Somerville Public Library Blog

Have you seen wild animals in Somerville, such as hawks, falcons, wild turkeys, songbirds, skunks, possums, raccoons and rabbits? Many of us have seen at least a few of these wild animals in our city, or even in our backyards. Do your children ever wonder what these animals do or how they go about their lives in a busy urban setting? If so, bring them to the Somerville Public Library for a series of workshops where they will learn about Somerville’s wild life and write an original musical about them.

Beginning Wednesday, Feb. 24, Liza Kitchell will host a program for children ages 8 to 12 called “Wild Tails.” During the program’s three sessions, children will learn about urban wildlife, create a story and write songs about the wild animals that live in Somerville, and present their work as a musical play in the Growing Center’s garden in June.

The original idea for “Wild Tails” began last year when puppeteer Frances Furlong created an original puppet show about urban wildlife with volunteers from the Growing Center. After the success of the puppet show, Aileen Bellwood, site manager for the Growing Center, and Kitchell, musician/educator, began talking about creating programs to reconnect children with nature, using the Growing Center as a focal point. In support of this idea, Kitchell was recently awarded a Somerville Arts Council grant to create a musical performance with children about Somerville’s wildlife.

“Wild Tails” has been organized into three sessions consisting of four meetings each.
In Session I (Feb. 24, March 3, 10 and 17 from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m.), children will learn about Somerville’s wildlife through dramatization and reading. They will play games, read about their chosen animals, and imagine what it looks and feels like to be a wild animal in Somerville. Story ideas will be discussed for the musical.

In Session II (March 24, 13, April 7 and 14 from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m.), children will create songs for the musical using ideas from their dramatizations, games and story ideas.

In Session III (May 5, 12, 19 and 26 from 3:30 to 5 p.m.), children will help construct costumes, sets and props for their musical, and then rehearse their final work.

Sessions I and II will be held at the Central Library at 79 Highland Ave. Session III, as well as dress rehearsal and final performance, will be held in the Growing Center at 22 Vinal Ave.

Enrollment is on a first-come, first-served basis. Parents must sign in their child for each meeting attended. Parent contact information will be required. Arrive early, as each meeting is limited to 15 students.

Two of America’s - and the world’s - most beloved writers have died in the past 24 hours: celebrated historian Howard Zinn and the legendary J. D. Salinger. They will be sorely missed.

Some works by Howard Zinn:

You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train: a Personal History of Our Times

A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present

Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology

Howard Zinn on War

Works by J. D. Salinger:

The Catcher in the Rye

Nine Stories

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour - an Introduction

Franny and Zooey

December 3, 1586: According to some sources, Sir Thomas Harriot introduces the potato to England on this date–because if there’s one thing Northern Europe doesn’t have enough of, it’s root vegetables.

December 11, 1919: Deciding that monuments to tapeworms or mosquitoes would just be kind of gross, the citizens of Enterprise, Alabama dedicate a monument to the boll weevil.

December 16, 1773: The Boston Tea Party.  Disgruntled colonists dump 340 crates of tea into Boston Harbor to protest taxes. Only 50 or so people show up, but some of the louder, more obnoxious town criers exaggerate attendance figures.

December 17, 1875: Violent bread riots in Montreal. When you want croissants, baguettes are as good a reason to smash windows as any.

December 26, 1854: History records that paper made from wood pulp was first publicly exhibited in Buffalo on this date–which tells you more about entertainment options in Buffalo than it does about paper manufacturing.

Approach by the side gate (to the right of the main entrance as you’re facing the building.)

Things look a little messy out front, but don’t worry, just go in….

The East Branch Library is closed today due to ramp construction at the front of the building.  Tonight’s ESL classes have been canceled.  The East Branch will remain closed until further notice.  We hope to reopen shortly, and will keep you posted.

By now I’m sure all of you have heard that nearby Cushing Academy has chucked all its books and replaced the reference desk with a cappuccino machine. It’s a decision that’s, um, interesting, to say the least. However, it does raise questions about the future of libraries and books.  Many (but by no means all) of our patrons come here for Internet access and little else, but we still lend an enormous number of books–witness our circulation statistics and our shelving backlog.  Tech pundits have been predicting the death of the book for thirty years now, and it hasn’t happened yet.  But I thought it worth pulling together some recent reports and comments in the media and blogosphere about this case in particular as well as libraries and books in general. Here’s an e-book lover’s take on the elimination of the physical collection, and here is what Christopher Dawson of ZDNet has to say about it. And longtime library consultant Jessamyn West has some thoughts on the matter.

If you’ve got time for some more lengthy reading, here’s what Nicholson Baker had to say in the New Yorker about his first Kindle-reading experience. And a couple of years ago Umberto Eco spoke to the German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau on books and new media. You can see my (admittedly very rough) translation here.

