Blog Posts by Subject: Books and Libraries

The St. George Library Center will soon be starting a Saturday morning book discussion which will take place from 10:30 a.m. to 12 noon. The first date for the group to meet will be October 13, 2012. Other dates and titles to be used that are confirmed right now are listed below. We plan to continue through May 2013, take a break during the summer, and resume in the fall of 2013.

I am a huge fan of special libraries, and I have a couple of medical physicists in the family, so I thought I would see how many relevant libraries and museums I could find. Medical physicists work in hospitals, and they work on developing treatments for cancer. Medical physicists are required to complete a master's degree, and they usually become board certified, meaning that they pass a three-part test, which they must take in three separate years.

Ya cumplimos 2 años!

Si quieren saber un poco más acerca de este grupo, visiten los siguientes blogs: Recapitulando: Grupo de lectura y discusión en español y Grupo de lectura y discusión en español 1er aniversario.

It's the end of August, which means soon we'll be trading in our fluffy beach reads for heartier winter tomes. NYPL librarians have plenty of suggestions for you.

You know who you are. Your hold requests are always maxed out. You have "nypl.bibliocommons.com" saved in your browser. You read a book review in the paper or hear an author interviewed on the radio and immediately think, "I should see if NYPL has that yet." You are a mystery nut, a nonfiction devotee, or a knitting enthusiast, always tracking down the latest titles by your favorite writers or on the subjects that matter to you most.

The Summer is winding down, but Summer Reading throughout the New York Public Library is still in full swing and our readers at St. George Library Center are taking full advantage of their joy for reading by sharing their own personal book reviews. Here are just a few of the comments that our readers have shared on the items they have read, centered on a variety of themes which include love, identity, drama and so much more!

Visit NYPL's BiblioCommons for these lists and many more. You can also create your own and share them with us in the comments! See below for some interesting staff picks from the past month, on topics both timely and timeless:

It's now easier to download and request holds on EPUB, PDF, Kindle and e-audio, music and video (a.k.a. OverDrive) while in the library catalog, BiblioCommons. You no longer have to sign in to a separate site with your barcode.

Your electronic holds and checked out items will appear alongside physical books and materials you have out, so you can better prioritize your must-read list!

During the month of November 1941, three organizations, the American Library Association, the American Red Cross and the United Service Organizations (USO) formed the Victory Book Campaign (originally named the National Defense Book Campaign). This nationwide campaign's goal was for the public to donate books as reading material for soldiers and sailors serving in the armed forces and supplement the Army and Navy's library service already in place. The urgency for the campaign heightened because military numbers increased rapidly by the Selective Service Act of 1940. American males between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-five years of age were required to register for the draft.

You may not be aware, in this age of social media and auto-generated recommendations, but librarians are usually pretty good at suggesting books that match your reading tastes and habits. The technical term for this is "Reader's Advisory," and we try to spend time getting to know a wide variety of authors and genres of writing so that we are always ready to give you a tip when you ask for one.

Fictional works are usually cataloged by author and title, not by subject or plot line, which makes identifying books by their plot or story line difficult.

Before you start your search it would help if you can identify everything you remember about the book, plot, character names, time period in which the book may have been published, genre, etc. All these can help in identifying the title and author of the book.

Have you ever been so excited when you found out one of your favorite books was to be made into a movie only to be highly disappointed or even disgusted by the movie? You would leave the theater or turn off your DVD player wondering, “What in the world were they thinking?"

On June 7, 2012, a fabulous sunny day, the New York Public Library (NYPL) had a kickoff celebration for summer reading at the Seward Park Library.

Did you know that there were more than 150 books about New York City published last year? Given this prodigious output, the New York Society Library, in hosting the New York City Book Awards, makes a significant contribution by directing Big Apple lovers to books that "evoke the spirit or enhance the appreciation of New York City." The 17th annual awards ceremony this May was my first, but it won't be my last. This is a literary event I'll surely try catch in the future.

Visit NYPL's BiblioCommons for these lists and many more. You can also create your own and share them with us in the comments! See below for some interesting staff picks from the past month, on topics both timely and timeless:

This summer, children at the Ottendorfer Library are participating in our library advocacy campaign. Children are invited to tell Mayor Bloomberg how much they love their library by stopping in our children's room to write or color a special letter to the Mayor.  Support for our libraries is more important than ever before, so parents don’t forget to sign your own letter while visiting the library!

What can books become? A response to this query may be found in "Bookman," (2010), an exuberant sculpture of a man, made entirely of discarded library books. The work, a self-portrait by Barry "Butch" Sigel, was, until the week before last, on view in an adjunct gallery space, at Westbeth, the artists' community, in the Far West Village. Now partially dismantled, it is scheduled to be exhibited again in a storefront window on the ground floor of the complex.Bisected at the waist by a colorful tablelike structure made of inlaid book covers, "Bookman" appears to be in contrapposto position, standing with most of his weight shifted to his right 

Archibald MacLeish was the Librarian of Congress from 1939-1944 as well as an accomplished poet and dramatist. Not surprisingly, he was a huge advocate for libraries. 

If it has happened to our patrons at the Grand Concourse Library and myself...

...then it must be happening somewhere else!

Here we are with our exciting new Amazon Kindles, and nothing to read except for Jane Eyre or Alice in the Wonderland — not that there's anything wrong with that!

But in this blog post, I am going to show you a couple of tips and tricks for getting books on your Kindle, even if the titles you want are unavailable.