There's Got to Be a Morning After

The Library came through the storm with only moderate damage. We lost one of our beloved Japanese Umbrella Trees. (If any tree experts are reading this, what can we do to save it?)

I think I will call it Stumpy...

On the bright side, we have electricity, heat, and WiFi access to offer. Our Internet computers are getting heavy use this morning. PSNH estimates 259,000 customers have no power. If you are one of those unfortunates, and I think most of us are, you may want to look at PSNH's twitter page to get updates if you have power at work, or would like to visit us here at the library. I am so happy PSNH provides this service. One of the worst things about being powerless is not knowing what is going on, and how long before things return to normal. It is also pretty interesting reading.

Children's Room Closed-- March 1-5

Please bear with us once again as our library carpeting project continues. Due to manufacturing defects, the carpeting tiles installed in the Children's Room need to be replaced. The Children's Room will be closed March 1-5 while this work is being done.

Story Hour Sign-Ups scheduled for Monday, March 1 will still be held. If you are planning to register your child in person, please come to the library as usual--you will be directed to the sign-up desk. Registration will be divided into two parts:

*Sign-up begins at 9:00a.m. (in person) for the Monday l:30p.m., Monday Bedtime (7:00p.m.) and Tuesday 9:30a.m. groups (3-6 year-olds). Phone call registration begins at 9:15 a.m.

*Sign-up begins at 6:00p.m. (in person) for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (9:30 a.m.) toddler groups (2 year-olds). Phone call registration begins at 6:15 p.m.

For more information pick up one of our 2009-2010 Story Time brochures, visit our website @ http://www.dover.lib.nh.us/, or call the Children's Room (516-6052).

Travel Back In Time to 1940's England

If you like historical fiction and science fiction, boy, do I have a book for you! I am reading Blackout by Connie Willis. Historians from 2060 are time traveling back to London during World War II. Some are studying how civilians coped with the constant bombing known as the Blitz. Others travel to Dunkirk to watch the heroic efforts of everyday Englishmen who took to the seas in pleasure boats and fishing craft to rescue thousands of troops. They braved mines, attacks from submarines and airplanes. I am not a huge fan of WWII historical fiction and yet I could not keep my nose out of this book. The characters are so engaging you feel like you know them; the mischievous London evacuee children, the brave shop girls, and the Londoners who form impromptu families while they shelter underground from the bombs that dropped every night. It is slow and a little confusing at the beginning, but keep with it, once the historians reach England it becomes simply riveting.

A word of warning; this book ends with a cliff hanger that won’t be resolved until the concluding novel, All Clear, comes out in October. Not good for impatient readers like me!

Come to the Beach Party this Wednesday!

Different Strokes

Yesterday I was having a conversation with a woman when it came up that I worked at a library. She seemed surprised and asked "Is it busy? Do people still go to libraries?". I emphatically answered that yes, we were busy. As I look around me now--all of our Internet accessible computers are busy, there are several people using our WiFI, several people reading newspapers, and many general browsers in our book, DVD, and CD stacks, and this is all on a snowy Tuesday morning (not one of our busier times). The woman added "but the library in my town stinks!" (She meant that it had an odor, not that it was a poor quality library.) Another woman standing nearby said that she recently decided that it was ridiculous for her to be buying all of her own books and started using the library. She said she loved the smell of the library because it smelled of old books--a smell she could appreciate. She added that she could never use a hand held device, such as a Kindle, because she would miss that smell. What do you think--pleasantly fragrant or smelly?

Would you like to learn a foreign language free on your home computer?

The Mango language learning system uses audio, video, and interactive content to make learning a new language easy and fun. Mango uses real-life situations and actual conversations to more effectively teach a new language. By listening to, and repeating after, native speakers’ conversations, you'll not only learn the individual words and phrases, but also know how they're used in practical situations and conversations. A Virtual Tutor guides you through each lesson, so you know what to do each step of the way. You can hover your mouse over a foreign word to see a convenient phonetic spelling or learn how to pronounce words in your chosen language with recording of native speakers. Quizzes are strategically placed throughout the lesson to ensure maximum retention and recall of the material.

All you need to do to get started is visit our website and click on ONLINE RESOURCES, then chose Mango. You will be prompted to enter the barcode from the back of your Dover Public Library card; then choose any of 22 foreign languages such as Italian, German, Greek, Irish, or French, or from 14 ESL courses like English for Mandarin Chinese speakers. If you are connecting from a remote location, you will need to log in from this page, not through the online catalog’s databases tab which is for in-library use only. If you would like to track your progress, and save where you left off so you can return to the same place in the lesson, just create a free account with your library card, email address and a password.

This award winning language learning system works with both Macs and PCs, and with all the major web browsers. So what are you waiting for?

Que tengas un buen día !

FREE Vacation Week Entertainment!

