Celebrating the Heart of the Library

We woke up bright and early today to serve up some breakfast to our amazing group of volunteers. Every year we try to honor them and give back a small portion of what they give us by having a breakfast in their honor.


We had lots of fruit and a delicious egg bake which really hit the spot. We also chose two "Volunteers of the year" which is always hard because they all do such a tremendous job. This year we honored Carol Israel and Blanche Tate.


Without our volunteers the library wouldn't be able to function as well as it does. From shelving to covering books to indexing newspapers and more, the volunteers really are the heart of the library.

Word Woman

Welcome to another astounding installment of Word Woman's Weekly Work-Out! Before we move on to the Word of the Week, here's another plug for a very worthy cause I mentioned back in February. If you want to help end world hunger but feel that you don't have enough time or money to make a difference, here's a website you can go to and spend just a few minutes playing an on-line game that donates rice for every answer you get right. It's fun and easy, and it helps to build your vocabulary at the same time. Word Woman challenges you to go to http://www.freerice.com/index.php then post a comment here telling us how many grains of rice you've contributed toward ending world hunger! Now, let's get going with the Word of the Week:

Synecdoche - from Greek sunekdokhê, "simultaneous understanding" (pronounced /sɪˈnɛkdəkɪ/) is a figure of speech in which:

• a term denoting a part of something is used to refer to the whole thing, or
• a term denoting a thing (a "whole") is used to refer to part of it, or
• a term denoting a specific class of thing is used to refer to a larger, more general class, or
• a term denoting a general class of thing is used to refer to a smaller, more specific class, or
• a term denoting a material is used to refer to an object composed of that material.

Synecdoche is closely related to metonymy (the figure of speech in which a term denoting one thing is used to refer to a related thing); indeed, synecdoche is often considered a subclass of metonymy. It is more distantly related to other figures of speech, such as metaphor. -- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

* Watch for the upcoming Charlie Kaufman film, Synecdoche, New York.

Getting A Little Color

At the beginning of the week our monolith/Stonehenge-like entrance to Entertainment Central got a splash of color. It's almost like the scattered sunny days we've seen lately gave it a tan!

Entertainment Central is still going through it's transition period. We have all of our Movies and CDs shelved there, but they aren't going to stay exactly where they are. We are still waiting for some new drawers to show up, but we have all kinds of room in the time being to put more of our music out than we ever could have before.

We're still a ways out in terms of completing the whole project, but it's happening slowly but surely.

I've heard a lot of comments from patrons who aren't really happy about the remodel and will miss having a face to face experience with a librarian when they check out, but not to worry! We all know how well self check out works other places (eg. Albertsons) so we'll still have a desk you can go to to check out materials, deal with account problems, ask questions, etc. And there will be a "roving librarian" who will assist you in the stacks and chat literary with you. We'd hate to give the impression we're doing away with customer interaction, we just want to give you all as many options as possible for checking out your materials as quickly (or slowly) as you want.

Word Woman

Welcome to another mind-bending episode of Word Woman's Weekly Work-Out! Keep your brain in training for the marathon of life with life-long learning. Now let's get that gray matter warmed up with the Word of the Week:

Ensure: (verb) to guarantee; to make safe; to protect; to make sure
as opposed to:
Insure: (verb) to provide insurance; to take out insurance

"Word Traps", Jordan Linfield & Joseph Krevisky, Innovation Press, 1993.

Example: To ensure that his family would be provided for in the event of his untimely demise, Walter had himself insured for a quarter of a million dollars.

Book Club Favorites

The MPL book discussion groups just finished reading The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage. We had lively discussions and many group members truly embraced this often overlooked Montana classic.

Some of our other favorites have been Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City, and Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky.

Tell us about your book club. Do you belong to a regular, semi-regular, or multiple book clubs? Do you have a theme for your group (mysteries, non-fiction, dinner & discussion, etc.)? What have been some of your groups favorite titles?

The MPL book groups meet on the second Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm and the second Thursday of the month 10:00 am.

By the way, if you also loved Thomas Savage's The Power of the Dog, the library will be holding a Thomas Savage panel discussion on Tuesday, May 20 at 7:00 pm in conjunction with the Out at the Library exhibit sponsored by San Francisco Public Library.

Word Woman

Welcome to another weird and wonderful installment of Word Woman's Weekly Work-Out! Keep your mind active for a lifetime by expanding your vocabulary. Now let's stretch out those neural pathways with the Word of the Week:

Morbific: (adjective) disease-producing, see also morbifical -- "The New York Times Everyday Reader's Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, Mispronounced Words", Laurence Urdang, ed., The New York Times Book Company, 1972.

Example: Although Cynthia found the CSI TV series endlessly fascinating, she could not come to terms with the morbific nature of the work sufficiently to investigate it as a possible career option.

The Construction Keeps Chugging Along

The doors to the YA room have arrived and are in place along with another coat of paint on the walls. Things are starting to look finished in there. That is if you avoid looking at the mess that resulted from the months of construction work.


Also, at this very minute, painters are working on the Stonehenge-like entrance to Entertainment Central. We have already started shelving CDs inside but we're waiting on the rest of our shelving to arrive before we start putting the rest of the AV materials in there.


In the next couple of weeks we will be starting the transition period for the circulation desk. Don't worry though, you'll still be able to check things out and pick up holds. More on THAT phase of construction later...

Word Woman

Welcome to another tongue-twisting episode of Word Woman's Weekly Work-Out! Now it's time to start flexing those mental muscles with the Word of the Week. In recognition of the fact that less than six months remain before the presidential election, here is another political term:

Repubocrat: (noun) A Republican who behaves like a Democrat, or vice versa. See also Demopublican. -- "Hatchet Jobs and Hardball: The Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang", Grant Barrett, ed., Oxford University Press, 2004.

Example: The debate left the voters so up in the air as to the candidates' positions on the issues that they didn't know whether to vote Repubocrat or Demopublican in the election.

In Technicolor!

The new walls in the Young Adult room are now getting fresh coats of paints. The walls will be blue, tanish and red. Take a look!



The Children's entrance has also seen some action in the past few days. Now that the big pieces are finished, the details are emerging. Butterflies, foliage, and gnomes galore.




Exciting, right? The Children's entrance should be finished by May 17th and we'll have an opening reception to celebrate. More about that soon.

Word Woman

Welcome to another exciting installment of Word Woman's Weekly Work-Out! Train your brain for a lifetime of mental fitness by expanding your vocabulary. Now let's stretch those neural pathways with the Word of the Week:

Acrophile: a lover of high mountains; a mountaineer. -- "-Ologies and -Isms: A Thematic Dictionary", Howard G. Zettler, ed., Gale Research Company, 1978.

Example: Maintaining the cables on the alpine aerial tram was definitely a job for an acrophile, not an acrophobe* like George.

* Acrophobe: The opposite of an acrophile; one who fears or avoids great heights.