…are you just scratching the surface? Almost all of us are. When you use a search engine such as Google or Cuil, you are searching the Surface (or Visible) Web. However, there’s another level to the Internet called the Deep (or Invisible) Web. The Invisible Web consists of databases, ulinked pages, dynamic pages, and content that’s in file formats not handled well by most search engines. The Invisible Web contains over 500 times as much information as the Visible Web.

UC-Berkeley has a great page on the Invisible Web with links to tools for accessing it. I had a lot of fun with one of them: InfoMine. Many of the sources it will direct you to are only accessible through subscription or institutional affiliation, but many more aren’t.  Just doing searches on any topic that crossed my mind, I found pages with advice on conserving energy, information on the goat genome (I *so* did not understand what I was looking at) and the FBI file on Elvis Presley.

I’ll get back to you in a day or two about my experiences with another Invisible Web resource: the Librarian’s Index to the Internet.

More later…..

The Library has added Mango Languages Database to our growing list of electronic resources.  This database can be used at the Library or from home.  Go to our database page and scroll down to Mango Languages to get started.

Mango is designed to equip you with conversational abilities from the very start. Whether you’re learning how to order a pizza or ask when the game starts, Mango immerses you in real, everyday conversations in 12 different language courses.

Have a nice day.

Que tengas un buen día   [Spanish]

Have a nice day.

Tenha um bom dia  [Portuguese]

Hello. How are you?

Salve. Come sta? Hello. [Italian]

Hello. How are you?

Bonjour! Comment allez-vous?  [French]

Thank you I am well. And you?

Danke. Es geht mir gut. Und Ihnen?  [German]

Nice to meet you to. Goodbye

O prazer è meu. Tchau.  [Brazilian Portuguese]

We are now offering a new Museum pass to the House of Seven Gables, located in Salem, Massachusetts.  We will offer one pass per day and each pass will admit 4 people at half price.  Normal adult admission is $12.00 and child admission (5-12) is $7.25.  Please visit our website for more information on reserving museum passes at the library and feel free to book your pass online.  Salem is a great town to visit during the summer and the museum is also offering extended evening hours from July-September: 10AM-7PM.

“Welcome to Salem’s premiere historic site, located on the Harbor! Discover 330 years of Salem’s history as you experience this museum and collection of historic buildings.

When you arrive at The House of the Seven Gables - which constitutes its own national historic district on The National Register of Historic places - professional guides will warmly greet you for an unforgettable historical experience. Outside, spectacular seaside gardens await you. Inside of The House of the Seven Gables, also known as the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion, you will discover a mysterious secret staircase where you least expect it! Built in 1668, this is the oldest surviving 17th century wooden mansion in New England. The House of the Seven Gables inspired author Nathaniel Hawthorne to write his legendary novel of the same name.

As a matter of fact, the very home where Hawthorne was born, was moved to The House of the Seven Gables and now lies just feet away from the mysterious mansion made famous in fiction. When you step into the Nathaniel Hawthorne House (c. 1750), you will learn about the life of the famous author.

But there’s more… The House of the Seven Gables also has an 18th century granite sea wall, and two seaside Colonial Revival Gardens. The museum houses more than 2,000 artifacts and objects, more than 40 framed works, 500 photographs and glass plate negatives, and more than 650 volumes in our research and rare book library.”  (http://www.7gables.org/tour_gables.shtml)

Throughout our nation’s history there have been wars, some just, some unjust. But there’s one constant to all those wars: the men (and more recently, women) who fight them, who suffer, who sacrifice, whether out of patriotism, out of a belief in the war itself, or out of the plain conviction that it’s their duty as soldiers to follow orders. Today is the day we remember them.

Since Memorial Day began as a day to honor Civil War dead, the next time you’re at SPL check out James M. McPherson’s What They Fought For: 1861-1865. In this highly accessible book, one of our greatest Civil War historians brings to us the voices of Civil War soldiers on both sides as they explain in diaries and letters why they enlisted and why they fought.

In terms of books written and documentaries made, the War of Independence, the Civil War, and World War II tend to get the most attention. Why not redress the balance by reading about World War I? If you’re interested in nonfiction, pick up The Last Days of Innocence: America at War: 1917-1918. Or try some classic American fiction: Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms is set on the Italian front, while The Sun Also Rises explores the physical and psychological toll some young Americans still suffer after the war.

If you’re interested in more recent conflicts check out Strange Ground, Americans in Vietnam: 1945-1975. If you want a more personal account of a soldier’s life in Vietnam, Tim O’Brien’s If I Die in A Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home is one of the best ever written.  And we’ve got an excellent and ever growing collection of first-person accounts of  the war in Iraq. For starters, try From Baghdad With Love: A Marine, The War And A Dog Named Lava and The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier’s Account of The War in Iraq.

For these or any other books you might want, come to the reference desk. We’re here to help!