The Big Read 2011

The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts, designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The Big Read brings together partners across the country to encourage reading for pleasure and enlightenment.

The Big Read answers a big need. Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, a 2004 report by the National Endowment for the Arts, found that not only is literary reading in America declining rapidly among all groups, but that the rate of decline has accelerated, especially among the young.

The Big Read aims to address this crisis squarely and effectively. It provides citizens with the opportunity to read and discuss a single book within their communities. Each community event lasts approximately one month and includes a kick-off event to launch the program locally; major events devoted specifically to the book (panel discussions, author reading, and the like); events using the book as a point of departure (film screenings, theatrical readings, and so forth); and book discussions in diverse locations and aimed at a wide range of audiences.

Our community's book this year is Great Tales & Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. ABC Libraries' Big Read adventure begins Friday, October 7th at 7 pm, at the KiMo Theater, with our kick-off event, the Poe Funeral Party! Come commemorate Poe with an interactive performance and costume contest. Coinciding with the anniversary of his death, Edgar Allan Poe will be brought to life by performer Lou Harmon. The event will feature dramatic readings, historical biography and direct audience interaction. Participants that come dressed as Edgar Allan Poe or one of his characters could win a number of prizes!

There will be a plethora of other events until the Big Read ends on November 5th! Check out the Poe Film Series at the Guild Cinema, featuring Roger Corman's The Pit & the Pendulum & Vincent Price in The Fall of the House of Usher!  Or visit the Rio Grande Nature Center for the informative Who's Who in the World of Black Birds!  There will be ongoing History and Mystery Edgar Allan Poe Library Field Trips, Detective/Mystery Fiction Discussion & Writing Workshop, a POE-try Slam, a Chess Tournament with readings, even an Am I Related to Poe? Genealogy Workshop. For students, there's Youth Art Competition, open to all schools.  Don't miss your chance to join in the macabre fun!

For more information on the Big Read program, visit the NEA website. For more information about our community's Big Read 2011, including a schedule of events & times, visit the Big Read LibGuide.  We thank our partners & sponsors for their help in scheduling the 2011 Big Read!

Duke City Marathon

The Duke City Marathon is October 23rd!  Are you ready to run?  There are many levels of participation open to you: the Marathon (be an overall winner, a masters winner, or win for your age group); the Marathon Relay; the Half Marathon Run; & the 10K & 5K Runs.  For those of us unable to run, there is also a 20K Walk & a 5K Walk.  Or, participate in the Miracle Mile, coordinated specifically to celebrate the lives of cancer survivors and the lives of loved ones who have lost their battle to cancer.

Here are the registration deadlines:

Saturday, October 15 (postmarked) - to register through the mail

Sunday, October 16 - to register in any Big 5 outside of Albuquerque

Wednesday, October 19 - to register at Big 5 or Defined Fitness locations in Albuquerque or Rio Rancho

Wednesday, October 19 at NOON - to register via fax (and still get the early registration fees)

Wednesday, October 19 at NOON - to register online (and still get the early registration fees)

Friday, October 21 at 11:59 pm - to register online (final online registration – late fees apply)

Saturday, October 22 at FitFest: Powered by Defined Fitness (the DCM health expo) at the ABQ Convention Center from 9:00am – 6:00pm

There is a Marathon Training Guide (requires Adobe Acrobat) on the website; however, be aware that this is a 12-week program.  If you have not been training, we don't recommend trying to run the marathon.

There will be a Post-Race Festival Downtown! The Post Race Festival will feature live entertainment with a performance by entertainers on Civic Plaza Main Stage, awards ceremonies, refreshments for participants, vendors, exhibits and breakfast food served by Blake’s Lotaburger.

If you are interested, there are also volunteer opportunities listed on the website!  You can also see a list of FAQs.

Here's a list of some of the favorite running books of library staff:

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World has Never Seen by Chris McDougall

What I Talk about When I Talk about Running by Haruki Murakami

Barefoot Running Step by Step: Barefoot Ken Bob, the Guru of Shoeless Running, Shares his Personal Technique for Running with More Speed, Less Impact, Fewer Leg injuries, and More Fun by Ken Bob Saxton

The Complete Book of Running by James F. Fixx

Runner's World Complete Book of Women's Running : The Best Advice to Get Started, Stay Motivated, Lose Weight, Run Injury-Free, Be Safe, and Train for Any Distance by Dagny Scott
Galloway's Book on Running by Jeff Galloway

Runner's World Complete Book of Beginning Running by Amby Burfoot

No Need for Speed : A Beginner's Guide to the Joy of Running by John "The Penguin" Bingham.

