Influential Authors

Time recently published its list of the 100 People Who Shape Our World and many of them are authors. Click on the author’s names below to see the Time profile, or click the title to see their latest work in the catalog:

Richard Dawkins - The Selfish Gene
Neil deGrasse Tyson - Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
Alan Stern - Worlds Beyond: The Thrill of Planetary Exploration
Frans de Waal - Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved
Al Gore - An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It
Lisa Randall - Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions
John Mather - The Very First Light: The True Inside Story of the Scientific Journey Back to the Dawn of the Universe
Chris Anderson - The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
Nora Roberts - Table for Two
David Mitchell - Black Swan Green: A Novel
Kara Walker - Kara Walker: Narratives of a Negress
Drew Gilpen Faust - Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War
Rhonda Byrne - The Secret
Michael J. Fox - Lucky Man: A Memoir
Michael Moritz - The Little Kingdom: The Private Story of Apple Computer
Hillary Rodham Clinton - Living History
Barack Obama - Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Michael Bloomberg - Bloomberg by Bloomberg

Cookbook Awards

James Beard 2007 Cookbook Awards were announced recently. Some of the award winners are listed below. Please click on the title to see which library location has the book or to place a hold.


Cradle of Flavor: Home Cooking from the Spice Islands of Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia by James Oseland

Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt and Ted Lee.

The Big Book of Outdoor Cooking and Entertaining by Cheryl Alters and Bill Jamison

Tasty: Get Great Food on the Table Every Day by Roy Finamore

Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way by Lorna Sass

The Soul of a New Cuisine: a Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa by Marcus Samuelsson

The Essence of Chocolate by John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg

Chick Lit Novels into Film

From the 1996 publication of Bridget Jones’s Diary that started the chick lit trend to the television sensation Sex and the City (based on the 2001 book by Candace Bushnell) that captured it on screen, chick lit has become a major pop culture phenomenon. One of most striking features of chick lit novels, is how often they are made into moves or TV series.

JoAnna Barrett's new novel, Men’s Guide to the Women’s Bathroom, has been generating a huge amount of buzz- not least because actor Hugh Jackman will produce the movie. Mr.Jackman has been quoted as saying, "It's a great read and a great laugh - and now we guys know what's really going on in there." Ms Barrett will be discussing and reading from her book Wednesday, May 23, at 7:00 on the 2nd floor of the downtown Faulk Central Library.

Looking at the Library's Chick Lit reading list, I found several other chick lit titles that will be on the screen soon: Bergdorf Blondes , The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, Good in Bed , Sammy’s Hill, and one of the biggest chick-lit books,
The Nanny Diaries.

Library Video Contest

Gale is the world’s largest reference and research publisher (books and databases) for public libraries and educational institutions, and to show appreciation to libraries and their users, they have announced a video contest.

Make a video between 30 seconds and two minutes long that describes what you love about the Austin Public Library (or any other library) and you could win a $10,000.00 grand prize in Thomson Gale’s I Love My Library video contest to split with the library you designate. The contest is open to both library users and library staff.

Load your video on Librareo, Thomson Gale's YouTube channel, before midnight on Friday, May 25, 2007 to enter. By June 1, 2007, Thomson Gale judges will determine the top five finalists based on creativity, unique portrayal of love of libraries and the services they provide, and overall appeal. The top five videos will be featured for a nationwide vote that will be held June 1-11. The video with the most votes wins the grand prize.

Find the complete contest rules, downloadable video releases and sample videos on Gale’s Web site. And if you enter the contest, please let us know by making a comment on the blog.

Thomson Gale publishes many databases, which you can access remotely through Austin Public Library, including Health Reference Center Academic, Infotrac Custom Newpsapers,
and Literature Resource Center.

New Programs at Faulk Central Library!

The Faulk Central Library is gearing up to offer a new selection of free events and programs on the second floor. Keep an eye on our web site for information about upcoming author visits, dance lessons, computer classes, book clubs, and musicians.

Two upcoming events feature authors who set their novels right here in Austin:

JoAnna Barrett, author of The Men’s Guide to the Women’s Bathroom, will visit on Wednesday, May 23rd at 7:00 p.m. According to Ms. Barrett’s web site, the book started out as a “non-fiction look at the social evolution of women’s bathrooms since the Industrial Revolution” but evolved into a novel that has been optioned by CBS and Paramount Studios.

