Secret Gardens
 We
hope you enjoyed learning about gardening during our Cesar Chavez
programs. Spring is an ideal time for planting, but it's also one of
those seasons where you can go book-walking and enjoy natural
reading areas. Let's take a look at several enticing secret gardens
at your library.
Have you tried the San Pedro Branch Library? A little branch
with a big history, San Pedro is located in a lovely park with huge
live oak trees and intimate park benches. Behind the library you
will find a beehive-shaped Victorian-era “Summer Home” with a
fountain on top. This is referred to commonly as “The Grotto.” Its
original intent was to keep food items cool but people also sit
around the ledge that surrounds it to stay a bit cooler on hot
summer days. It makes a great outdoor reading space.
The Central Library is just a couple of steps from the
Riverwalk, so you can grab a book or three and enjoy one of the
scenic benches along the water. Just head out of the library and
walk down Augusta Street to the old iron bridge. What better way to
learn about Texas native plants than to see them growing alongside a
favorite reading spot?
The Collins Garden Branch Library is located in Collins
Gardens Park, a perfect place to relax on the lawn. Bring a large
picnic blanket and read your favorite poetry to each other during
National Poetry Month or just kickback with your favorite children's
story.
The Julia Yates Semmes Branch Library is connected to
Comanche Park through winding natural paths and trails. Patrons are
often delighted to find that the library porch is open for their
reading and exploring. Morning is a great time to see wildlife in
the park: bird song greets the ear, and, if you are lucky, wild
rabbits can be spotted on the trails.
Our newest branch, the John Igo Library, is located in a
gorgeous oak grove. A natural area features seating stones
underneath a large heritage oak tree. Within the library, stunning
views of the oaks surround readers and provide a quiet environment.
A 40-foot windmill helps to power the building's circulation pump.
Igo is a great place to learn about green power resources and was
featured in a recent issue of American Libraries.
The Landa Branch Library will soon be re-opening with a
beautiful outdoor landscape donated by the Landa Gardens
Conservancy. Along with 30 public benches for quiet reads, patrons
can wander along beautiful walking paths or check out the community
garden. A “faux bois” pavilion is a beautiful centerpiece for the
five-acre park. The garden ribbon-cutting will take place at 10:00
a.m. on Thursday, May 1, followed by a gala that evening. Tickets to
the gala are available - please call (210) 229-0600 or (210)
844-7001 for more information. Landa Library will open for full
service on its regular schedule beginning Friday, May 2, at 9:00
a.m.
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Getting Your
Recommended Daily Allowance of Literature
 Serialized
literature (think Charles Dickens or Uncle Tom’s Cabin)
was one way for an author to reach masses of people who
could not afford a book but could instead afford a
newspaper. “Although the price of books has gone way down
these days, it’s now the cost of our time that’s gone way
up,” blogs Susan Danziger, co-founder of
DailyLit, a web
service devoted to serializing literature and delivering it
via email or RSS feed.
How It Works
So let's say that you've always been putting off reading
War and Peace because it's too big to fit in your back
pocket or too heavy to read comfortably while in bed at
night. Maybe you just don't have a large block of time set
aside for reading. You can set up an account at DailyLit and
have the book delivered in pieces that can usually be read
in a few minutes. Customizing the delivery dates and times
can be as specific as your busy schedule allows. Before you
know it, you'll have caught up on a book you've been putting
off for way too long.
What’s the Collection Like?
Their catalog contains works in the public domain in diverse
genres and languages for audiences of all ages – from Jane
Austen's Pride & Prejudice to L. Frank Baum's Wizard
of Oz tales, from Don Quixote (en Español) to
Sherlock Holmes mysteries. Considering the wealth of mobile
devices that can connect to the Internet, such as cell
phones and PDAs, you’re not limited to just desktop reading.
Wherever and whenever you’re connected, there’s a world of
monomaniacal, peg-legged whalers, ravens tapping at chamber
doors and star-crossed lovers awaiting you.
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SAPL Community
Partners Awarded Grant for Health Outreach
 Bookmarks!
congratulates Natalia Arguello, (Librarian II -
Central Reference), and her collaborators, Sally Bauer
(Librarian I - Central Reference), Jimmy Jimenez
(Librarian II - Memorial) and Adam Spana (Library
Assistant - Central Reference), on the success of their
efforts to obtain a $5,000
Express Outreach Grant from the National Network of
Libraries of Medicine(NN/LM).
The successful
proposal, Promotoras and Libraries: Advancing Online
Health Information in San Antonio’s Underserved Communities,
establishes a partnership between SAPL, the University of
Texas Health Science Center-San Antonio Library and the
Edgewood Family Network to promote NN/LM medical databases,
such as Medline Plus and PubMed. The partners will target
their outreach to
ten ZIP codes that the San Antonio Metropolitan Health
District have designated as at-risk for health issues.
Other grant
recipients include Laredo Public Library for “Partners
for Children's Health” and Ochsner Health System Library,
New Orleans, for “Health Reference @ the Point of Care.”
