January is a great month in sports!

Late January is a fun time in the world of sports. We are on day five of the fourteen day hype carnival that culminates with the Super Bowl. The NBA has reached its halfway point (lollygagging players really turn it on now). The Australian Open men’s and women’s finals are this weekend. College basketball has begun conference play. Add to all this action the circus that is the Major League Baseball steroids scandal, and we’re in the midst of an epic month of sports.

The NFL Super Bowl Companion
Stats and stories from Super Bowl I to Super Bowl XXXVII

Won for All: The inside story of the New England Patriots' Improbable run to the Super Bowl
The 2007 Patriots are a juggernaut the likes of which have never been seen. The 2003 Patriots? Not so much, but they still won the Super Bowl.

Tip-off: How the 1984 NBA draft changed basketball forever
Akeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Sam Perkins, and John Stockton. That’s an impressive list of players who dominated the league for the next fifteen years.

Last Dance: Behind the Scenes at the Final Four
Feinstein—famous for A Season on the Brink—continues to craft epic and insider looks at the collegiate hardwood.

Juicing the Game: Dugs, Power, and the Fight for the Soul of Major League Baseball
Overview and analysis of the alleged rampant use of performance enhancing drugs throughout the game during the past fifteen seasons.

Breaking back: How I Lost Everything and Won Back My Life
James Black was bounced early from this year’s Australian Open, but so too were all the other big guns: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Andy Roddick.

Never too late to talk about Janis

I was lucky enough to grow up in a household where everybody loved music. From my grandpa I learned to enjoy opera, from my grandma, the music from the 1920’s and 1930’s in the US and Latin America. My mother listened to ballads and boleros, mambo and cha-cha-cha, but my uncle introduced me to Janis Joplin. I can still remember where I was sitting at my uncle’s lap, looking for endless hours at the cover of “Pearl,” a Janis Joplin LP that he treasured (and still does). While I looked at the pictures of Janis Joplin and admired the colors of her clothes and jewelry, I listened to her voice. Even though I was four years old, I could enjoy the beauty of her voice and her passionate singing. Now that I live in Austin, I have been to Threadgill’s on North Lamar many times, a restaurant that opened the doors to Janis and where she started to shine. Who would have thought, eh?

On January 19th, Janis Joplin’s birthday was celebrated not only in her home town, Port Arthur, Texas, but in many places around the world, including Austin. She is still considered one of the greatest artists of all time by Rolling Stone Magazine and she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.

Austin Public Library has all kinds of materials for you to check out about Janis Joplin:

Some books are:

Love, Janis

Scars of sweet paradise: life and times of Janis Joplin

Buried alive: the biography of Janis Joplin

Pearl : the obsessions and passions of Janis Joplin : a biography

And if you want to listen to her, these are some of the cd's we have:

Janis Joplin's greatest hits

Pearl

Cheap thrills

In case you want to travel around Texas, the Museum of the Gulf Coast has a permanent exhibit on the life of Janis Joplin.

Library of Congress Flickr Images

One of the librarians at Faulk Central Library enjoys reading Mental Floss (available at Central and Ruiz), a magazine for people who love learning new and interesting facts. The kind of stuff that can make you a good conversationalist at your next dinner party. She stumbled across a post about the Library of Congress’ Flickr page and shares it with us in today’s blog.

For those of you unfamiliar with Flickr, it is a free photo-sharing website where anyone with a digital camera or scanner can share their photos with the world (or just your friends if you are feeling sheepish). I have a Flickr account and many of my friends do as well. It’s a great way to keep in touch and share important memories with the people who are closest to you but not necessarily right next door.

Flickr offers a huge collection of images for your viewing pleasure. Some are beautiful, some are bizarre and some are just not that interesting unless you are in the photo; but I have yet to see a better example of Flickr in action than the Library of Congress’ Flickr account. The Flickr page is a project of the Prints and Photographs Division which houses 14 million of the Library's pictures. One of the goals of the project is to share some of the Library’s amazing collections with people who are interested in images and history but may not visit the Library’s own website.

As of right now there are only two collections of photos being featured on the page and they are truly breathtaking. My favorite is the 1930s-40s in Color. True to its name, this collection showcases over 1600 photos from the Great Depression and World War II eras and all images are in color. It is fascinating to see color images of a time in history that most of us think of in black and white, and in such vivid detail. Also, because Flick allows visitors to leave comments and create tags you can become an active participant of the project. The Library of Congress is encouraging that visitors add comments and tags to the images, especially those images with an incomplete history. According to the LOC Blog the Library of Congress’ account has already received about 1.1 million views.

To learn more about the project you can read the FAQ page or visit the main webpage of the Prints and Photographs Division. If you would like to learn more about Flickr or how to locate images online take a look at the Image Locator from the Austin Public Library’s Research Guides collection.