Karen Olsson will be here June 18th to discuss her novel Waterloo with the newly founded Downtown Book Club, which will meet on the third Monday every other month from noon to 1:00 p.m.

A few nonfiction titles to provide some background to these novels are:

The Book of the Bath

Fifty Years of the Texas Observer

Once Upon a Time in Texas: a Liberal in the Lone Star State

If you have any suggestions for programs, leave us a comment here, stop by the second floor reference desk, or contact us through Ask a Librarian.

Have you seen an Alebrije?

Alebrije? What is that?? Alebrije is the a Spanish word used for “Imaginary” or “Fantasy.” It is used to describe a style of fanciful and surreal animal carvings with near-psychedelic paint schemes that has been developed during the last 20 years in three small villages in the State of Oaxaca, 200 miles south of Mexico City, by the Zapotec Indians.

These works of art are mythical creatures with origins traceable to ancient Mexican religious beliefs that fuse contradictory forces represented by a variety of animal and human features. Hallucinatory and whimsical, the figures embody the spirit of some god or protective power. Alebrije carvings have become the center of a marketing phenomenon that has spread not only to the United States and Canada, but also to several European countries.

Each of the wooden sculptures are hand-carved from the wood of the Copal (or Copillo) tree. Each piece is hand-sanded and painted in bright and exciting motifs. You can see great attention to detail in their beautiful painting and “pointillist” style. The smallest colored dots are often applied with the tip of a cactus needle.

Next time you visit the Faulk Central Library, look for the Alebrije exhibit we are having during this month, and if you are curious about this creatures you can also check out some books like:

Crafting tradition: the making and marketing of Oaxacan wood carvings by Michael Chibnik

Live from the Met

Whether you are a true opera aficionado or only recognize a few tunes from Bugs Bunny cartoons, you can experience the sights and sounds of New York’s Metropolitan Opera right here in Austin. Live and encore performances are broadcast from the Met to participating local movie theaters with high definition screens and surround sound. The next best thing to being there! The last show of this season is an encore broadcast of Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) on May 15th. You can also tune into broadcasts online or through SIRIUS Satelllite radio.

In addition to these options, the Austin Public Library has plenty of performances on CD and DVD, as well as books for Austin opera buffs. Here are just a few of the book titles we have to offer:

• The Toughest Show on Earth: My Rise and Reign at the Metropolitan Opera
• Fortissimo: Backstage at the Opera with Sacred Monsters and Young Singers
• The Joy of Opera
• A Passion for Opera: Learning to Love It: The Greatest Masters, Their Greatest Music
• A Short History of Opera
• At the Opera: Tales of the Great Operas

How-To-Do-It Articles in Magazines

We sometimes receive questions through our Ask a Librarian service about finding patterns or instructions in older magazines. Today a customer asked how to make a folded paper fan with bamboo sticks. Instructions were finally found in a 1978 Better Homes & Gardens article. A useful tool for finding "how to" articles in magazine is the index to How-To-Do-It Information. Central has the printed volumes for the years 1963-1999. To see what magazines Central subscribes to and how long issues are kept, please see Periodicals under Research Tools.

If you would like to make a paper fan for your wall, please follow these instructions:

Cut a half-circle with a 27-inch radius from sturdy foldable or figured paper such as wallpaper.
Mark the curved edge, dividing it into 48 evenly spaced areas.
Draw spokes from the center point out to the edges.
Score and fold into accordion pleats.
For spokes, use 25 strips of 30-inch long, 1/2 inch wide split bamboo.
Lay the pleated paper facedown.
Glue one strip to every pleat.
Stack all strips at the center point and join with sturdy brass wire.

AZÚUUUUUUUUUUCAR: Let’s Celebrate Latino Music Month!!!

In 2005, the Austin City Council declared May to be “Latino Music Month” in the City of Austin. Last year we celebrated the first official “Latino Music Month” and over 150 performance of Latino music took place in over 70 different venues. You can check out the Austin Latino Music Association (ALMA) website to see a calendar of events going on this month.

If you are a fan of Celia Cruz, Almita Rodríguez, Cachao, Oscar D’Leon, Juan Luis Guerra and other great Latin American artists, the Downtown Library has a small display in the CD Music section on the first floor dedicated to our Latino Music Collection. Come check out some great music or suggest some new titles by posting a comment or emailing us here.