Note: This
project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal
funds from the National Library of Medicine, National
Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human
Services, under Contract No. N01-LM-6-3505 under the Houston
Academy of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library.
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Listen Up
 Curious
about a new book, but all the copies are checked out? Perhaps you
don’t have time to sit down and read. The library has thousands of
popular titles available as downloadable audiobooks through two
different sources: NetLibrary and Overdrive. From our
catalog, you can search by
keyword or title – just limit your search to Format Type: Audio
Books - Downloadable.
Two big bonuses:
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Through NetLibrary, San Antonians have free access
to the entire Pimsleur Language catalog. Take the entire Spanish
language series, or just brush up with the Short Course. Planning a
trip to Ghana? Learn the language, Twi, ahead of time.
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Through Overdrive, SAPL also subscribes to music and
movies! Listen and learn the A to Zs of classical music, opera, or
just relax with their new line of jazz music. A good percentage of
items on Overdrive are also burnable to CD, if you don't have a
media player or prefer to listen in your car.
The future of downloadable audiobooks: Recently some audiobook
publishers have announced that they'll be offering their audiobooks
in MP3 format without DRM (that's “digital rights management”),
thereby allowing users of iPods long-awaited access to the library's
holdings of audiobooks. Overdrive anticipates that about 15% of its
catalog will then be compatible with iPods. At the end of June,
Overdrive plans to also release a Mac version of its media console.
One staff member’s secret for workout motivation? She allows herself
to listen to George Orwell’s 1984 only when she’s at the gym.
That keeps her going back.
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Featured Staff
Recommendation
 This
month's contributor: Marisa Sparks from Bazan Library.
I have loved reading and libraries for as long as I can remember.
Books have provided sanctuary and solace throughout the many twists
and turns in my life.
As a student currently working on my master's degree in
Library & Information Science, I find that the majority of
my reading these days is school-related. I always have
something I’m supposed to be reading but I also always have
something I’m reading just for fun.
For fun these days I have been exploring the world of
young adult literature. In the past year I’ve read Rick
Riordan’s
Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, Shannon
Hale’s
Book of
a Thousand Days, Robert Sharenow’s
My
Mother the Cheerleader and James St. James's
Freak
Show. I'm amazed by the breadth and depth of
selections available for young adults compared to when I was
that age. The topics discussed today cover subjects that
were just plain taboo in the '70s. I think it’s great that
this genre has developed for young adults.
Since I was an undergraduate history major, nonfiction
books have always captured my attention, as well. Two
extraordinary books that I have recently read are
Born on
a Blue Day: A Memoir: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an
Autistic Savant by Daniel Tammet and
Three
Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build
Nations...One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and
David Oliver Relin.
What’s on my coffee table?
Sports Illustrated, Library Journal,
Texas
Bug Book: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly by C.
Malcolm Beck & John Howard Garrett and
The
Illustrated History of the Civil War by David Roth.
What’s in my bathroom?
Glamour,
Guideposts,
Mind Over
Mood: Change the Way You Feel by Changing the Way You Think
by Dennis Greenberger & Christine Padesky and
I Am
America (and So Can You) by Stephen Colbert. |
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FEATURED
Announcement |
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San Antonio Public Library Announces Service Enhancements
On Monday,
March 31, library branches in the San Antonio Public Library
system added four additional public service hours to their
schedules. The
expanded
schedule increases service hours from 60 a week to 64,
or approximately 4,696 additional public service hours per
year.
On Mondays,
the Bazan, Collins Garden, Cortez, Johnston, Landa,
Memorial, San Pedro and Westfall branches and the Tobin
Library at Oakwell will open at 9:00 a.m. instead of 1:00
p.m.
The Brook
Hollow, Carver, Cody, Forest Hills, Great Northwest, Guerra,
Igo, Las Palmas, Maverick, McCreless, Pan American, Semmes,
and Thousand Oaks branches will all stay open an additional
four hours on Thursday evenings, until 9:00 p.m.
The Bannwolf
Library at Reagan High School also received additional
staffing through the Library’s contract with the Northeast
Independent School District and has already begun opening an
additional two hours per week during the school year. This
branch will be open an additional four hours per week during
summer vacation.
Library Board
Chair Jean Brady said, “We are glad that we can offer
extended service hours to the community, and appreciate City
Council’s approval of the Library staffing plan submitted
during the 2007-2008 budget cycle. The funding endorsed by
City Manager Sheryl Sculley and appropriated by the City
Council allowed us to re-deploy our staff and expand our
schedule.”
Library
Director Ramiro Salazar noted that throughout the past year,
the library had been adding other service enhancements:
“Using technology to perform routine tasks frees up staff to
provide direct customer assistance and has made it possible
for us to increase our service hours.”
New technology
implemented by the library includes an automated reservation
system for public-access computers; alerting patrons via
e-mail when materials they have requested are ready for
check-out; automated telephone renewal for borrowed items;
automatic e-mail notification of patrons when their
materials are almost due; and printed receipts showing due
dates, so that customers do not have to wait for borrowed
items to be stamped. |
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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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