Keys to the Keyboard

Ever wonder what the mysterious Scroll Lock key does on your keyboard? Stanley Zarowin provides an answer in his “Technology Q&A” in the Journal of Accountancy (2004):

Although it was useful in the old DOS days, the Scroll Lock key has fallen into disuse-except for Excel, where it performs a very valuable function. For example, say you're working in Excel and you're in the middle of writing a formula in cell B2; then you realize you need some information to complete the formula-and that information is in cell IV65536. . . If you press Scroll Lock, you can move anywhere in the file, using your arrow keys, and your cursor will remain on B2. Now isn't that neat? (full text available through the Factiva Database).

Below are some other explanations of what some of those other keys or key combinations do according to Windows Help:

Print Screen: Copies the entire screen to the Clipboard.
Print Screen + Alt: Copies the image of the current window to the Clipboard
Num Lock: Toggles between the numeric and cursor control modes
Pause Break: Not really used except in some programming languages or games.
F1: Start Windows Help
F2: Rename object
F3: Search for a file or folder.
F4: Display the Address bar list in My Computer or Windows Explorer.
F4 + Alt: Close the active item, or quit the active program.
F5: Refresh the active window.
F6: Cycle through screen elements in a window or on the desktop.
F8: Hit while rebooting to enter Safe Mode
F10: Activate the menu bar in the active program.
F7, F9, F11, F12: May be used in certain programs. Check program Help files.

For more help, don’t forget that the library offers free computer classes!

John Updike, Dallas, one lucky librarian

Last Thursday was a good day: I was out of bed by 7:00, ate some breakfast tacos, and met John Updike. Dallas’ Nasher Sculpture Center hosted the literary titan as the inaugural guest of their 2008 Salon Series. The preeminent man of American letters discussed a variety of topics—writing, baseball, twentieth century American fiction—all with a razor sharp acumen gleaned from a life lived with books.

Once the evening was opened to audience questions, Updike commented on the legacy of American fiction over the past fifty years: big, introspective novels wrestling with emotion, identity, and relationships. He discussed contemporaries and offered Saul Bellow and Philip Roth as the pillars of post-WWII American literature. Asked what it was in Ted Williams that he so strongly admired, Updike stated that it was Williams’ approach to baseball—a focused and singular purpose towards excellence—that caught his eye. For this reader (and thousands of others), excellence and John Updike deservedly go hand in hand.

Reading fiction provides an opportunity to stretch our human dignity beyond our skin, to recognize (and empathize with) others’ struggles, to see that while each life is uniquely individual we still collectively feel, think, and live. John Updike’s writings harvest this simultaneously inward and outward experience.

I had but a brief moment to chat with Updike. I thanked him for coming to Dallas and wished him a safe flight home. With a warmth and eloquence attainable only through a thoughtful life, he smiled and thanked me. He truly is a legend, and I count myself fortunate to have been in attendance.

A selection of some of Updike's works available at the Austin Public Library:

FICTION

Rabbit, Run

Rabbit Redux

Rabbit is Rich

Rabbit at Rest

The Witches of Eastwick

Early Stories

Licks of Love

ESSAYS

Due Considerations

More Matter

Odd Jobs

Hugging the Shore

Money Loves Company

Investing in the stock market can seem like a scary and daunting endeavor. Fortunately, it is now easier than ever before to develop a community of performance based individual investors from which to glean and offer advice on which stocks to buy, sell, and avoid altogether. At http://www.bullpoo.com/, “users are rated and ranked against other members based on the performance of trades they make in a virtual portfolio.” At http://www.feelingbullish.com/, “users can issue ratings on individual stocks and then earn a score based on how the stock performs.” Lastly, at http://www.socialpicks.com/, “users can invite other people to their network, share tips and track other members’ investment performance with members’ scores being based on the performance of their picks and other users’ feedback.”

These resources are just a sampling of similar kinds of sites designed to fulfill the same purpose. To see a full list of websites and to read a more in-depth article on the subject please refer to, “A New Way To Rate Stock Tips --- Crop of Networking Sites for Investors Track the Performance Of Users' Picks; Finding Your Market Soul Mate”, published in the January 3, 2007 edition of the “Wall Street Journal.” You can read the full text of this article from the convenience of your home or office computer by utilizing the Austin Public Library’s access to the Factiva database.

Your Online Library

An article in The New York Times last week (1/7/2008) cited a recent study that found library use is more prevalent among people who have Internet access at home or at work. The percentage of people with broadband access using the library was 61%, compared to 39% who did not have broadband. The study also reported that people from the 18 to 30 age group were most likely to have used the library within the last year.

One reason for this gap may be that so many library services are online. From the Austin Public Library’s website, users can search the catalog, place holds, renew titles, find full-text articles using the databases, read electronic books, ask questions by email, and sometime this spring, download books.

