Wii Gaming at the Dublin Library

Dublin now has our very own  Wii game system!  The games we have are Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 2, Mario Kart with Wii Wheel,  and Super Smash Bros. Brawl.  Different games were purchased for each Alameda County branch library with the idea that we could swap and trade as we plan programs.   Originally purchased for Teen Services last summer, we are about to offer a gaming program for older adults as well.  In fact, Teen Services and Older Adult Services are collaborating to offer something that would introduce seniors to the wii, demonstrate its use and generally assist  seniors in familiarizing themselves with how to use the remotes and the nunchuks.   Teen volunteers will be ”wii tutors” for Dublin’s event on Wednesday, December 30 from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.  For this event we will have bowling, golf, tennis, gentle yoga and brain fitness programs to experiment with.  The afternoon will be casual and fun with refreshments served.  If you, or anyone you know, would like to get a giggle out of experimenting with the wii one afternoon at the Library, this is a great opportunity! 

Meanwhile, Teen Services is also having a Super Smash Bros. Brawl Tournament with prizes provided by the Dublin Friends of the Library.  This is for teens between the ages of 12 to 19.  You must register to play!  The deadline for registration is Saturday, January 2nd. The tournament is on Saturday, January 9th from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. in the Community Room.  Prizes include a $50 Best Buy gift card, a $25  iTunes card and a $15 Regal Cinema gift card.

Want to help us plan future programs?  Make a comment here or vote on this little poll:

 

Dublin Staff is Reading and Recommends

 

Bill:  I just recently re-read the Clan of the Cave Bear series to the end at the Shelters of Stone.  It’s still a very good read and great research and development.  The very last book read was Persuader by Lee Child.  Still a good read for the purpose of getting away from reality for awhile.  Lots of action and the good guys win after giving the bad guys adequate punishment for their actions not seen in the real world.   Fiction Auel.

Daniel:  I am currently reading two books concurrently (trying to keep events somewhat chronologically in order to compare the two versions). Book one is Pride and Prejudice in which I am constantly looking at a dictionary to truly comprehend dialogue in context (who talks like this anymore?). Book two is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which I find totally amusing (what a jarring difference to find Elizabeth Bennett to be an accomplished martial artist easily dispatching and decapitating the undead). Both books are available in our system. The second book lists the authors as Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. I am of course enjoying both versions.    Fiction Austen,   Fiction Grahame-Smith, S. 

Eugene:  With official unemployment in California running at over 12%, and with relatives in Oregon looking for jobs, I couldn’t resist reading Paul Krugman’s book “The Return of Depression Economics: The Crisis of 2008″. 

A professor of economics at Princeton University, a columnist for the New York Times, and the recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics, Krugman writes about economic crises in various countries in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, and how lessons learned there should have prepared our own government for a similar crisis in 2008.  The book gave me a better understanding of the regulated banking industry, the non-regulated shadow banking industry, and the effects of financial globalization.  

Krugman’s conclusion is that “anything that has to be rescued during a financial crisis, because it plays an essential role in the financial mechanism, should be regulated when there isn’t a crisis so that it doesn’t take excessive risks.”   330.9 Krugman. 

 

Dublin Friends offer a Holiday Booksale, Saturday December 5

This Saturday, December 5, the Dublin Friends are offering a special, one day only,

Volunteer Judith Seilhymer working at the Spring booksale.

 holiday booksale in the Library Program Room.  It’s only for 3 hours from Noon to 3:00 p.m. and features a great selection of gently used, beautiful hardcover books, ideal for gift giving.  The selection includes children’s books, holiday books, gourmet cookbooks, photographic collections, games, dvds and more.  

As an extra treat, the Library’s monthly knitting group will also be on hand offering knitted items for sale.  All proceeds will be donated to the Friends.  

Next week, following the booksale, the Friends invite all the volunteers who have helped both with the September booksale and the holiday sale, for a special dessert buffet in their honor, at their December meeting, Wednesday evening, December 9th.  The meeting itself starts at 6:15; desserts will be served starting at 7:00 p.m.   Both staff and the Officers of the Friends want to specially thank all the volunteers who have made the booksales so successful.  The Fall booksale raised over $7,000 — the best one in several years!  This money funds so many wonderful programs at the Library including Dublin Reads, the Teen Advisory Group,  children’s programs and so much more.  We can’t thank  the volunteers enough for taking the time and energy to support the Library  and the community in this way. 

The Friends have had a great year  and can always use more people to get involved.   Check them out at http://www.dublinfriends.org.