Next week is school vacation week in Dover--yahoo! Now what do you do to entertain the kids while not spending a fortune? Hmmm...well you could attend the free happenings at the Dover Public Library. Here is a line up of what we have to offer:

• Tues., Feb. 23 @ 2:00pm in the Lecture Hall
  Movie: Surf's Up, rated PG.
• Wed., Feb. 24 @ 10:30am in the Lecture Hall
  An Indoor Beach Party: Stories & Songs with Sarah!
• Thurs., Feb. 25 @ 2:00pm in the Lecture Hall
  Movie: Shark Tale, rated PG.
• All week long kids can make a "Beach Towel" at the make-it-take-it craft table.

All of our events are free and open to the public, and so we hope to see you there.

Program Postponed due to snowstorm!

Tonight's program with David Faxon, author of Cold Water Crossing, has been postponed one week---to Tuesday, February 23, 2010 @ 7pm---due to the impending snowstorm. We didn't want Mr. Faxon to risk his safety driving up here from Connecticut! Here are the details of the program:

The Friends of the Library will present author David Faxon in the Dover Public Library’s Lecture Hall on Tuesday evening, February 23 at 7pm. Faxon will discuss his 2009 book, “Cold Water Crossing: An Account of the Murders at the Isles of Shoals.”
In coastal Maine in the 1870s, an unforgettable tragedy happened to a quiet Norwegian family. A cold winter evening saw three women unexpectedly left alone on a small island when their men had to stay overnight on the mainland. A killer overheard their circumstance, stole a boat, and rowed 10 miles to commit a crime that still looms large in Seacoast NH/Maine history.
Faxon’s talk will include the controversy surrounding the trial of Louis Wagner, the rich history behind the Isles of Shoals that led the author to write the book, some facts about the Atlantic coast resort industry which may have begun at the Isles, how he researched the book, and what he’s discovered about writing in the process.
David Faxon is a retired chief financial officer from Manchester, CT. He is now working on his second book.
All lectures in the Friends of the Library’s Cultural Series are free and open to the public. Please call the Library, 516-6050, for more information.

The Library Will be Closed Monday

Poster created by the Skokie Public Library.

The Library will be closed Monday, February 15 in honor of Presidents' Day.

Don't Miss These Whimsical Watercolors

The Library is fortunate to have an art display by Cori Caputo for the month of February. Her images will set your imagination free in a world where mermaids dance, gardens float in the air, and landscapes exude a quirky charm.

One Night at the Library

I guess I'm having an emotional night....I'm at work, at the library, and a boy, who looked to be about 10 or 11 years old, came up to ask if I knew how to make the computer underline something. So I went over to where he was working, and he showed me the problem-- he was supposed to be underlining items in a bibliography, but didn't know how. I showed him how to highlight an item, and then to find the "U" button to underline, and his whole face just lit up--he was so grateful. Then his mom, who was here with him, just lit up with smiles, too, and was so thankful. I feel quite sure that this family does not have the resources to own a computer. I don't know, it just left me feeling choked up---it's so easy to take everything we have for granted, and to just assume that everyone out there has access to the same things we do. Then you meet a boy, and his mom, who come to the public library so that he can type his papers, and who don't know how to navigate this technological world, and are so grateful for even a tiny little bit of assistance.....let's not forget that these people are out there, and that they depend on their public library...

A New Tool for Dover Genealogists

A local researcher has taken on the ambitious project of scanning the vital statistics information from the City of Dover Annual Reports and indexing it. So far she has completed birth, marriage, and death records for the years 1887 – 1890. Click on vital records and you can search by year and type of vital record- births, deaths, or marriages, or you can search by name. A very useful tool, I can't wait for more years to be added!

Evanovich & Meyer Taking On the Graphic Novel World

I just read a New York Times article about how Janet Evanovich & Stephanie Meyer are currently working on graphic novel adaptations of their books. Evanovich is actually adding to a an already existing series which was begun by Metro Girl and Motor Mouth. I find this very interesting because I am not sure if her current followers will be interested in reading a graphic novel. I don't read her books and so I cannot speak for myself on this point--just a guess. Meyer is working with Yen Press on Twilight, which will come out as a 2 book graphic novel. I found this quote by Kurt Hassler, the Publishing Director for Yen Press, speaking about the size and look of the book, both interesting and disturbing: “This will fit very nicely on fans’ bookshelves." Is he interested in people reading them or just buying them to add to their "collection"? Maybe I shouldn't haven't gotten out of bed this morning as I am feeling a bit jaded. What do you think: insightful comments or cranky librarian?

This Is the Way the World Ends

not with a bang, but a sneeze? With apologies to TS Eliot.

Lately, everything I read or watch seems to involve the flu destroying civilization as we now know it. I caught a 30 minute sneak peak of a BBC show called Survivors. These survivors aren't lolling around tropical islands trying to outwit each other. They are people trying to survive a flu which kills 99% of the population. Medical care is practically non-existent, public transportation has ceased, and the power is going out all around London. It was chilling and totally involving.