For the 39% without broadband access, Austin Public Library offers free public computer access, computer classes, and a very helpful Telephone Reference service (974-7400).

Friendships lost in time? Not anymore!

Have you ever wondered what happened with your childhood friends? Or that high school classmate that used to go with you everywhere? Yes, it is amazing how time flies and we lose connection with those people that were so important in our lives at some point.

Nowadays, however, there are more and more ways to find our old friends, or why not, to make new friends too. My Space is one of those tools. You can create an account and you can have a network of friends that have My Space accounts too. You can exchange messages, pictures, videos, etc., with them at no cost. Other similar tools, and equally popular, are Facebook, Classmates.com and Reunion.com. These websites are very popular among English speakers in America, there are, though, other similar sites in multiple languages around the world with the purpose of creating social networks. Some of them are: Hi5, Friendster, Orkut, Bebo, and Netlog.

The only limitation with these types of sites is that in order to find a friend, he or she needs to have an account on that web site too. Another obstacle is that you have to create an account yourself in order to access their information and in some cases, a paid subscription is required. In case you want to pursue the search of your childhood buddies, you can try one of our databases that contain residential information: Reference USA. You can access this database remotely with your library card number or at any of our libraries. Happy friends hunting!!!

Pricing Your Antiques and Collectibles

The Library has recently added Price It! Antiques and Collectibles to its database collection. Price It! is an easy-to-use online resource for those who purchase, sell or collect art, antiques and collectibles. The database is full of photos and descriptions to help you find your item. Price It! looks at thousands of antiques and collectibles to help you find realistic values. Users may search by item type, sales date, or restrict the search to sold or unsold results.

We hope this new database helps you price your antiques and collectibles. Price It! is a subscription database that the Library pays for. There are also free websites that may help you buy, sell and trade:

Kovel's Online
Just Glass Online
Antique Pottery and Ceramics Directory
e-Yakimono Japanese Pottery
Replacements Ltd.
Online Encyclopedia of Silver Marks, Hallmarks & Makers' Marks
The Online Encyclopedia of American Silver Marks

Online classes

With the holidays over and the writer’s strike continuing you just might find yourself with some available time. Use it wisely and take a free online class. Many universities are now offering public access to some of their courses including videos of lectures, class handouts, and reading lists. All this without the pressure of grades or attendance policies! Of course, the library has plenty of supplemental reading in case you are craving more on a particular subject!

MIT OpenCourseWare: choose from 1800 courses in all subject areas

OpenUW Free Courses (University of Washington): 11 online courses including The American Civil War, History of Jazz: New Orleans, and HTML Basics

Carnegie Mellon's Open Learning Initiative: study Engineering Statistics, Statistics, Causal Reasoning, Biology, Chemistry, Economics, French, Logic & Proofs, Physics, and Empirical Research Methods

World Lecture Hall (University of Texas at Austin): publishes links to pages created by faculty worldwide

webcast.berkeley: podcasts and webcasts of UC Berkeley courses

Tufts OpenCourseWare: choose from courses in medicine, nutrition, and arts and sciences

Some good Texas stuff

Texas is fortunate to have some big time writers. McMurtry, Porter, O’Henry, and McCarthy all penned great stories in and about Texas, but going beyond the realm of fiction, our state boasts numerous historians, essayists, and preservers of the Texas experience. Below are a few collections I have enjoyed over the past year.

Larry McMurtry’s In a Narrow Grave: essays on Texas
Props up and debunks the Cowboy myth

Larry McMurtry’s Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen: reflections at sixty and beyond
The preeminent Texas writer’s memoir on reading, writing, and being Texan

Dagoberto Gilb’s Gritos
Great essays on Chicano Texas

Don Graham’s Giant Country: essays on Texas
Witty essays from the comedic and encyclopedic professor

Lou Halsell Rodenberger’s Writing on the Wind: an anthology of West Texas women writers
Writings from the flat land and big sky part of Texas

Frances McNeely Leonard’s Conversations with Texas Writers

Money Magazine's Best of 2007

As a culture our interaction with the Internet continues to expand. The Internet has become a powerful tool in greatly augmenting our abilities to connect with each other on a personal level. It has also evolved into a crucial resource for purchasing, planning, and decision-making in regard to the management of personal finances and asset allocation. It is in this vein that I introduce to you some of “Money” magazine’s 28 most highly recommended websites to aide you in maximizing your investment returns and keeping as much of your hard earned cash in your bank account as possible in the coming year. For a full listing and a detailed explanation of the web resources included below please consult the January 2008 issue of “Money” or find the full text of the article using the Austin Public Library’s Masterfile database.


