New Political Books

Get your political junkie groove on, with these new books:

Yes We Can, a Biography of Barack Obama by Garen Thomas. This books is aimed at teens or middle-school kids.

Obama : From Promise to Power by David Mendell.

Hard Call, the Art of Great Decisions by John McCain.

Worth the Fighting for : The Education of an American Maverick, and the Heroes Who Inspired Him by John McCain.

The Revolution: a Manifesto by Ron Paul

Be an informed citizen! Check out these books and others at the library.--scb

Cooking Classes and other stuff you don't normally find at the library

Sometimes I'll tell people about my upcoming events at the library and they are shocked. Recently I was telling a friend about our teen cooking classes and she couldn't believe it. "Why on earth would a library have a cooking class?!" she wondered. It's a fair question. Lots of people still think of libraries as those hushed emporiums of the serious and scholarly. In last weeks' charades with Scooby, a 4-year-old, when posed with the dilemma of acting out "librarian" simply put her fingers to her lips as if to say "Shh." Everyone knew immediately what she was getting at (it was sad.) So what happened? Why are libraries now raucous, busy places, with cooking classes and such?

I've always said my job is to connect people with ideas. Notice how the word "Books" doesn't come into play there. Books are part of it, of course, but ideas are everywhere: books, movies, games, classes, just hanging out...so we include all of that into our standard library procedure. Looking up a recipe for tiramisu isn't the same as making it with guidance and a bunch of your friends--which do you think will be more likely to encourage a 15-year-old to cook?

Next week's 'Queen for a Day' spa program is another stumper for some people. Why paint girls' nails and do facials and their "colors"? What is the idea we're promoting anyway? Beauty comes from bottles?! I have some problems with that idea, but let's face it, makeup is fun, especially when you're 12 and just figuring all that girl stuff out. Anyway, boys are allowed too, as long as their willing to paint their fingernails and wear a tiara. Basically, I just want these teens to have fun and play and maybe learn about skin care, hair care, and even *gasp* makeup. After all, most of them are going to be using it.

Waat do you think about the library's new role? Do you agree with the makeup? The cooking? And how'd you like last night's Bubble Wonders program? Let us know. And now I've got to go make some tiramisu (yum!)--scb

Librarians and blogging and science

It seems a perfect fit--my job is to connect people with ideas, and the blog format is perfect for that. And there's so much going on at the library that I feel like I spend a quarter of my time just letting people know about it. So here we go--I'll let you know what's happening here and, sometimes, why.

The whole issue of privacy and libraries is paramount though, so I'll do my utmost to keep details vague when speaking of individuals. But what about this story?: Last year I overheard a mom say to her kid, who was holding a simple nonfiction book on science, "Not that one, it looks boring." I was surprised and saddened. Science is so incredibly cool when stripped of the dreariness imparted by the less-talented science teachers that I was stuck with for much of my school years. So I made it a priority to include more science in storytimes, summer performances, whatever.

This effort is more for the parents than the kids, by the way. The kids will hopefully get the good science teachers and know all about the insane magic that is quantum physics, or whatever scientific field they like. But the parents who are deadened to the thrill of science may find it resurrected by super-cool shows like the Chemistry Magic show we hosted last summer. Maybe then the mom will say, "Hey, how about this book on magnets, it looks fascinating" to her four -year-old. Or not.

That's the beauty of the blog, isn't it? Now you get to answer. Tell me what you think about sciencein general, science programs in particular, our library programs (scientific or otherwise), or whatever you like. You can explore the ramifications of blogging librarians or anything else. I hope you will, anyway.--SCB