I can see my house!!!

Lately there has been a boom on websites offering satellite images of Earth, with the most popular one being Google Earth. With this Google feature it is possible to visit cities and look at some of their historical or famous buildings in 3D. So, for instance, you can go to Paris, and view the Eiffel Tower from the air as if you were in a helicopter. Pretty cool, huh? Google also offers Google Maps, which is much simpler than Google Earth. With this tool you can find an address on a map, but then you can also see a hybrid map that will show the address that you were looking for posted on a satellite map, giving you a better idea of how the area you are going to travel looks like.

NASA also offers a similar software with satellite images of Earth. It is called NASA World Wind and if you love topography this is a great resource for you. It has images not only of our planet but also of the Moon and Mars. Microsoft did not want to be left behind and put out its product Virtual Earth. With Virtual Earth you can see maps and 2Dand 3D pictures of cities and their buildings.

Unfortunately, to take advantage of these different software programs you have to download them to your computer. But hey, if you don’t want to do that, you can always come to the Austin Public Library where we have Google Earth installed on our computers.

You can visit and get more information about the programs listed above by visiting the following links:

• Google Earth
• Microsoft Virtual Earth
• NASA World Wind
• Microsoft Virtual Earth

How to Find a Nonfiction Book at the Library

Non-fiction books at the Austin Public Library are shelved according to the Dewey Decimal System. Books are shelved numerically, that is, in number order, and are put into one of ten broad categories:

000 Computers, information & general reference
100 Philosophy & psychology
200 Religion
300 Social sciences
400 Language
500 Science
600 Technology
700 Arts & recreation
800 Literature
900 History & geography

The ten major areas are then broken down further into sub-categories. If looking for a book about the Sun, you would look under the 500s, the science category. Going deeper into the 500s, the 520s deal with astronomy, and getting more specific, the 523s deal with celestial bodies. Finally the 523.7s are books about the Sun.

After searching the library's catalog and finding the book you want, be sure to write down all of the call number. Examples of call numbers are 823.73 Ab or 791.43 R484e. Also note which library location owns the book. STACKS means that the book is not checked out, and should be in the library. To find that book about the Sun, follow the 500 shelves, past the 501s, 502s, 510s, until you get to the 523s. Now we move on to the number after the decimal.

Decimal numbers? I don't do math! Don't worry because it's all in numerical order. After the 523s begin the 523.1s followed by 523.2 then 523.3, and so on, until you reach 523.7. Once you reach the 523.7 area, look at the rest of the call number. For our example we'll say the author of the book is Wilson, so the last part of the call number will be Wi as in 523.7 Wi. Once you reach this point in the call number the books are shelved in alphabetical order by the author. A book by Standish (St) will come before the book by Wilson (Wi). View this slide show tutorial to find more about the Dewey Decimal System.

This Month's Featured Library Database!

Have you visited this month’s featured database, History Study Center? Maybe it’s time you should! History Study Center offers historical reference material from ancient times through today's current events. It houses over 40,000 documents that showcase historical events and provide students, historians, and researchers alike with quick and easy access to information.

History Study Center consists of five integrated resources that can be easily cross-searched through a single interface:
· Study Units: more than 500 Study Units containing 30-80 items
· Historical Documents: hundreds of primary source texts from historical sourcebooks
· Reference Works: articles from atlases, biographical collections, encyclopedias, and research guides. Updated monthly
· Multimedia: more than 3,000 captioned historical photos, political cartoons, and woodcuts; hundreds of historical video clips, captioned for context and easy searching; and annotated links to thousands of reliable websites
· Journals: cover-to-cover full text of 60 journals for runs that often go up to the most recent issue

A nice feature of this database is that you can create your own personalized area of History Study Center. Here you can store your saved searches and items selected between sessions. Do this by clicking on “My Archive” and create a profile.

You can use this database at the library or from home with your library card number. While you’re there, explore our other databases!

Job Ideas

A new book at the Library titled 100 Bull**** Jobs...And How to Get Them is cataloged in the 331s, which is the subject area for careers and job searching. Nevertheless, the book is hard to take seriously, but that perception may be because I am not a skillful bull**** artist. According to the author Stanley Bing, the jobs included in the book are pleasant, well paid, and highly respected. Mr. Bing has been reporting on corporate life since the early 1980s, so he may know what he is talking about. Below is list of some of the jobs he profiles.