Personal Finance:

TO TRACK ALL YOUR MONEY IN ONE PLACE
Moneycenter.yodlee.com

Car Buying:

GET THE BEST PRICE
CarDeals.org

Best Sites for Investment Advice:

TO GET IDEAS
Pimco.com

Shopping:

TO HUNT FOR BARGAINS
FatWallet.com

Career Networking:

TO MEET NEW PEOPLE
LinkedIn.com

Home Buying:

TO CHECK OUT REAL ESTATE
Trulia.com

College:

TO START THE SEARCH
nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator

WOTY

Dictionary editors are using a "word of the year' ritual as a way to get publicity for their dictionaries. It's also a way to check to see if you are keeping up with current trends.

Merriam Webster's WOTY is w00t, which is an interjection that expresses joy.

New Oxford Dictioanry's WOTY is locavore, which is someone who eats locally grown foods.

Webster's New World Dictionary's WOTY is a phrase - "grass station", a theoretical place where cars could fill up with ethanol one day.

The American Dialect Society will hold its 2007 words-of-the-year vote January 4th in Chicago. The society claims that it is "the
longest-running such vote anywhere, the only one not tied to commercial interests, and the word-of-the-year event up to which all others lead."

Rock ‘N’ Roll Novels

If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to start your own band, or to listen to more music, then you might want to start by reading a rock and roll novel.

The Exes is about an up-and-coming underground Boston band comprised of people who used to date each other.

Bill Flanagan, music journalist and current executive vice president of MTV, reveals the ins and outs of the recording industry in A&R.

Nick Hornby's first novel, High Fidelity is about a music junkie, record collector, and owner of London record store who experiences a self-discovery.

Lewis Shiner's Say Goodbye: The Laurie Moss Story tells the story of the rise and fall of Laurie Moss, a singer-songwriter who almost makes it.

Jesse Melungeon, is a 20-year-old bassist for a bar cover band in Anything Goes.

Reservation Blues is Sherman Alexie's brilliant novel that brings to life band members and their on-the-road experiences.

Less than heroic

Some of the most intriguing characters in literature, movies, and television have been antiheroes. Take for instance, Curb Your Enthusiasm's Larry David, Michael Scott (or David Brent) from The Office, or Alex Vega from Cane. These are the protagonists that just don’t quite live up to our heroic ideals due to some character or personality flaw. Nonetheless, they do capture our interest and hopefully a little bit of understanding or sympathy for their human failings. The antihero label is subjective and therefore not always an easy one to bestow on characters. Below are just few examples of antiheroes and antiheroines. Feel free to disagree or to suggest others!

• Scarlett O'Hara – Gone with the Wind by Mitchell, Margaret


• Yossarian – Catch-22 by Joseph Heller


• Lily Bart – The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton


• Holden Caulfield – Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger


• Axel Vander – Shroud by John Banville


• Virgil Selby – The Real McCoy by Darin Strauss


• Fabien Golpiez – Naming the Jungle: A Novel by Antoine Volodine


• David Lurie - Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee


• Cassie Black - Void Moon by Michael Connelly
  
  

Mitchell Report and Baseball

Some say it’s a token gesture while others applaud baseball for addressing the steroid era. The Mitchell Report was released last week and tips the scales at a stout 409 pages. It names 88 players alleged to have taken steroids or human growth hormones over the past decade to improve their baseball prowess. While the report has no judicial power, Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig has stated that he will consider punishing the players mentioned. How this affects the future of baseball is uncertain. Congressional hearings are slated for January to discuss the findings of the Mitchell Report. Depending on those findings, the 2008 season might have a different look to it, namely missing a few notable players. Amid this confusion, one thing is for sure: baseball is still popular. Major League Baseball set a league-wide attendance record last year while grossing over $6 billion and expects to surpass that in 2008.

If you’re looking to catch up on the hoopla concerning performance enhancing drugs and baseball, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams’ Game of Shadows is an excellent read. Noted steroid-user and home-run basher, Jose Canseco released a 2005 tell-all called Juiced that reveals his and others rampant steroid use throughout the past two decades. Canseco has another tell-all on the way and is promising to name more names. I wonder if he’ll mention his refusal to toss me a batting practice ball in 1988?

Holiday Recordings

If you want to get into the holiday mood, check out some holiday music: Christmas with Yolanda Adams, Julie Andrews' Greatest Christmas Songs, Making Spirits Bright, Ray Charles' Spirit of Christmas, Lou Rawls’ Merry Christmas, Baby, Marty Sexton’s Camp Holiday. Two from Texas are One More Christmas and Jerry Jeff Walkers’ Christmas Gonzo Style. Three international recordings are Circle of Light, Vuelve por Navidad and Homecoming from South Africa. You can find more holiday recordings by searching for carols, christmas music, or holiday music as a subject. If you are looking for the recording of a particular song, type the name of the song as “search everything” followed by {505} which searches for song titles in the contents field. An example: auld lang syne {505}


You can also download some free Christmas music.

