody.

City of Santa Fe Business Offices Closing at 2:00 p.m. Today

SANTA FE, NM – The City of Santa Fe business offices, libraries, recreation centers and Municipal Court will be closing at 2:00 p.m. due to deteriorating road conditions. Santa Fe Trails Bus system and Santa Fe Ride will continue operating until road conditions prevent them from running. Please call Santa Fe Transit 505-955-2001 for more information on public transportation.

The Future of Fiction is Bleak…

How’s that for a sensationalist library blog title?!  Don’t worry though, I’m not going depressing today and talking about the demise of the printed word, dwindling attention spans, or anything like that; I am in fact talking about one of my favorite literary trends right now: dystopian fiction, or fiction that is set in an imaginary place (often the future), that is extremely unpleasant or bleak and the quality of life is very bad.

My failed attempt to make it into a sold out showing of Catching Fire (the second Hunger Games Movie) this past weekend reminded me that dystopian fiction, which has been huge the last few years, is still going strong, especially for young adult readers.  The renewed popularity of all of the books in the Hunger Games series here at the library is great evidence of this trend (you can put a copy of any of the three on hold here); but beyond just that, there is a whole world of other similar, awesome (but perhaps less popular) dystopian fiction out there.  So, without further ado, here are some great dystopian titles (both young adult and adult) to check out.

If you want to get a head start on some other young adult dystopian novels that are slated to become movies in the near future try:

·         The Maze Runner by James Dashner

·         Divergent by Veronica Roth

·         Blood Red Road by Moira Young

·         The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking) by Patrick Ness

For those that like a touch of romance in their dystopia, take a look at:

·         Matched by Allie Conde

·         Birthmarked by Caragh O’Brien

·          

If you’re into a very dark, intense, post-apocalyptic sort of dystopia, something that perhaps crosses over into zombie country (perfect for the holiday season!) you might like:

·         The Road by Cormac McCarthy

·         The Forrest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

·         The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman

·         I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga

If you’re someone who likes to stick with the classics, you might try:

·         I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

·         The Giver by Lois Lowry

·         Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

·         The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

·         Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguru

May the odds (of finding a great book) be ever in your favor!

4th Annual Alternative Gift Market, Dec. 6-8 & 14-15

School Age Craft: Fizzy Bath Soap, Dec. 10-11

Wreath Craft at La Farge, Dec. 12 & Dec. 21

Holiday Book Sale, December 7th at Main

Holiday Book Sale, Main Library, 145 Washington Ave. December 7, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m., Open to the Public! This is your big chance to buy treasures for Holiday Gift-Giving.  Beautiful, gift-quality books that spare your budget!  Sale is organized and sponsored by the Friends of the Santa Fe Public Library.  All the proceeds help your public library.

Family Bedtime Stories, Wednesday, Dec. 4 at 6:30 p.m., Oliver La Farge Branch

The Oliver La Farge Branch, 1730 Llano Street, offers a series of Family Bedtime Stories. Join us on the first Wednesday of each month at 6:30 p.m. when Children's Librarian, Walter Cook, will select and conduct story times.

Cook has been a Children's Librarian for over ten years. Telling stories to families is one of my favorite things about being a Children's Librarian. Not only am I sharing great stories, I see families together listening and creating their own memories, says Cook.

Children and their families are invited to participate in fun stories and hands-on activities. This is a great opportunity to make literature come alive for the whole family, as well as build memories and stimulate family conversations.

For more information please call (505) 955-4867.

This free program is sponsored by the Friends of the Santa Fe Public Library.