Lou's News & Reviews
July 20, 2009
Hot weather got you steaming?
 Come to the library to enjoy air-conditioned comfort and a great reading, listening and viewing collection. With our move from oil heating to electric heat pumps we now have cool air to share with islanders during our (hopefully) brief hot spells. In addition to a cool place to hang out you are sure to find cool things to read and watch as well!
Fire and Life Safety Education
The dryness on our island has put the fire danger level at high. Do your children know what to do in a fire emergency or do they want to learn more about our local heroes at the fire department? The library has recently acquired a series of DVD films produced for children from the Rainbow Valley Fire Department that can help educate our youth on the importance of fire safety and prevention in a fun way, including the following:
Shelved in the children's room, call # DVD J628.92 RAI. Let us know if you plan to use them for teaching purposes at school or church and we can arrange a longer checkout period.
Lopez Library goes Greener
Please help the library go greener by providing us with your email address for library correspondence. To avoid wasting paper and postage to send out overdue reminders, we are actively requesting emails from now on. We will only use them for these purposes so don't worry about being spammed.
Consumer Reports Online
 On another green note, you don't have to photocopy articles out of Consumer Reports any longer. The library now subscribes to full text of Consumer Reports online (the extended version) that is accessible to entire community via library card number from your home computer. Just visit the library's web page and use the link to consumer reports under "New arrivals at your library." Thanks to everyone who provided feedback when we did the trial a few months ago. You spoke and we listened.
Summer Seating
 Speaking of green, we'd like your opinion on seating areas around the library grounds. Now that our wireless internet extends outside the building, we'd like to add more summer seating options for reading, lounging and computing. I was thinking Adirondack chairs with wide arms for propping up laptops and holding a drink. I'd be interested in hearing from local furniture builders who might be interested in working on this project.
Mark your calendars!
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Teen Movie Night - Friday, July 24th at 5:30 pm Coraline - based on Neil Gaiman's novella, this 2009 animated Sci-Fi/Fantasy film is sweet, creepy and visually stunning fun for the whole family, rated PG.
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Saturday Matinee - Saturday, July 25th at 2pm - InkHeart - based on Cornelia Funke's young adult trilogy (Inkheart, Inkspell, Inkdeath), the book and film is about a 12-year-old girl named Meggie Folchart who learns that her father, a bookbinder, has an unusual ability: when he reads aloud, he can bring characters from books into the real world and he has brought a power-hungry villain from a rare children's fable to life. PG-rated film.
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August 1st - in collaboration with our local Quaker Friends, the library is sponsoring the wildly popular all-day "Clearing the Clutter Workshop" and we are taking names in case spaces become available. Contact Polly Ham at 468-2129 or send email at pollyham@centurytel.net, subject line: Clutter Workshop. The library has many books on the topic of clutter, but you might want to check one out at a time - you know - just to prevent clutter!
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August 3rd. Author Reading by Joyce Litz, award-winning author of The Montana Frontier: One Woman's West. Taken from the journals of a Victorian-era frontier woman who followed her husband from New York to a small-town in Montana, these reflections include birth control, child-rearing, gambling, prostitution, education and health care in the Mountain West. The author, Joyce Litz, was born in Lewistown, MT and lived with Lillian Weston, the subject of this book from an early age. Although her grandmother never talked about early life on the frontier, Ms. Litz was able to piece together a rich heritage from her matriach's journals, scrapbooks, and manuscripts found in a rusty truck. The author, who has a brother who lives here on Lopez will be reading at 5pm at the library.
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Saturday Matinee - August 8th at 2pm - James Hubbell, Architect documentary - pioneer in the art of straw bale and green construction in the city of San Diego.
Long-Term Plan for the Library
What's next for the Library? We are pleased to share the library's strategic plan for 2009-2012, Connecting People + Ideas (http://www.lopezlibrary.org/pdfs/plan.pdf) with the community. Visit the URL above to check out this blueprint for library activities of the next three-five years and represents the contributions of a dedicated citizen's committee, library staff and trustees. The Library plan identifies both challenges that are unique to our island and opportunities that will enable the Library to best meet our patrons' needs. Many thanks to the islanders who contributed their time to shaping this vision of our future: Adrienne and Steve Adams, Jeane Allen and Marc Grant, Georgeana Cook, Penny Gilde, Christina Katz, Jennell Kvistad, Colleen Thomas, and Mariette Trelease, plus the library staff and trustees. Thanks to you all!
Genealogy on the upswing!
Genealogists rise up! The popularity of genealogy in the United States has increased steadily alongside the Internet's growth. Specialized search engines and newly digitized content has sparked the interest of many people of all ages who now want to learn more about their local and/or family history. Genealogy is considered by most to be the fastest-growing hobby in North America, with many surveys and media sources proclaiming that it has surpassed quilting, scrap-booking, stamp collecting and even gardening in popularity. With this in mind, the library is considering getting access to Ancestry.com. We have a trial until July 25th so call the library for more information at 468-2265. In addition to providing free full-image census records, vital records, church, court, and immigration records, as well as record collections from Canada and other countries from around the world, this online site supplies more than 90 million U.S. war records from the first English settlement at Jamestown in 1607 through the Vietnam War's end in 1975. The collection includes the names and gravestone details of 3.5 million U.S. soldiers, including 2,000 who have died in Iraq. If you have time before July 25th contact us at the library for access information.
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