Making Decisions

Some new consumer web sites that will help us vote, travel, buy a new car, or purchase other new items:

truth o meter
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/

factcheck
http://factcheck.org/

travel awards
http://travelandleisure.com/worldsbest/2007/index.cfm

best cars
http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/

opinions
http://wize.com/

Traveling librarian goes to the International Book Fair in Guadalajara

Every year, the last week of November, the city of Guadalajara, Mexico, opens its doors to thousands of people from all over the world visiting their International Book Fair. This is the second most important book fair in the world after the one in Frankfurt Germany. Lucky me, I got to go!

More than 1,600 vendors and more than 500,000 people attended this prestigious event. Writers from around the world presented their books and spent time with their fans, for example: Arturo Pérez Reverte from Spain, Tahar Bekri from Turkey, Rubem Fonseca from Brazil and Chenjerai Hove from Zimbabwe.

An amazing mass of local teenagers stood in line every day to participate and also have their pictures taken in front of their favorite publisher stand’s, holding a book in their hands as if it were a trophy. Parents with their little children, retirees, all kinds of people, from all ages and different countries were there, sharing ideas and talking about their favorite books. The never-ending line, outside the Expo Center where the book fair was held, was a clear indicator that for nine days, that was the place to be.

If you didn’t have a chance to go this year, don’t worry, next year, you will have another opportunity to participate of this great event! For more information visit this website.

Tennis, Anyone?

US tennis players have not done that well the last few years in Grand Slam matches, but the US team recently won the Davis Cup, thanks to James Blake, Andy Roddick, and Bob and Mike Bryan.

Blake beat the Russian player Tursunov to bring the US final score to 4-1 to win the Davis Cup in Portland, Oregon December 1. The U.S. hadn't won the gigantic silver trophy since 1995, foiled not only by tennis-rich countries such as Spain, Sweden and Australia but also by Croatia and Russia. You can watch match highlights from the Davis Cup.

In Breaking Back, James Blake tells the dramatic story of the tumultuous year that followed a convergence of tragedies in Blake’s life, including a serious injury and the death of his father. The Davis Cup victory certainly confirms his "breaking back".

This winter is predicted to be dry and warm, so you don’t need to wait until spring to pick up a racket. The City of Austin has courts throughout the city .

If you would rather enjoy tennis off the courts, please see this list of tennis fiction, including two films.

Drop Shot by Harlan Coben. Sports agent Myron Bolitar has under contract one of the hottest young male tennis players around. When a young former tennis star is murdered he finds that his client may be connected.

McNeils’ Match by Gwynne Forster. A tennis love story.

Murder is My Racket by Otto Penzler. This collection of stories by famous mystery writers, including Ridley Pearson and Lawrence Block, deal with the prestige of the high-stakes race to become one of the few international tennis stars.

The Tournament by John Clarke. The greatest minds of the 20th century-128 of them to be exact-have gathered in Paris for a two-week tennis tournament.

Match Point
Wimbledon

Happy 58th, Tom

If there is one entertainer I would spare no expense seeing, it would be Tom Waits. In one of my favorite albums, Closing Time (1973), his signature craggy voice has not yet been fully developed, but his heartfelt lyrics and melodies are astounding especially considering this is his debut album. The song "Martha" brings me to tears every single time I hear it no matter what my mood. In his 2004 album Real Gone, Waits steps away from his jazzy/bluesy/folksy origin to a bellowing, industrial sound. He has achieved a cult following as well as two Grammies, a Golden Globe, and an Oscar nomination. He's also appeared in several movies including Ironweed, The Cotton Club, and Short Cuts (a great role alongside Lily Tomlin), as well as composed for films. He's a class act who has no fear in pursuing new endeavors and styles. With a career spanning over 30 years, you're bound to find something you love about him. Rolling Stone provides articles, reviews, a biography, and much more, and you can find the following at the Austin Public Library:

Music:
Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards
Mule Variations
Real Gone
The Early Years. Volume Two

Frank's Wild Years: Un Operachi Romantico in Two Acts

Swordfishtrombones

Movies
One from the Heart – music by Tom Waits

Coffee and Cigarettes
Short Cuts

Mystery Men
Bram Stoker's Dracula

Books:
Wild years: The Music and Myth of Tom Waits
Innocent When You Dream: The Tom Waits Reader

2007: Top Ten Lists

The end of the year brings “end of the year lists.” Before we turn our gaze towards the new releases of 2008, December serves as a time to look across the expanse of 2007 and compile our favorites: those memorable books that we read, recommended to others, and just might see canonized as classics down the road. Be on the look out as publications begin to release their “best of 2007” lists.

