SAPL: News - Bookmarks! January 2004

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Did you know that resolutions for the New Year began 4000 years ago? In ancient Babylonia neighbors resolved to return borrowed farm equipment. What makes this gesture especially significant is that Babylonians celebrated New Year shortly after the spring equinox, usually in March and so the resolutions were right in time for the planting season. New Year's Day as we know it in January is relatively a young holiday. January 1st has been considered the New Year for only about 400 years, the date first tentatively set by Roman emperors in 153 B.C. but not adopted in certain countries, like Germany and Great Britain until the mid 1700s.
[Information from: The Holiday Spot.]

While your New Year’s resolution might not involve returning farm equipment, the San Antonio Public Library can help with many common modern resolutions!

Have you or someone you know been meaning to learn how to use a computer? SAPL has ongoing free computer classes offered at many branches. Grab a calendar at your branch or call 207-2530.
Want to learn how to eat healthier? Track down lots of great cookbooks with tasty healthy recipes. A few titles include:
- The Best-kept Secrets of Healthy Cooking by Sandra Woodruff
  641.563 WOODRUFF
- Patti LaBelle's Lite Cuisine: Over 100 Dishes with to-Die-for Taste Made With to-Live-for Recipes by Patti LaBelle
  641.5638 LABELLE
- Secretos de la Comida Sana por Alexandra Drijanski
  641.563 DRIJANSKI
- Healthy Heart Cookbook
  641.56311 HEALTHY
Meet new people and finally have a good reason to read a great book on your list! Join a book discussion group. Many local libraries have monthly discussion groups, find one that suits you best at the Fiction Pages.
Get control of your finances. Look for books starting in the 332.024 – 332.6 section of your local library to help you get started.
Volunteer! What better way to give back to the library and your community but to offer a little of your time. Call 207-2649 to inquire about volunteer opportunities at the library.
Figure out what exercise might be right for you by checking out videos or DVDs on Yoga (613.7046), Pilates (613.71) or Tae-bo (613.71).

Babies Help San Antonio Public Library End Centennial Year

“The Year of the Library,” celebrating the San Antonio Public Library’s 100th birthday, officially ended with a two-part “Connecting Kids to the Library” promotion sponsored by the SBC Foundation and the San Antonio Public Library Foundation -- and a huge group picture of babies who have participated in the Library’s “Born to Read” program at local hospitals during 2003.

“We wanted to gather as many of the babies together as we could for a once-in-a-lifetime photo that will beautifully illustrate the future of our library system. Some of them may actually be around for the bicentennial celebration in 2103!” said Kaye Lenox, president of the San Antonio Public Library Foundation.

Nearly 30 babies and their parents posed in front of the monumental “Fiesta Tower” sculpture created by renowned Seattle glass artist Dale Chihuly in honor of the centennial.

The San Antonio Public Library Foundation created “Born to Read” as one of several innovative ways to celebrate the library system’s centennial. Since January 1, every newborn in San Antonio has received a gift bag stuffed with bilingual children’s books, an application for a library card, and special guidelines to help parents raise children who love to read. Officials estimate that approximately 25,000 babies will have been born in San Antonio by the end of this year, with each and every one receiving the “Born to Read” materials. The program will continue in 2004.

The group picture topped off the citywide “Connecting Kids to the Library” Read-a-Thon and Centennial Sleepover. SBC officials, local media personalities and civic leaders read aloud to children for five hours at the city’s 20 library locations – for a grand total of 100 hours non-stop reading – followed by a sleepover at the Central Library for 50 children, ages 8-10, chosen from more than 2,000 entries citywide.

Board members of the San Antonio Public Library Foundation appeared on a “Born to Read” float during the 2003 Ford Holiday River Parade, “Celebrating Christmas Texas-Style” on Friday, November 28. The event was broadcast live on the San Antonio WB Network affiliate KRRT-TV at 7 p.m. and taped for later broadcast on various dates during the Christmas season on CBS, NBC and other major network affiliates coast to coast.

2003 was a successful year for the Born to Read Program. San Antonio Public Library and other sponsors will continue their commitment to raising local children who are Born to Read in 2004.

Totally Dinosaur Month @ Your Library

Want to know how long a Utahraptor lived? How about what it ate? How much and how often did it have to eat? Have you ever wondered just how big a Diplodocus really was? How were fossils formed? Where (and how) do you find fossils? What do you need to know to become a paleontologist?

Sounds like you need to come to one of our free sessions with the “Dinosaur Man!” During the month of January, George Blasing, a/k/a Dinosaur George, will visit every one of the San Antonio Public Library’s branches with his outstanding dinosaur presentations, guaranteed to thrill young and old with an “up-close and personal” look at “thunder lizards.”

Dinosaur George is a native Texan who thrills his dinosaur fans with rousing lectures on the lives and times of prehistoric beasts. Drawing on his thirty-some years of paleontological studies, a lively sense of humor, an outgoing personality, and a sincere love of his subject, George transports an audience on an imaginary dinosaur safari and captures the essence of the great creatures. With a table full of fossils, he can fix the attention of a room full of junior paleontologists and leave them and their parents signing up for his next public appearance.

Dinosaur George’s next adventure will be hosting and starring in a television show, to be offered to the Discovery Channel, but you can see him in person, free, at the San Antonio Public Library! Due to limited seating, admission to the Dinosaur George presentations is by ticket only. Free tickets will be available at each library branch approximately one week prior to that performance.

For more details and performance times, ask at your library.

Heard a Good Book Lately?

Sit back, relax and have someone read to you. All locations of the San Antonio Public Library have audio books on both cassette tapes or CDs, available for check out. Audio books are often fully complete readings of your favorite novels read by either the author or talented actors.

Be moved listening to popular audio books by popular authors such as Morrison, Evanovich, Grisham, Patterson, Tan and Cussler to name a few.
Audio books are also available from classic authors such as Doyle, Faulkner, Dumas and Shakespeare. Listen in your car, on your walkman or just at home.

SAPL’s wide ranging audio book collection, in addition to novels and classics, also has non-fiction.

Listen and learn about real life events in The Perfect Storm, The Greatest Generation, and Band of Brothers, or get motivated by such books as Who Moved my Cheese?
Would you like to brush up on a foreign language? Audio books designed to help you practice words and phrases in many foreign languages such as Spanish, French, Russian, Korean, Japanese, English, German and Chinese.
Some titles, both fiction and non-fiction, are also available in Spanish.

Call 207-2500 or check out the Library Catalog to see if SAPL has an audio version of the next book on your list.

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