Then my latest Netflix DVD arrived. It was Carriers, about two young men and their girl friends seeking safe haven from what else, but a flu that kills everyone it infects. There were many tense moments and some tough moral questions posed. If contact with an infected person would lead to certain death, would you desert your loved ones to save yourself?

After that I started reading Veracity by Laura Bynum. This novel's premise is that half of America's population is wiped out by a pandemic/viral terrorism. A new government forms; the Confederation of the Willing. All personal freedoms are willingly sacrificed in the name of safety and security. Citizens are implanted with a device that can physically punish or even kill them if they utter a word banned by the government. The list grows every day, and a generation grows up not knowing what the words like freedom and democracy mean. If you enjoyed the Handmaid's Tale and 1984, you will like this creepily plausible vision of the future.

Today my co-worker is out sick.... I think I am starting to feel paranoid.

This Is It!

The Library will be showing Michael Jackson's This Is It Saturday, February 6 at 2pm in the Lecture Hall. All of our movies are FREE and open to the public. The film is is rated PG, and is described as follows:

Michael Jackson's This Is It will offer Jackson fans and music lovers worldwide a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the performer as he developed, created and rehearsed for his sold-out concerts that would have taken place beginning this summer in London's O2 Arena. Chronicling the months from April through June 2009, the film is produced with the full support of the Estate of Michael Jackson and drawn from more than one hundred hours of behind-the-scenes footage, featuring Jackson rehearsing a number of his songs for the show. Audiences will be given a privileged and private look at Jackson as he has never been seen before. In raw and candid detail, Michael Jackson's This Is It captures the singer, dancer, filmmaker, architect, creative genius and great artist at work as he creates and perfects his final show.

Get with the 2000s!

When my children were teenagers, they used to tell me to "Get with the 90s!" whenever I said, did or wore anything they considered old-fashioned. I didn't get upset as I knew it was said in jest and it did remind me of my own teen years when Bob Dylan told "mothers and fathers throughout the land" that they'd better get with it because "The Times They Are a-Changin' " .

Well, the Dover Public Library Children's Room is finally "getting with the 2000s" by withdrawing our Video collection in favor of DVDs. If you still own a VHS player, you can take advantage of this move by purchasing these videos at our "mini-sale" display sponsored by The Friends of Dover Public Library.

All vidoes = $1

The New Man in My Life

Yes, I have a new man in my life and his name is Georges Léopold Chrétien Frédéric Dagobert Cuvier. My husband need not be jealous since he died in 1832, but it seems I can't get away from Cuvier lately. I just finished reading The Coral Thief by Rebecca Stott which is a historical novel set during the time of Napolean's exile--highly recommended by the way. The book is about a young man who travels to Paris to work in a coveted research position under his idol Cuvier. Cuvier is a world renowned naturalist who was director of the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, which features prominently in the book. While I was still in the process of reading The Coral Thief, I was at work reading Publisher's Weekly magazine, and came across a review of a book about Sarah Baartman, known as the Hottentot Venus. Cuvier's name appears because he visited Sarah, along with other naturalists, for purposes of scientific paintings (the whole story is quite disturbing). Driving home from work a few days later Cuvier's name came up during a story on NPR. I am still waiting to read Tracy Chevalier's new book Remarkable Creatures, in which I will once again be reunited with Cuvier. I'm not sure how long I can keep up this relationship, but he is a fascinating person.

Groundhogs and Earthworms

A number of events conspired today to make me think of spring and my sleeping garden. That dratted groundhog said spring wouldn't arrive for another 6 weeks. The brilliant blue sky above seemed to disagree, it had the feel of a day in March. My kitchen compost bucket was overflowing so I took advantage of the springlike temperatures to walk over to my compost heap, blessing my husband for snow blowing me a trail so I didn't have to clamber over snow and ice to reach the compost bins. Then as I got ready for work I saw Margaret Hagen of the UNH Cooperative extension explaining how you could use bins of earthworms inside your house for composting so you don't have to slog out to distant compost bins buried in the snow. If you would like to learn more about using earthworms to compost or composting in general, the Library has a collection of compost books in 631.8. I particularly like The Complete Compost Gardening Guide by Barbara Pleasant. It has a great chapter on setting up and caring for your composting worms. The kids will be intrigued but don't let any fishermen in the family get ideas!

Tax Time Once Again

"Today, it takes more brains and effort to make out the income-tax form than it does to make the income." ~Alfred E. Neuman

If the above quote resonates with you, perhaps you would like to take advantage of the free AARP Tax Aid. This free tax filing assistance will be at Dover Public Library on Tues., Thur., & Sat. from 9am to 12pm through April 15th. The assistance is on a first-come-first-serve basis, and is located in the Lecture Hall of the Library. This wonderful service is made possible by the individuals who generously donate their time. Thank you!