The New York Times’ Ten Best Books of 2007:

FICTION:

Man Gone Down

Out Stealing Horses

The Savage Detectives

Then We Came to the End

Tree of Smoke

NONFICTION:

Imperial Life in the Emerald City

Little Heathens: Hard times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm during the Great Depression

The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court

The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History (on order)

The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (on order)

Some 2007 books I enjoyed or look forward to reading:

Falling Man

Exit Ghost

Bearing the Body

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Divisadero

The Gathering

Refresh, Refresh (on order)

Like You’d Understand, Anyway (on order)

Beethoven Was One-Sixteenth Black (on order)

The New York Times also compiled a 100 Notable Books of the Year list.

Latin Redux

An editorial in today's New York Times is about the revival of Latin. The author believes this trend could strengthen the country's political rhetoric. Reading the foundations of Western civilization in its original form is a richer, fuller experience, and opens one eyes up to our classical roots. And, translating Latin is a wonderful way to train the mind. All of our early presidents studied Latin in school, and even Presidents Clinton and Bush studied Latin, but in in the mid 1960s the study of Latin collapsed. In 1977 only 6,000 students took the National Latin Exam, but in 2005 that number increased to 134,873.

Those of you who were lucky enough to have studied Latin, please visit the new website, Vicipaedia. The goal of Vicipaedia is to keep Latin hip and alive, but the articles are written in authentic classical Latin. Some articles are written by beginning Latin students, so Vicipaedia should not be used as a reference work, but as a way to practice the language.

Vicipaedia has 15,000 articles. Catullus, Horace and the Roman Senate are included; so are musica rockica, Georgius Bush and cadavera animata, aka zombies. You can read in Latin about hangman (homo suspensus), paper airplanes (aeroplanum chartaceum), as well as about famous Italians like Leonardo da Vinci and the Super Mario brothers.

New Movie Tie-ins

Often movies are based on books - what better place to get a screenplay idea? If you would like to read the book before you see the movie (or after), place a hold on one of the titles listed below. Two of America's best living authors - Cormac McCarthy and Philip Roth - are included.

Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) - Two lovers must wait 50 years in early 20th-century South America to be reunited.

Atonement (Ian McKewan)- Haunting novel that spans pre-World War II England to contemporary times that addresses guilt and redemption.

Beowulf - Epic poem in which the mighty warrior Beowulf must slay Grendel, a murderous monster, and then the beast's vengeful mother.

Elegy (Based on the novel The Dying Animal) by Philip Roth) A professor becomes obsessively attracted to one of his students.

The Mist (Stephen King) Townspeople come under siege by mysterious creatures after a bizarre storm.

Starting Out in the Evening (Brian Morton) A graduate student becomes attached to an elderly writer she once idolized.

No Country for Old Men (Cormac McCarthy) Dark tale of drugs and bloodshed in the wild present-day West.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Jean Dominque Bauby) Extraordinary memoir by a French magazine editor who had "locked in" syndrome after suffering a rare stroke to his brain stem.

Charlie Wilson's War (George Crile) A longtime Sixty Minutes producer investigates the expenditure of what eventually amounted to $1 billion a year to support Afghanistan's Mujahideen in their battle against the Soviets.

Electronic Books: Welcome to a New Era

When people talk about electronic books they might be thinking about those books that you can read with the use of a special portable device or those that can be read on your computer. In both cases, the text of the book will be read in a screen or monitor and it is not in printed format.

This month Amazon launched Kindle, a portable screen that connects to the Internet and displays newspapers, blogs, magazines and books. This isn’t, however, the first of its kind. Ebookwise has had a similar gadget where you can read and store your favorite books. The Portable Reader by Sony has the same purpose. There are other similar devices in the market that provide the same advantages: light screens, portable and versatile machines.

As mentioned before, the other type of e-books are those that you can read directly on your computer screen. It is not necessary to buy another piece of equipment to display these books. Organizations around the world have been working to provide as many free electronic books through the Internet as possible. An example is Project Gutenberg that offers a total of 100,000 electronic books online. Austin Public Library subscribes to NetLibrary, a database that contains 27,000 titles that you can access from the library or from home. To learn more about this particular database, just click here and enjoy your electronic reading!

Finding a Good Book

Amazon customer reviews for the same book frequently range between one star and five stars. Award winning books can be great or unreadable. Your best friend's recommendation sits on the night table racking up overdue fines because you just can't get past the first page. In other words, sometimes it's hard to find a good book to read or to give someone.

A new website called shelfari may help you find a book that you will enjoy. It's a social networking site for book lovers that functions like an online book club. Users can post titles they own and make lists of books they want. Each entry is then placed on a virtual bookshelf that is publicly viewable. Users categorize their books and and can join groups. Shelfari makes it easy to see what your friends are reading, what others with similar tastes have enjoyed, and even get and give book recommendations.

For more ideas, check out the Library's Good Reads. For current book titles, see Best Fiction by Year. My personal favorite website under Reader's Tools is Overbooked which includes annotated lists of nonfiction, fiction, science fiction, and mystery books which received starred reviews.

