Sign up for the Easy Summer Reading Contest for Adults

The contest will run from August 1 until August 31st^th and it EASY!

First you read a book and then send us a brief review describing you loved or hated about the book and whether you would recommend it to your fellow readers. Each time you write a review your name goes into our raffle jar for the weekly prize. We will draw a name from the jar each Friday starting on August 10^th. The rules are: there are no rules. Just read, review, and have fun. Selected reviews will be published in the September Newsletter and on the Library Wiki!

Do You Recall the Poisoned Pet Food?

Did you know that over 80 types of food from Castleberry brand products were recently recalled due to botulism concerns? Did you hear that some Veggie Booty snack food was tainted with salmonella? Did you know that the California Department of Health is advising consumers not to eat fresh ginger from China as it was treated with an unapproved pesticide?

If you haven’t heard about these and other important food recalls you may want to take a look at a website put up by the federal government to warn consumers about these recalls, as well as recalls involving boats, cars, medicines, consumer products, and environmental products. You can also sign up to have the FDA send you recall updates so you don’t need to keep checking the website.

History is for the Birds

Summer is a very busy season in the Marston Room, our history and genealogy collection is stored here. Usually, it's just genealogists traveling from around the country. This year we noticed strange noises coming from the walls of the Marston Room; not our usual bats, or our ghostly Librarian who can get quite temperamental about glass cabinets being left open. This year we seem to have birds living in the walls! We have had sparrows nesting for years on one of Library's many ledges. They got clever and found a way into the building so now as researchers toil away on their genealogies they are serenaded by the happiest, safest little birds in Dover.

Food for Thought

What would happen if all humans vanished from Earth? This is the fascinating premise of Alan Weisman’s new book The World Without Us.

A TIMELINE FOR THE FALL OF NEW YORK

2 DAYS AFTER THE DISAPPEARANCE OF HUMANS Without constant pumping, New York City's subway system completely fills with water.

7 DAYS Nuclear reactors burn or melt down as their water-cooling systems fail.

1 YEAR Street pavements split and buckle as water in the cracks freezes and thaws.

2 TO 4 YEARS In New York and other cities, cracked streets become covered with weeds and, later, colonizing trees whose roots upheave sidewalks and wreak havoc with already damaged sewers.

4 YEARS Without heat, homes and office buildings fall victim to the freeze/thaw cycle and begin to crumble.

5 YEARS Large parts of New York may be burned by now; a lightning strike on uncollected dead branches in Central Park could easily start a catastrophic fire.

20 YEARS Dozens of streams and marshes form in Manhattan as collapsed streets fill with water.

100 YEARS The roofs of nearly all houses have caved in, accelerating the deterioration of the structures.

500 YEARS Mature forests cover the New York metropolitan area.

Enjoy the Cocaine Blues

Cocaine Blues by Kerry Greenwood

The fabulous Phryne Fisher is back in audio! If you enjoy 1920’s period mysteries with a feisty and clever heroine, you must check out this series. This time Phryne is newly arrived in Australia at the request of English parents who are concerned over their daughter’s welfare. Phyrne finds herself not only tackling that case, but also tracking down a murderous back alley abortionist and the King of cocaine. Witty dialogue, clever plot twists, and a generous amount of action keep this audio book moving right along. You won’t want to get out of your car!

Be Adventurous- Try a New Author this Summer

MAIDEN MYSTERIES:
Excerpted from Publishers Weekly;

HeartSick by Chelsea Cain.
Body count: Either 5 or 204, depending on how you’re counting.
Hollywood pitch: Basic Instinct meets Silence of the Lambs

The Blue Zone by Andrew Gross (who has co-authored 5 best sellers with James Patterson…)
Body count: 13
Hollywood pitch: Alias meets The Departed

The Cleaner by Brett Battles
Body count: 24
Hollywood pitch: James Bond meets Tarantino

Circumference of Darkness by Jack Henderson
Body count: close combat: 3; pointblank: 7; medium- to long-range:14; collateral: 55+
Hollywood pitch: 24 meets The Bourne Identity

I Have just started a book not listed here Mr. Clarinet by Nick Stone. I am on page 77 and really liking it.. tough guy PI, missing child/children, Haiti, talk of voodoo and black magic – what’s not to like…..

JM

Alternative Medicine

The Library now has a subscription to Alternative Medicine magazine. Alternative Medicine provides natural remedies and healthy solutions for improving your health and the quality of your life. Each issue offers the latest news on health conditions, herbs and supplements, natural beauty products, food as medicine, and natural household products, plus up-to-date research in the fields of complementary medicine and alternative therapies. Come on in a take a look!

A Special Thank You

A Special thank you goes to Barbara Trow and her friends from The Society for Creative Anachronism for their time and wonderful presentation on medieval life. Our young patrons (and their parents!) were thrilled to try on armor, learn a medieval dance, and design a coat of arms. (click here to view pictures)

The Children's Room staff would also like to thank Barbara for lending the many colorful medieval banners used to decorate the Children's Room for our summer reading program, "Reading Quest". We hope everyone will stop by the Children's Room (before August 10th) to see these beautiful works of art.

Choosing Your Candidate

I'm going to a house party tonight after work to meet one of the contenders who'll be courting my vote in the NH primary. I'm not committed to anyone yet, but I am trying to see most of the candidates in person. How to make my choice?