Aquarium Cleaner for the Rich
Aromatherapist
Backup Dancer
Business Book Author (Bing's job)
Closet Organizer
Cold Caller
Consultant
Handler
Headhunter
Investment Banker
Life Coach
Media Trainer
Motivational Speaker
Personal Publicist
Personal Trainer
Poker Teacher
Raw Chef

And let me add my own - Corporate Blogger. For more serious job searching, please see the Library's research guide, Job Searching.

Today is World Book and Copyright Day!

23 April is a symbolic date for world literature for on this date in 1616, Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega all died. It is also the date of birth or death of other prominent world authors such as Maurice Druon, Haldor K.Laxness, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla and Manuel Mejía Vallejo.
The General Conference of UNESCO decided that such as important day in world literature should be celebrated, and ten years ago established the International Day of the Book and Copyrights. The day is honored more in countries other than the United Sates.

This tradition started in 1929 in Catalonia, Spain. On April 23rd, men give flowers to women who will then give them a book in exchange. According to Wikipedia: “half of the yearly sales of books in Catalonia are sold at this time - over 400,000 sold and exchanged for over 4 million roses.”

Today libraries and schools around the world celebrate books, and promote reading through different activities and programs. In Spain for example, there are two-day read-a-thons of Don Quixote. Some publishers choose this day to release a new title, such as Artemis Fowl. Just remember, there is always a good reason to start reading, so today might be the day you want to come to the library and pick up a book from one of these authors:

• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
  
• A midsummer night's dream by William Shakespeare
  
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Explore Alternative Histories

According to A Handbook to Literature, alternative history is “a species of fiction—also called allohistory—in which much depends on some major reversal of known geography or history.” I am currently reading Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, which explores what might have happened if Charles Lindbergh had won the 1940 presidential election against Franklin Roosevelt. Since this is the first alternative history book I’ve read, I wondered what other authors had written about in this genre. The majority of the titles I located delved into different outcomes of World War II or the Civil War. There are, however, quite a few that explore a variety of other topics including the Black Death, the Red Baron, and a 1986 Mars landing. While some alternative history fiction takes a realistic approach to the subject matter, most of these "what if..." stories are classified as a subgenre within science fiction. However, many also cross over into fantasy, horror, and mystery, so there’s something for everyone. Check out our Good Reads section for a list of alternative history fiction or other lists that might pique your interest. For more information about the alternative history genre and a much more extensive list of titles and references, visit Uchronia: The Alternate History List.

Jazz: America's Art Form

Love to listen to jazz? How about listening to Dr. James Polk, Grammy-nominated musician, discuss jazz? Come on down to the Howson and Carver Branches to see jazz films and learn about various jazz topics for free.

Jazz is an art form invented in early 20th century America. It has evolved into an enduring expression of creativity and innovation. The history of jazz is much more than the history of an extraordinary musical genre — it is also the story of central social, political and cultural issues of the 20th century that continue to play a part in our fledgling 21st.

The next installment of the series will be Monday, April 16th at Carver on the topic of the Swing Era. After you attend a lecture or see a jazz film, come back here and tell us how it went.

For more information and media clips on the Looking at: Jazz Project visit their website, lookingatjazz.org. This project is presented in collaboration of The National Video Resources, American Library Association, and Jazz at Lincoln Center, and funding comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Thanks to our partner, the Texas Music Museum.

Farewell to Kurt Vonnegut

They say Kurt Vonnegut died Wednesday, April 11, but maybe he just became unstuck in time. Maybe it’s we who live linearly who have passed through the moment of his death and come out the other side. He could be looping back around to his childhood.

Cool kids in the 70s walked around with Vonnegut paperbacks sticking out the butt pockets of their jeans. I wasn’t a big Vonnegut fan; I’ve read only four of his books. His early science fiction books are too science-fictiony; his later books are too hip.

Thankfully I didn’t start with those. The first one I picked up was Vonnegut’s life-changing Slaughterhouse-Five, one of the great works of anti-war art in any medium. Its protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, travels time, popping into and out of his life, some of it lived on another planet, some of it lived in Dresden on the day in 1945 when the Allies firebombed the city.

