Mythical Beasts,
Magical Books
 Summer
Reading 2006
Dukes and Damsels, Dreamers and Dragonologists – Get ready for a summer
of reading fun at the San Antonio Public Library!
Join the Summer Reading Club beginning June 1 at either your local
branch library or online. Everyone who signs up will receive a reading
log to record all their summer readings.
Once children have read or listened for 15 hours, they can bring in
their log to any library to select a free paperback book that is theirs
to keep. Teens must read 15 books to receive their free paperback. Free
prize paperbacks are available after June 15, and must be claimed before
August 15.
SAPL’s got lots of great programs to keep you coming to the library week
after week all summer long!
Don’t miss the mystery, don’t miss the magic.
Stay tuned to the
SAPL Website for more
information on the 2006 Summer Reading Program.
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Beyond the
Chat Room: Social Networking Today
“I'm NOT the only bee-girl!!!”
a/s/l
During the dawn of the World Wide Web — was that really just 10 years
ago? — the chat room typified social networking. A common greeting was
a/s/l? In other words, “what’s your age, sex and location?” These
early networks of people, then, were essentially defined by a common
language and some basic demographic information. Much has changed in the
last decade...
According to Nielsen//NetRatings, the
top ten social
networking sites garnered almost 70 million unique visitors in April
— about half of all Internet users in the United States. Due to the
spread of relatively affordable ways of capturing information digitally
and personalized databases for sharing this information, the
plain-ol’-vanilla chat room is complemented with a richer array of
interaction at such sites as Blogger,
Yahoo! Groups and
Classmates Online.
MySpace may be getting all the
headlines these days (read on for one effect of that), but there are
other sites worth your clickthrough.
Tell me what you read and I’ll tell you what you are.
At librarything.com,
community members catalog their home libraries and upload the records to
a shared online catalog. Decidedly a place for readers and learners and,
according to their blog,
the
nation’s 100th largest library, Librarything allows its users to see
who have similar libraries, get book recommendations, find an essential
book missing from their collection and meet other folks who love books.
Smile! You’re on candid cell phone.
Such sites as youtube.com and
flickr.com slip the surly bonds of
text by allowing their members to upload videos and photographs. Like
junior bibliographers, members add tags to describe their media in order
to make it easy for others to quickly find similar authors or subjects.
Current TV, a national satellite
and cable channel started by Al Gore, Jr., empowers its online community
members to determine a portion of the TV lineup.
But, quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Making its way through Congress is
House
Resolution 5319, the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), which
proposes to remove federal funding from schools and libraries that allow
minors access to social networking sites. According to an American
Library Association
press release,
DOPA “would block library computer users from accessing
collaborative networking sites like MySpace, and would also bar access
to a wide array of other important applications and technologies such as
instant messaging, e-mail, wikis and blogs.”
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Tales of a Beekeeper-Librarian
 I
started keeping bees with my uncle in
Burnet County,
Texas, in 1982. We built most of our own equipment and
captured swarms of bees in the spring to add to our growing
stock. Using mostly borrowed equipment, we extracted our
honey in the late summer. We learned that we had to extract
our crop before the broomweed and sumac bloomed, because
nectar from those flowers, while prized by the bees,
produced a bitter tasting honey. We both read and memorized
First Lessons in Beekeeping, the classic book for
beginning beekeepers, and soon graduated to the more
advanced reference classic, The Hive and the Honeybee.
In 1984 I joined a commercial outfit called Clifford
Apiaries. Steve Clifford bred and sold queen bees to
beekeepers throughout North America from his headquarters in
Sour Lake, Texas. I helped him and his crew in the large
bee yard, which was placed in a clearing of pine trees. A
novice, I was known for getting stung more than the others –
once 26 times from a single hive that was known for its
gentle behavior. We also spent many days capturing queen
bees along the logging roads of the East Texas swamps. The
queens were found in “mating nucs,” miniature beehives,
really, that shared the narrow dirt road with alligators,
fearless snapping turtles and water moccasins. I spent
evenings doctoring my wounds and reading Contemporary
Queen Rearing and
American Honey Plants.