One way is to read their books, or books that have been recently written about them. Here's a few titles we have in the library which you might want to check out:

MIKE HUCKABEE --- From Hope to Higher Ground: 12 steps to restoring America’s greatness (2007)

JOE BIDEN --- Promises to Keep: on life and politics (to be published July 31)

JOHN McCAIN --- Character is Destiny: inspiring stories every young person should know (2005). (Also three other, earlier, books)

RUDY GIULIANI --- Leadership (2002)
About Giuliani: Grand Illusion: the untold story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11 by Wayne Barrett (2006)

About MITT ROMNEY --- A Mormon in the White House? 10 things every American should know about Mitt Romney by Hugh Hewitt (2007)

BARACK OBAMA --- The Audacity of Hope: thoughts on reclaiming the American dream (2006). (Also one earlier title.)

BILL RICHARDSON --- Between Worlds: the making of an American life (2005)

HILLARY CLINTON --- Living History (2003). (Also two older titles.)
About Hillary Clinton: A Woman in Charge by Carl Bernstein (2007) ; Her Way by Jeff Gerth & Don Van Natta Jr. (2007)

JOHN EDWARDS --- Ending Poverty in America: how to restore the American dream (2007) (Also two previous titles)

AL GORE --- The Assault on Reason (2007) (Plus six earlier titles)

NEWT GINGRICH --- Pearl Harbor: a novel of December 8 (2007) (Four earlier books also)

DENNIS KUCINICH --- A Prayer for America (2003)

Another favorite of mine is www.selectsmart.com/president where you answer 25 multiple choice questions about your own views on the issues and then the site matches you with the candidate(s) who most closely reflects your positions. It's fun and easy and the results may surprise you!!

Security is at the Highest Level

We are not talking about the latest Homeland Security levels; no, it’s the cloud of secrecy and tight security that surrounds the latest Harry Potter novel. The director of the library had to sign four legal documents swearing that no one, absolutely no one, would look at Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows before its official July 21^st release date. Time Magazine wrote a long article on the effort to keep Deathly Hallows a surprise:

“But Scholastic's reach can extend only so far, and once the books are delivered, security is in the hands of the bookstore owners, all of whom sign a long, tightly worded legal agreement requiring them to keep the boxes unopened until 12:01 a.m. on July 21. "No one here sees them," says Kim Brown, vice president of merchandising at Barnes & Noble, which hires an outside security firm to guard the padlocked trucks in which it stores its copies of Deathly Hallows. "We have our fulfillment centers cordon off a special section for the HarryPotter books," says Sean Sundwall of Amazon.com. "Only a very small number of people are allowed to look at it--or breathe on it--and even a smaller number of people can touch it."

So no matter how much we librarians want to get our hands on Harry Potter we will abide by the rules. After all, we don’t want our director to end up in Azkaban.

What do smackdowns, crunk, and microgreen have in common?

These words, and many others, all are new additions to the latest edition of the Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. I knew some of the newly recognized words; IED, RPG, Bollywood, speed dating, and sudoku, but others were totally unfamiliar. What is nocebo, flexcuff and viewshed?

English has one of the largest lexicon of all languages. According to The Story of English by Robert McCrum, “It is arguably the richest in vocabulary. The compendious Oxford English Dictionary lists about 500,000 words; and a further half million technical and scientific terms remain uncataloged. According to traditional estimates, neighboring German has a vocabulary of about 185,000 words and French fewer than 100,000, including such Franglais as le snacque-barre and le hit-parade”.

It appears that English will continue to expand at a rapid rate; there are almost 100 newly accepted words this year. We will all have to develop a ginormous vocabulary.

Teen Reviewers

The Teen Summer Reading Program began June 25th and the teens have already turned in some terrific reviews. We will continue posting the summer reading reviews on the Rabid Reader blog, which has lots of great reviews for adults too. The reviews written by the teens will also be turned into bookmarks to help other teen readers find good reads. We look forward to hearing more from our Teen readers.

Library Statistics keep climbing!

We've just compiled some library-usage statistics for the fiscal year which just ended June 30. In every category, the library just keeps getting busier and busier!

For FY07 (July 1, 2006--June 30, 2007), the Dover Public Library:

Circulated 279,332 items to our borrowing patrons. That's almost 10 books per capita. (The national average is 2.86 books per capita, so Dover has great readers!!)

Hosted 685 meetings in our Trustees Room and Lecture Hall. Did you know that your organization or club can meet here for free? (some restrictions apply!)

Filled 16,455 patron "Hold" requests. Interestingly, 65% of these holds were placed online from patrons at computers outside the library. Remote borrowers logged into our online catalog 22,982 times.

Gave out our museum passes (we have 12 different ones) 622 times. If these museum-goers each saved $20 by using our passes (a conservative estimate), then we've saved Dover families over $12,000!

Delivered free Internet access to 28,614 in-house customers. Cardholders get 90 minutes per day while non-cardholders get 20 minutes access per day. Wi-Fi users also get free access 24/7/365.

Had 1,219,450 hits on our main website www.dover.lib.nh.us and another 595,422 hits on our Dover Historical images site http://images.dover.lib.nh.us.

The sky is not falling. The Internet has not doomed libraries. Public libraries have embraced new technologies and customer-centered services and are thriving everywhere!

Not Too Late to Sign-up for the Teen Summer Reading Program

The Teen Summer Reading Program is in full swing, but we accept new sign-ups throughout the program. The program is simple--sign up and start reading! Participants who complete at least one level of the program, of a possible four, will qualify for the grand prize, a 4G iPod Nano. To reach each level of the program you must do one of 3 things: read for an accumulated total of 5 hours, complete a “Book Review” tag for a book that you have read, or create a piece of art from something that you have read. Each time you complete a level you can dip your hand into our prize box, which is filled with gift certificates, books, and merchandise from local businesses (limit 4 prizes per participant). What are you waiting for, come in today.

Celebrating Independence Day

The Library will be closed July Fourth in honor of Independence Day. Why not go over to the Dover High School on the Fourth at dusk to enjoy the fireworks?