SAPL:
News - Newsletter
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Bookmarks!
San Antonio Public Library's
e-Newsletter |
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DECEMBER 2006
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REMEMBER
All
libraries will be closed
Sunday & Monday, December 24 & 25, for Christmas and
Sunday, December 31, for New Year's. |
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Bicycling in San Antonio
 Do
you already have holiday burnout? Then maybe it isn’t too
early to start thinking about those New Year resolutions. If
the holidays have finally caught up with you, think about
getting into cycling. Riding a bike is great exercise, and
is a great eco-friendly way to run some of those errands.
Cycling is
easy; all you need is a bicycle and a helmet. But while you
are on the road, safety is very important. In addition to
wearing a helmet, make sure you obey all traffic rules, be
aware of road conditions and wildlife, and share the road
with vehicles and other pedestrians.
Founded in
1971, the San Antonio Wheelmen is a local cycling club with
almost 600 members. The primary purpose of the club is to
promote the sport of safe bicycling in the San Antonio area
through the provision of cycling activities for both its
members and other bicycle riders. The Wheelmen also promote
the education of the general public as to advantages of the
bicycle as a source of health and fitness and to the rights
of cyclists under the current laws of the State of Texas.
The Central
Library will host a talk on “Bicycling in San Antonio,” by
Cliff Hickel, president of the San Antonio Wheelmen
Bicycling Club, on Thursday, December 7, 2006, at 7:00pm, in
the 3rd floor Story Room. Come learn how to get started as a
bicyclist, and where the best bicycling routes are in San
Antonio and the vicinity. Cliff will show scenic slides of
the bike routes and will have handouts available.
Refreshments will be served following the event.
Learn more
about The San Antonio
Wheelmen and try cycling today!
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Warm Up for
Christmas at the Guerra Library
 The
Guerra branch library, located near Lackland Air Force Base,
was named after the author and broadcast journalist Henry A.
Guerra Jr., the first Mexican-American television announcer
in a major English-language radio network. The library
serves a large community of Spanish speakers, including
bilingual young patrons. Since its opening on July 14, 2004,
the community around the library has been a lively
participant in Christmas events at the library. In the first
year, a tree trimming party drew a large number of families
who came or donated handmade ornaments. An event that was
scheduled to last 2 hours ended up lasting all day,
beginning early in the morning with the first ornament
donated and handmade by a family that still attends the storytime on Wednesday mornings.
The Tree Trimming Party has become a tradition in the
library, and this year there will be several additional
events in partnership with local schools. The programs will
start on December 2, when the library will host a Christmas
Card Workshop given by a professional card maker. Three
choirs and two orchestras – one of them a mariachi group –
from Anson Jones Middle School, Meadow Village Elementary
School, Sunnybrook Christian Academy and John Jay High
School will perform holiday songs in English and Spanish on
several different days in December. Cable Elementary School
will present “Goldilocks and the Three Books,” a special
holiday play. Finally, students from Passmore Elementary
School will present an art exhibit highlighting world
celebrations.
We may not have snow, but the Christmas spirit will
certainly fill the
Guerra library community this year.
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Crosswords
 19
Down: Holds your place while reading. 9 letters, second letter is ‘o’.
Any ideas?
Bookmarks!
For many people a daily
crossword is a ritual not to be missed.
This December, Americans
will have been celebrating 93 years of crossword puzzles. Arthur Wynne
published his new style of word puzzle in The New York World on
December 21, 1913, under the heading word-cross. While the new
newspaper puzzles became popular, it took the publication of a crossword
puzzle book in 1924 to really set off a crossword craze. Today most
major American newspapers carry one.
In addition to the regular
daily newspaper versions, there are many online versions of crosswords,
cryptic crosswords, and specialized crosswords in magazine and book
formats. Though it held out until 1942 to publish a crossword puzzle,
the puzzle most famous and usually regarded as the most difficult to
solve is the New York Times crossword edited by Will Shortz.
Shortz has been the editor
of the NYT crossword since 1993 and is the most famous puzzle editor. He
has been the subject of a recent documentary, Wordplay, the
editor of over 100 word puzzle books and co-hosts a radio puzzle on
NPR. He also has one of the largest collections of puzzle books (over
20,000!) and is the only person in the world to hold a degree in Enigmatology, the study of puzzles.
While we all can’t be
enigmatologists, you can certainly practice your puzzle skills today!
Check out these online crosswords:
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FEATURED Staff
Recommendation |
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THE SAN ANTONIO PUBLIC LIBRARY STAFF LOVES
TO READ!
Tapley Trudell (Librarian,
Brook Hollow Library) curls up with a good book.
Currently Reading Nonfiction
Death of a Darklord by
Laurell K. Hamilton
Favorite Fiction
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
Favorite Children's Books
Anne of Green Gables by L.M.
Montgomery
Favorite Audiobooks
Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth
Peters, read by Barbara Rosenblat
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FEATURED
Database |
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World Book Online Reference Center
From A (“A is the first letter of our alphabet”) to
Z (“Zworykin, Vladimir Kosma (1889-1982), was a Russian-born American
physicist and electronics engineer”), the World Book Online Reference
Center has your information needs covered.
Since 1917, World Book has been one of the most
trusted names in reference. They’ve brought the content of the
number-one selling print encyclopedia in the world to the Internet and
enhanced it for the 21st century.
In addition to an atlas, dictionary and multimedia
encyclopedia, the Online Reference Center has an "Educators'
Tools" section that ties World Book content to the Texas TEKS
standards, provides lesson plans and contains links of interest to
educators.
The "Explore
Texas" section guides the user to World Book resources
related to Texas. Spanish-language content and a search interface for
children are included, as well. Many entries are enriched by multimedia
content, such as sound and movie files, map images and more.
Check out all
our databases.
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FEATURED
Event |
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Free Supplemental Insurance for Medicare
Recipient
Do you have Medicare part A and/or B? If so,
you do not want to miss this program.
Tara Christensen from Health Net presents
"Free Supplemental Insurance for Medicare Recipients." Health Net
has partnered with Medicare to offer supplemental coverage to
increase benefits and reduce out-of-pocket costs. In many cases, the
coverage is available at no cost. Tuesday, December 19, 6:00 p.m.,
Central Library.
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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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Posted/Updated:
06/04/2008 |