If you want to slog thought 137 titles that have been nominated by libraries around the world for the year's best novel, see the 2008 International Impac Dublin Literary Award list.
For fiction and nonfiction, see the New York times best 100 books of the year.

Last but definitely not least, the Library offers the database, Fiction Connection, where you can browse titles by topic, genre, setting, character, location, and timeframe and read short plot summaries.

Shopping tips

It's the day after Thanksgiving so let the holiday shopping begin! In addition to the regular retail stores don't forget to visit the local artists' markets for unique gifts. The Armadillo Christmas Bazaar and the Blue Genie Art Bazaar are two worth checking out.

If you need a little help choosing the best item for your money, Consumer Reports is available in the libraries and online through our Research Databases. Visit our E-journal Finder, type in Consumer Reports, and click Search. Click on Academic Search Complete (you will be asked to enter your library card number if you are access the database remotely). From here, you can either browse by clicking the year or click the Search within this publication link to do a keyword search. Enter your keywords on the second line. You can always Ask a Librarian if you have questions.

A few more consumer titles are listed below along with the history and psychology of shopping:

Shopping Online Safely

Savvy Online Shopping: Your Guide to Getting the Best Products--At the Best Prices--On Line!

The Bottom Line Bargain Book: How to Get the Best Deals on Anything and Everything

The Consumer Bible: 1001 Ways to Shop Smart

Going Shopping: Consumer Choices and Community Consequences

Spree: A Cultural History of Shopping

The Call of the Mall: A Walking Tour through the Crossroads of Our Shopping Culture

Why We Shop: Emotional Rewards and Retail Strategies

I Want That!: How We All Became Shoppers

Carried Away: The Invention of Modern Shopping

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! All Austin Public Library locations will close today at 6:00pm for Thanksgiving. We will be closed Thanksgiving Day as well as Friday and will re-open Saturday morning at 10:00. The Austin Public Library wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy the food, family, and football.

Fictional Biographies

Two novels about Henry James have been published within the last few years - Author, Author by David Lodge and Master by Colin Toibin. I had always heard that Henry James attended dinner parties as often as possible, giving his hosts dazzling conversation in return for the hospitality. But these books tell a different story. James actually withdrew quite a bit into himself in order to write his novels. An anecdote from a new book titled The New Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes illustrates this contradiction.

"He would occasionally say he was a hermit, and speak as if he lived a life remote from the world. I once heard him say this during a brilliant party at Stafford House, where he was the guest of Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland."

Other recent fictional biographies you may enjoy:

Arthur and George (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Becoming Madame Mao
Casanova in Bohemia
Dancing in the Dark (Bert Williams, first really famous black entertainer)
Fanny: a Fiction (Fanny Wright - Scottish gentlewoman, abolitionist)
True History of the Kelly Gang (Ned Kelly, Australian outlaw)
Loving Frank (Frank LLoyd Wright)
Oscar Wilde Discovers America
Wintering: a Novel of Sylvia Plath

Build Your Vocabulary!

The editors of the American Heritage® dictionaries have compiled a list of 100 words they recommend every high school graduate should know.

"The words we suggest," says senior editor Steven Kleinedler, "are not meant to be exhaustive but are a benchmark against which graduates and their parents can measure themselves. If you are able to use these words correctly, you are likely to have a superior command of the language." If you need to look up the definition or pronunciation of a word, please see the Library's Oxford English Dictionary database.
The following are a few dozen from the 100 word list.

abjure
abrogate
abstemious
acumen
auspicious
belie
bellicose
chicanery
churlish
deleterious
diffident
enervate
epiphany
evanescent
expurgate
facetious
fatuous
feckless
hegemony
homogeneous
hubris
inculcate
infrastructure
irony
jejune
kinetic
loquacious
lugubrious
nihilism
nonsectarian
obsequious
oligarchy
paradigm
parameter
pecuniary
precipitous
quotidian
reciprocal
reparation
sanguine
tautology
thermodynamics
unctuous
vacuous
vehement
vortex
xenophobe

2007 National Book Awards

The National Book Awards will be announced tonight. Writers, publishers, agents, and librarians will descend upon midtown Manhattan for a black-tie gala to celebrate the best of American writing this year. Simply being nominated is a significant coup, but to win elevates a writer into the immortalized pantheon of National Book Award winners that includes the likes of Faulkner, Bellow, Roth, Updike, Proulx, and Welty. Awards are given in four categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and young people’s literature.
A list of finalists and corresponding interviews are available on the National Book Foundation’s website: http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2007.html

Check back for the results and head to the library to grab a winner or a finalist.