 

Homework Center Coordinator, Anne Reilly

The Library is pleased to welcome our new Homework Center Coordinator, Anne Reilly.  Anne is a graduate of the University of Stirling in Scotland.  She has formerly worked for the Pleasanton

Unifed School District, and is founder of the Walnut Grove Elementary School breakfast book club.  Anne has this to say about Dublin’s homework help:

“The Homework Help Program here at the Dublin Library is well under way for the 2009-2010 school year.

 The Homework Help site is located between the adult reference area and the children’s library.  The tables here are reserved for Homework Help only, allowing the students to work with minimum distraction.

 Homework Help is available for students in grades 3 through 8 and operates during the school year, Mondays through Thursdays from 3:30 to 5:30 pm.

 The students who attend are given help with their school assignments by high school volunteers.  Math is the most requested subject but our volunteers have helped with English, science and a variety of other subjects.  Our volunteers can also guide them in using other resources in the library, such as finding books and using the internet.

Our volunteers are friendly and reliable and are eager to help students with their daily homework assignments.  Sayed, a sophomore at Dublin High, is a new volunteer this year in the Homework Help Program.  ”I came to Homework Help when I was in middle school and now I can help others and gain community service hours,” he says.   Crystal, a junior at Dublin High, is a returning volunteer.  She says “I enjoy interacting with other students.  I get to review work I’ve already done while helping others and sometimes we volunteers help each other with homework too.”  Crystal also likes that her volunteering hours at the library meet the requirements for the AVID program, which is a college prep class.  Jessica, a senior from San Ramon enjoys helping students and likes that her volunteering can be included on her college applications.

Some students come along to the Homework Help Site regularly, others only occasionally.  As it is a drop-in program, students can come along as often as they need to.  They can come for 30 minutes or the full two hours, whatever suits their needs – our volunteers are happy to be of assistance.  Udoka a fourth grade student says “I like coming to the Homework Help Center because it is more quiet than at home for concentrating on my homework.”  And Edwin a fourth grade student, coming to the Homework Help center for a second year says “I have fun here and get the work done too.  My grades have improved since coming to the Homework Help Center.”

If you are a student who may benefit from our program, come along and join us.  Our volunteers are waiting to help you.”

 

 

The Magic of the Harp: An Afternoon of Harp Music

International harpist Dominique Piana has toured extensively throughout the United States and Europe.  She will be presenting a concert of harp music featuring music from the Baroque to the Late-Romantic Masters, including Preludes by Handel, Bach, Krumpholtz, Romances by Parish Alvars, and the brilliant “Schubert-Fantasie” by Hans Trnecek, on Saturday, November 14^th, 2009, 2 – 3 p.m.,  in the Dublin Library Community Room.

Dominique Piana studied harp at the Brussels Conservatory of Music, and earned an M.A. in harp performance at Claremont Graduate University.  A faculty member of Holy Names University in Oakland, she is listed in the International Who’s Who in Music. 

This concert is free of charge and sponsored by the Friends of the Dublin Library.

 

They’re back! Teen-Assisted Computer Help for Adults

Do you need help setting up e-mail?  Do you feel awkward using Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel?  Do you need help with searching the Internet? 

If any of these situations apply to you, come and use the services of our teen volunteers on Monday through Thursday between 4 to 6 p.m. from now until December 17^th.  We will also be offering this service during the winter and spring high school quarters. 

Our volunteers  Ryan, Shyam, Natasha, Jega, Justin J, Justin D, Shine, and Thomas will be very glad to help you.  They will be seated at the table directly in front of the adult reference desk.  They can help you at that table, or if you are already logged on to a computer terminal elsewhere in the library, they can help you at your terminal.

 

Dublin did Read!

It was a truly a family affair last Sunday with many members of author Eva Rutland’s family joining us for a wonderful program.   40 people attended the program and reception for Eva; pictures of the event are to your right under the header “Alameda County Library photos.”   First to arrive that day was grandson John under orders to help with the technology.  He hooked up Ginger’s laptop and we got it working with the library’s LCD projector so that Ginger and her daughter Eva Fields could present a slide show on the family.  Next up we met Ginger’s twin Patty Jo who drove Eva in, followed by Ginger and her daughter, Eva Fields.  Last to arrive was Elsie and her husband.  The only sibling not in attendance was Billy who, we were told, was at his daughter’s high school play in Sacramento.

What a fabulous family!  We had such a good time.  A reprint edition of Eva’s book No Crystal Stair which is a novelization of her memoir, had just come in last week , so people were able to get signed copies.  One woman in the audience was originally from Atlanta and had attended Spelman College just as Eva had, and was so happy to meet Eva.  The slide show was  compelling; I was struck by the way Ginger integrated historical family pictures with text images of things like the wording in a real estate contract that prohibited selling to blacks, and other minorities, or the text from the 16th edition of the Encylopedia Britannica of the early 1900s, declaring the Negro race as an inferior race at a time when her ancestors, the first generation removed from slavery, were going to college and building their lives.