Slaughterhouse-Five is a memoir of World War II and a commentary on Vietnam. The book’s message has, unfortunately, been nearly continuously relevant since it was written in 1969. The library owns copies of it and of other Vonnegut books, as well as these classic anti-war volumes:

All Quiet on the Western Front
Remarque, Erich Maria

Johnny Got His Gun
Trumbo, Dalton

A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam
Sheehan, Neil

Catch-22: A Novel
Heller, Joseph

The Red Badge of Courage and Other Stories
Crane, Stephen

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
Frank, Anne

A Farewell to Arms
Hemingway, Ernest

Hiroshima
Hersey, John

Slaughterhouse-Five: Or, the Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death
Vonnegut, Kurt

Three Poems to Celebrate National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month. The Faulk Central Library is celebrating with a 1st floor poetry book display announced by a large computerized image of Walt Whitman, who said in Leaves of Grass:

Thou reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I,
Therefore for thee the following chants.

I chose three 2006 collections of poetry from Central’s new book shelves, and found three short poems or “chants” to share with you. Please see the catalog to place a hold on the titles.

The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea by Mark Haddon 2006 Vintage

Midas

You rarely hear the prologue-
Where ants are marching from the window
to the crib, each one carrying
a grain of wheat to feed the infant king.

the meaning of the story still unwrapped,
the picture fresh as water in a clay jug
or a hot loaf not yet frozen solid
by the king’s greed.

The Republic of Poetry by Martin Espada 2006 W.W. Norton

Advice to a Young Poet

Never pretend
to be a unicorn
by sticking a plunger on your head


The Wanton Sublime by Anna Rabinowitz 2006 Tupelo Press

from THUNDER, SWEET LONGING

Love me loudly or in whispers,
Love me so long, deep night
Is aware of me
And breaks
Into day with a seamless song…

Please visit APL’s Online Database page to find your favorite poem full-text in Litfinder.

Miniature books: tiny works of art

How many times have you stopped by a Miniature Books booth in a city fair? Or have seen them by the check out counter of a bookstore? The first thing I think when I see a miniature book is: “How cute!!!” But it wasn’t until “serendipity” put in my hands a little article about the history of these books that make me see them in a different way.

Miniature books were inspired in the very old miniature Japanese wood blocks and Ethiopian scrolls made more than 4000 years ago. During Medieval times, monks would spend months and sometimes years writing and drawing miniature books, which were preferred for portability issues. Right after the invention of the moveable type in 1468 Peter Schoffer printed the first pocket-sized book titled "Diurnale Moguntinum”.

Over the years, miniature books have had an important role in the history of humankind. They had not only been companions of travelers but had also have a significant part in revolutions when people used them as an important tool of their propaganda campaigns.

In the United States a miniature book is not bigger than 3 inches but in the rest of the world, books of up to four inches high are also considered miniature books. So, are you ready to start collecting them?

More info about this topic:

• Miniature Book Society
• 400 years of Miniature books IU Lilly Library Exhibition
  

The End of the Road

I hope your thoughts do not normally dwell on how we will survive if there is ever a huge disaster that wipes out the majority of the world’s population, but the well-written, post-apocalyptic novels below will keep your attention. Unlike most post-apocalyptic stories, these novels were not written by science fiction authors.

Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier 2006
The City is inhabited by those who have departed Earth but are still remembered by the living. They will reside in this afterlife until they are completely forgotten. But the City is shrinking, and the residents are leaving because of a deadly virus that has struck the inhabitants of Earth.

Children’s Hospital by Chris Adrian 2006
After the earth is flooded below seven miles of water, only a hospital is preserved which is presided over by four angels.


Into the Forest by Jean Hagland 1996
Two sisters, alone in the Northern California forest, face the challenges of survival after a war has brought about the collapse of industrialized America.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood 2003
An evocative, intriguing tale on the bleak future of the human race that takes the reader back and forth between a post-apocalyptic world and the earlier events that led to the disaster.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy 2006
A father and son try to survive starvation, the elements, and cannibals in a postapocalyptic America

Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham 2005
Brilliantly conceived, empathetic book includes three novellas separated in time: the1890s, the present, and finally 150 years in the future .