*Update: The 2007 National Book Award winners*

Fiction: Tree of Smoke (Denis Johnson)

Nonfiction: Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (Tim Weiner)

Young People’s Literature: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Sherman Alexie)

Poetry: Robert Hass’ Time and Materials

Veterans Day

Today the Library is closed in observance of Veterans Day.

Although it is largely an American holiday, honoring and thanking veterans for their service, this holiday is celebrated on the same day as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day in other countries. In America, Woodrow Wilson declared in 1919:

“To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…”

In 1954, the name of the holiday Wilson commemorated as Armistice Day, was officially changed to Veterans Day by President Eisenhower. You can read more about Veterans Day at the US Department of Veterans Affairs website.

Remember to thank a Veteran today!

Local theater

While Austin is known as the "Live Music Capital of the World," we also have a very vibrant local theater community. In addition to the well-known Paramount Theater and State Theater Company and the Zachary Scott Theatre, there are several smaller theaters and theater companies that are definitely worth checking out. Take a look at the Austin Circle of Theaters web site for a listing of all the options available. You can find comedy, dance, musicals, outdoor theater, children's theater, and everything in between.

If you are in the theater biz, and are looking for funding sources, check out the Foundation Directory database at any library location to find grant opportunities. We also have several books about acting and producing for the theater:

At Play: Teaching Teenagers Theater

Career Opportunities in Theater and the Performing Arts

The Alchemy of Theatre: The Divine Science: Essays on Theatre & the Art of Collaboration

Stage Combat: Fisticuffs, Stunts, and Swordplay for Theater and Film

The Commercial Theater Institute Guide to Producing Plays and Musicals

Sculpting Space in the Theater: Conversations with the Top Set, Light and Costume Designers
Business and Legal Forms for Theater

How to Run a Theatre: A Witty, Practical and Fun Guide to Arts Management

Modern African Fiction

Africa boasts an amazing collection of writers. From Dangarembga’s familial strife to Gordimer’s race relations, Africa offers a diverse and noteworthy literary canon. Some of Africa’s great works were written in exile, while others have been penned in African metropolises such as Lagos, Johannesburg, and Nairobi.

When Nelson Mandela was released from Robben Island, one of the first people he sought out was his old friend, Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer. African fiction helped bust apart colonialism and now addresses varied topics such as cultural isolation, disease epidemics, and poverty. It’s not all doom and gloom though. The writing is beautiful and affirms the wonders of the family and the community.

Chinua Achebe Things Fall Apart

J.M. Coetzee Disgrace

Tsitsi Dangarembga Nervous Conditions

Nadine Gordimer July’s People

Nuruddin Farrah Secrets

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Half of a Yellow Sun

Charles Larson (ed.) Under African Skies: Modern African Stories

Ben Okri The Famished Road

Ngugi wa Thiong’o Wizard of the Crow

Bessie Head A Question of Power

Searching for Video Clips

Source:Gale Virtual Reference Library



This weekend I needed to learn how to tie a bow tie. I quickly found lots of videos with step-by-step instructions on how to tie a bow tie. But sometimes, searching for videos, the hottest content on the Web right now, isn’t easy. I found my bow tie videos on Google's popular YouTube site, but Youtube is not the only place to look for videos. You won't find videos from other sites, especially copyrighted clips that YouTube doesn't offer or has removed from its site.

When looking for a clips from your favorite TV show or for a recent news story, try these video-search engines, especially Truveo. Truveo seems to offer the most relevant clips, and includes a large selection of popular and high demand video that cannot be found in any other search engine. It looks beyond metadata attached to the video file itself and explores the content on the website around the video - resulting in more data to index and better search results. For example, using Truveo, you can find Daily Show clips on the Comedy Central website instead of just looking for them on Youtube.

AOL’s www.truveo.com
Yahoo’s www.yahoo.com/video
Blinkx.com www.blinkx.com
Google’s www.youtube.com

Texas Book Festival

You should look through the list of the authors coming to the Texas Book Festival to find who you would like to hear speak. I have chosen my favorites – a mystery writer, a painter, a cartoonist, and a book critic. While you enjoy the festive air of book signings, music, and interviews, you are also helping Texas libraries. The 2006 Texas Book Festival awarded a total of $200,000 to 60 libraries throughout the state.

Michael Connelly – Overlook is his latest mystery about an LA detective, but my favorite is The Concrete Blonde.

Melissa Miller – Her expressionistic animal paintings can be seen in a new UT Press book.

Tom Perotta – His entertaining books about suburban life are often made into movies – The Election, and Little Children. The Abstinence Teacher, his most recent, is on order for APL.

Roz Chast– Her cartoons of the neurotic and clueless appear in the New Yorker, and APL has one collection.

Alan Cheuse - You might have heard him on NPR reviewing a new book. Like Jorge Luis Borges, he says, "I am more proud of the books I've read than I am of the books I've written." Listening to the Page is a collection of his criticism.