Eva herself was so charming and so humble really thanking us for having her. The Friends of the Library brought cake and punch and altogether we had a lovely time.

The pictures in the photostream on your left include one of Ginger and Eva when they appeared on Channel 30 as well as a couple of pictures from Kirk Waller’s storytelling program on October 10 (we raffled off  copies of Eva’s book and Kirk Waller’s book); click on any one of them to get to Dublin Library’s photo set in Flickr.

Thanks to everyone who came to the programs, participated and read the book — Dublin Reads gets better every year! And our heartfelt thanks to Eva and her family for sharing their story with us!

 

Legal Forms Available Online

 

Law and legal forms are now available online at  www.aclibrary.org .  At the click of the mouse, one can access the most popular legal forms dealing with contracts, wills, real estate, premarital agreements, divorce, bankruptcy and much more through the Gale legal forms database. 

 Here is a link below to access the most extensive selection of legal forms and information below: http://www.aclibrary.org/research/articlesDataBases/default.asp?topic=ArticlesDataBases&cat=LawLegalForms  (IF YOU ARE ACCESSING THE SITE FROM OUTSIDE THE LIBRARY, YOU MUST LOG IN WITH YOUR LIBRARY CARD @ www.aclibrary.org FIRST.)

More information incuded in the website:

* A search feature that allows one to browse by title or catagory

*  Look at catagories by alphabet (An A-Z search)

*  Browse by sample searches, and or by “most popular” forms

*  Legal forms from other states

Other information available include links to federal and state tax forms, an attorney directory, and a section on legal definitions. 

“Warning public users should consult an attorney in your state for serious matters”

 PLEASE READ THE DISCLAIMERS AND LIABILITY LIMITATION LINK

 

One-to-One Résumé Critique at Dublin Library

If you are currently searching for a new job, it’s definitely worth noting that Jerry Simerman, job search specialist at the Tri-Valley One-Stop Career Center, will be holding a One-to-One Résumé Critique program in the Dublin Library Program Room on Thursday, October 29^th, from 1:30 to 5 p.m.  This is your opportunity to have a free individual critique of your job résumé.  

Sign up for your 20-minute individual critique time by calling the Dublin Library Information Desk at (925) 803-7275.

 

Dublin Reads When We Were Colored: a Mother’s Story

Ginger Rutland and her mother, author Eva Rutland, appear on Channel 30s' book discussion program "In a Word."

Dublin Reads was officially launched at the Day on the Glen, the weekend of Sept 19 & 20th and we are off to a great start.  We have lots of copies of the book out there in circulation, including “read and release” copies at Shannon Community Center, the Heritage Center and the Senior Center to make it more convenient for people to find copies.  “Read and release” copies do not have to be checked out with a library card; they are meant to be passed along to neighbors, friends, or co-workers to keep the book moving through the community.  Each book is labeled with a abbreviation “code” so if we come across it, we can tell where it’s been:  HC for heritage center, for example.

A couple of people have asked how to go about making a comment on the book at this blog; here is how to do it:  notice on the right side of the blog, close to the top, there is a heading labeled “Categories.” Underneath that, it says “select categories” with a drop down menu.  Open the menu by clicking on the tiny “down” arrow and select “Dublin Reads.”  This will bring up all the postings we have made about Dublin Reads; pick any posting you want, and notice that underneath the date on the left side is a link that says “leave a comment.”  Simply click on this and tell us what you think!

Take note, that Kathy Cordova, one of the hosts for the Channel 30 book discussion program, In a Word has her own blog called A Few More Words.  She has written a wonderful review of When We Were Colored, be sure and check it out.  She writes, “Eva Rutland is a hero—not just for her courage, good sense and elegance in speaking out and finding common ground in a time of racial divide and fear—but for giving us all an example of how powerful the written word can be. To make us understand, to make us feel, and bring us, as readers, into a world that we would have otherwise never known—leaving us the wiser and richer and, maybe even kinder for the experience.”

Special events for Dublin Reads start this week!  Saturday,  October 3 at 2:00 p.m. in the Library Program Room, filmmaker Leah Mahan will join us to view and discuss her award winning film Sweet Old Song.  This film was recommended to us by Bingo Schmingo’s Kathleen Rushing (who also plays in the band Extended Roots.) Kathleen said this is a wonderful film on love, aging, generational gaps, black history and music. 

Also coming soon — a community book discussion led by Dublin’s Mayor, Tim Sbranti.  Save the date, Tuesday, October 13, 7:00 p.m.!