Run for Life: The Anti-Aging, Anti-Injury, Super-Fitness Plan to Keep you Running to 100 by Roy M. Wallack

ChiRunning: A Revolutionary Approach to Effortless, Injury-Free Running by Danny Dreyer with Katherine Dreyer

Also, consider watching:

My Run
After losing his wife to breast cancer and struggling to raise his children, real-life superhero and modern-day Forrest Gump Terry Hitchcock had an idea. He wanted to accomplish the impossible by running 75 consecutive marathons in 75 consecutive days to bring attention to the incredibly difficult lives of single-parent families.

Ultramarathon Man
Features renowned endurance athlete and best selling author Dean Karnazes, in his attempt to run 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 consecutive days to raise awareness for youth obesity and to get America active.

Spirit of the Marathon
A look at the Chicago Marathon, which stretches 26.2 miles, and the runners who participate from all walks of life, each with their own story.

The Greatest Show Off Earth

It's that time of year...Balloon Fiesta time!  There are events scheduled every day between the 1st & the 9th, including balloon glows, mass ascensions & special shapes rodeos-visit the Fiesta website to see the event schedule.

Did you know that there's a directory of the Special Shapes that will be attending? The Wells Fargo stage, "Cent'r Stage", will be there, along with Airabelle the Creamland cow, Pandy, the Haunted Mansion, Smokey, Little Cop,  Darth Vader, & more!  This year I hope to see Iwi the Kiwi from New Zealand.

On the website, make sure you check out the Guest Guide.  This has FAQs & handy information about tickets, park & ride, directions, RV information, & tours.  They are even offering a Bike Valet service this year! Avoid congested traffic and parking conditions near Balloon Fiesta Park by riding your bike.

You can even enter your photographs in a contest!  Best of show wins a Nikon D3100 Camera Outfit!

Let's not forget the hard work of Balloon Fiesta Launch Directors (ZEBRAS-they'll be the ones sporting zebra striped outfits at the Balloon Fiesta). "These dedicated volunteers have had hours of training before going on the field to coordinate a balloon launch. They handle crowd control, observe pilots, and work with them to get their balloons safely off the ground every morning during Balloon Fiesta. Every Zebra checks to see that every balloon is airworthy and that there is no damage to the either the envelope or the basket. They then let the pilots know where they will be standing and what hand signals to look for during the launch sequence. They also discuss wind conditions and the traffic directly overhead. The Zebras then walks each pilot out to a clear area near the launch site. When the skyway is clear, the Zebra blows his whistle and gives a 'thumbs up' signal letting the pilot know he is clear to take off," explains the website.

The Balloon Fiesta needs more volunteers, including Field Services (help setup Balloon Fiesta Park, outdoor manual labor) & Balloon Discovery Center (educational center, help guests with the hands on exhibits). Apply online!

To learn more about hot air ballooning, check the library catalog using the subject heading "ballooning".

 

The Balloonist's Prayer

May the winds welcome you with softness.

May the sun bless you with its warm hands.

May you fly so high and so well that God

joins you in laughter and sets you gently

back into the loving arms of Mother Earth.

E-Resources, or Where Have All the Databases Gone?

Looking for peer-reviewed, full-text articles from the world's leading journals and reference sources?  We've got them. Detailed instructions on care, troubleshooting and repair information for cars, listed by year, make and model?  That too. Scholarly, government and general-interest titles on global warming, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, and more? Ditto.  Thousands of legal forms, including legal reference books provided through Nolo, the nation's oldest and most-respected provider of legal information for consumers and small businesses? Yes, yes, & yes!  All this & more is available to you 24/7 via our website, with your valid library card & 4 digit PIN.

I get questions all the time to lead me to suggest our copious eResources & LibGuides. Many people don't know we have them. Other people remember finding them from a link called 'Databases' and wonder where they've gone. Well, as we expanded beyond collections of magazine and journal articles (stored in databases) to live one-on-one tutoring, language learning systems, practice exams for things like the GRE and LSAT, and streaming classical music...well, the term databases didn't fit anymore. After trying out a few other terms (including, we're afraid, online electronic resources - what a mouthful) we decided eResources was the best option, to match our other online collections: eBooks and eAudiobooks.

Once you are at the library website (you can find the URL on your card!), you want to look down the sidebar on the left for Research Assistance, which is followed by the "eResources" link.  It'll look like this:

If you click on "eResources", you'll come to this page:

The eResources page is kind of one-stop shopping.  It explains that generally, what we call eResources are collections and services paid for by the library and only available over the Internet. Examples include databases full of magazine articles, one-on-one live homework help, study guides and practice tests, dictionaries, business and financial information, and much more. All the eResources are split into handy, browsable categories.