After the queens were sold and shipped, we drove two large
truckloads of bees non-stop to Steve’s honey producing
operation in Nipawin,
Saskatchewan. Then we returned to Texas and did the same
thing again. Those Texas bees thrived on the long Canadian
days and the abundant fields of rapeseed. Hives there can
grow to a monstrous size and produce hundreds of pounds of
honey apiece. Dozens of migratory bee operations still exist
today, despite the advent of
Africanized bees and a host of other problems and bee
diseases that weren’t around in 1982.
 My uncle and I are older now, but we still have a couple of
hives on his homestead in Burnet County. They are our
reminder, not of days past, but of our beekeeping glory days
still to come.
Beekeeping Books
Nonfiction
The
World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting
Crane, Eva
Reference 638.109 CRANE
Beekeeping: A Practical Guide for the Novice Beekeeper
Melzer, Werner
638.1 MELZER
Bees, Beekeeping, Honey, and Pollination
Gojmerac, Walter L.
638.1 GOJMERAC
The
Art & Adventure of Beekeeping
Aebi, Ormond
638.1 AEBI
Texas Beekeeping
Scholl, Louis H.
TEXANA 638.1 SCHOLL
Kids
Hooray for Beekeeping!
Kalman, Bobbie
Juvenile 638.1 KALMAN
Gran’s Bees
Thompson, Mary
JUVENILE EASY THOMPSON
Fiction
The
Secret Life of Bees
Kidd, Sue Monk
FICTION KIDD
Beekeeping Websites
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FEATURED
DATABASE |
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TexShare
Everything’s Bigger in
TexShare
“A program of the Texas
State Library and Archives Commission in partnership with academic and
public libraries in Texas. TexShare services are intended to help every
member library fulfill its unique mission.”
Beginning July 1, there will
be a substantial expansion of the database offerings here at SAPL.
That’s when new subscriptions — courtesy of the TexShare program — are
slated to begin.
Participation in the TexShare program allows the San Antonio Public
Library to have access to over $1.5 million worth of databases (if
subscribed to individually) for about $25,000.
Currently, SAPL provides
about 53 databases. With the new package from TexShare, that amount will
grow to 82.
Content you won’t find
through a Google search.
If you’ve been a regular reader of Bookmarks!, then you know the value
of these databases when compared to a general Google search. The bulk of
the new offerings will expand our ability to deliver full-text
periodical (magazine, newspaper, journal) content. For the serious
researcher, more indexes and abstracts will be added. All of the new
resources will provide coverage for a wider array of disciplines than
ever before. Here’s just a few highlights:
• more health content,
including “alternate health watch”
• expansion of Spanish-language content
• legal resources
• newspaper offerings will now also include transcripts of radio and
TV shows
• professional development collection for educators
To better tailor the
database collection to the needs of San Antonians, SAPL purchases
databases in addition to those offered through TexShare. Stay tuned to
Bookmarks! for more information on Thomson Gale’s LegalForms collection
— thousands of general and Texas-specific legal forms for free download
— and Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center — a dynamic library of
current event topics and authoritative resources.
A
complete list of the changes to the TexShare databases.
Our
databases are available at your library branch or from your home computer.
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FEATURED EVENT |
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The Central Library Children's Department presents...
Full Contact Storytelling!
Professional storyteller Larry Thompson will present a humorous
and energy-packed show that is sure to delight children and adults
alike!
Audience participation is highly encouraged. Recommended for
school-age children, this FREE program will be held at 2:00 pm on
Saturday, June 10, in the Storytime Room located on the third floor
of the Central Library.
There are many special events at SAPL in June.
Check the events listing for all events!
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We urge you to call your library before heading out for a special
program. Although we verify all information, cancellations do
occasionally occur. |
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