Maybe you already know what you want, for example to access Morningstar® Investment Research Center or Newsbank, but just need to find the link.  You probably just need  to consult the A to Z eResource List, which you can find at the top of the Featured Guides list.  This guide contains a full list of our subscription eResources organized by name. Here's a sampling of what that guide looks like:

I hope this addresses questions you might have had regarding our eResources.  I encourage you to stop by the library website & explore!

Teen Read Week 2011

Are you a young adult? Or someone who enjoys young adult literature? If so, help us celebrate Teen Read Week 2011. This year's theme is Picture It @ your library®, which encourages teens to read graphic novels and other illustrated materials, seek out creative books, or imagine the world through literature, just for the fun of it. Teen Read Week runs from October 16 - 22.

You can celebrate Teen Read Week in a number of ways, including:

• Reading one of the Teen Top Teen nominations for 2011.
• Reading a graphic novel or comic (part of this year's focus!).
• Participating in one of ABC libraries' Teen Read Week programs (see below).
• Competing in YALSA's Teen Read Week photo contest.

Several library branches are celebrating Teen Read Week by offering programs just for teens. Sign yourself or your teen up for one! Click the links for more information on any of these programs.

• Photo Scavenger Hunt @ Cherry Hills (virtual) - deadline Monday, October 10 with slideshow at the October TAB meeting - Friday, October 21st
• Stenciling @ East Mountain - Saturday, October 15th
• Wii Gaming @ East Mountain - Wednesday, October 19th
• Kanji Japanese Calligraphy @ East Mountain - Saturday, October 22
• Horror Movie Screening @ Lomas Tramway - Friday, October 21

Nadja by André Breton

It's not often I read a book that I feel like I could read all over again immediately after, but Nadja is one of the few. Billed as a "Surrealist romance", this 1928 French novel, at first reading very light in tone, seems like one that would benefit from rereading.

This "book which defined [the Surrealist Movement's] attitude towards everyday life" is written as a first-person account of a novel affair between the unnamed narrator & the madcap Nadja, a girl he meets on the street (not until page 63 of this 163 page book). But there are also references to fellow surrealists Tzara & Éluard, to the painter Chirico, & to Rimbaud, among others; the first sections of the book are more about the narrator's worldview than anything else.  Early on, Breton's protagonist declares, "Do not expect me to provide an exact account of what I have been permitted to experience in this domain."

Nadja chose her own name "because in Russian it's the beginning of the word hope, & because it's only the beginning".  Her relationship with the narrator seems to exist on a different plane; he is married, she sees other people, but it doesn't seem to matter.  They see each other frequently to talk, far-reaching conversations that range from the narrator's power over Nadja to "who she might have been, in Marie-Antoinette's circle".  People are drawn to Nadja; in a restaurant, a waiter fascinated by her breaks 11 plates in the course of serving their meal. The narrator even says "I have taken Nadja, from the first day to the last, for a free genius, something like one of those spirits of the air which certain magical practices momentarily permit us to entertain but which we can never overcome".

Nadja has many delightful turns of phrase: "Perhaps life needs to be deciphered like a cryptogram"; "The event from which each of us is entitled to expect the revelation of his own life's meaning-that event which I may not yet have found, but on whose path I seek myself-is not earned by work"; "Life is other than what one writes"; "Time is a tease-because everything has to happen in its own time"; & my favorite, "How does it happen that thrown together, once & for all, so far from earth, in those brief intervals which our marvelous stupor grants us, we have been able to exchange a few incredibly concordant views above the smoking debris of old ideas & sempiternal life?"

The novel is not such much a linear storyline as a kind of stream of consciousness; it ebbs & flows on some internal tide of its own.  Much is suggested rather than explicated.  Nadja is an interesting portrait of the time, the place, & Surrealism itself.

The novel is supplemented by 44 pictures, "various 'surreal' people, places & objects which the author visits or is haunted by", which enhance the reader's understanding of the book.

Banned Books Week!

Each year libraries, booksellers, publishers, teachers and readers across the country celebrate our freedom to read whatever we want with Banned Books Week. Now in its 29t^h year, Banned Books Week is a chance for us to reflect on how important it is to have access to a wide range of perspectives and opinions in the books we read, even if that includes things we personally don't like or agree with.

Take a look at the American Library Association's list of banned and/or challenged classics to see some of the history of book challenges in the US and elsewhere, and then check out one of the most commonly challenged books of 2010 and see what you think:

1. And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson;
2. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie;
3. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley;
4. Crank, by Ellen Hopkins;
5. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins;
6. Lush, by Natasha Friend;
7. What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones;
8. Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich;
9. Revolutionary Voices, edited by Amy Sonnie;
10. 
    Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
    
    
    For even more banned books, visit the library! Several of our branches have "Banned Book" displays to help you find something someone (but not us!) doesn't want you to read!