Due to budgetary cutbacks, the City Council has authorized thirteen business shutdown days, including multiple days around the Christmas holiday period. The specific days that our libraries will be closed may not be announced by the time this newsletter is released. Please check our Web site, or call your local branch library or (510) 238-3134 for an update. Events originally scheduled on business shutdown days will be cancelled. We will be closed December 25 and January 1 to observe Christmas and New Year's holidays.

Please note that we are adjusting dates that library materials are due and pickup dates for holds so that you are not penalized during the extended business shutdown period.

Thank you for your understanding during these difficult times.

The Temescal Branch is planning a month-long celebration to mark its 90th anniversary. The branch will throw a party on Wednesday December 10, 2008, from 6 to 8 p.m. All members of the community are invited to join in the fun. Temescal branch will also host creative workshops and put on historical exhibits throughout the month of December. Temescal Branch is located in a historic Carnegie library building at 5205 Telegraph Avenue.
 
The historical exhibits will be up from December 5, 2008, until January 7, 2009. Celebrating 90 Years: A History of the Temescal Branch Library is a timeline of photos, documents, and explanatory narrative that highlights changes at the library and in the community over the past nine decades. Carnegie Libraries will present history, photos, maps, and artifacts that place Temescal Branch among the other 2,509 Carnegie libraries built between 1883 and 1929. Italian Americans in Temescal: The Story of the Colombo Club will feature documents and visuals from the archives of the Colombo Club, which was founded in the Temescal neighborhood in 1920. This display will be in the branch's downstairs meeting room. 
 
All are welcome to join in a pair of free arts workshops. In Short Order Poetry, artist Alan Leon and participants will pay homage to Temescal's rich history by creating quick bits of writing in a wide variety of styles and forms. The event takes place Monday December 1, 2008, from 6 to 8 p.m. In a Collage Workshop, led by Nancy Elliott, participants will use recycled materials to depict the Temescal branch's unique architecture and to celebrate reading and books. The collage-building will happen Saturday, December 6, 2008, from 1 to 3 p.m.
 
Temescal Branch opened as Alden Branch in 1918. It was designed in Tudor Revival style and built with Carnegie funding. In 1949 community organizations advocated to get the name changed to Temescal Memorial Library.

 

Be sure to come by to appreciate this wonderful branch library and to join the celebration!  

 

Thanks to some last-minute budget decisions by the Oakland City Council, the Second Start Adult Literacy Program will continue to serve adult learners at 1801 Adeline Street with no reduction in hours through June, 2009. The program serves individuals, ages 16 and older, who wish to improve their reading and writing skills. The program will relocate to the Main Library sometime next spring or summer. Students and potential tutors can get more information at 238-3432, or visit Second Start on the Web.

Second Start's hours are:

Well-known and emerging Bay Area and international writers will converge for the 18th Annual PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles National Literary Awards ceremony at the Rockridge Branch Library on Saturday, December 6, from 2-5 p.m. San Francisco Poet Laureate devorah major will serve as host, while Oakland poet Michael McClure will deliver the keynote speech. Poet Diane di Prima and playwright Adrienne Kennedy (in photo, above) will receive Reginald Lockett Lifetime Achievement Awards for their ground-breaking work. Seven other writers will be honored as recipients of the 2008 Josephine Miles National Literary Awards, which represent the best in multicultural literature.

A reception will follow where the public will have an opportunity to meet the authors, and purchase a signed copy of their award-winning books.

This event is free to the public, and the Oakland Public Library is honored once again to be a co-sponsor. The Rockridge Branch is located at 5366 College Avenue. For more information, call (510) 681-5652.

 

If you haven't already noticed, the Oakland History Room regularly puts on small but engrossing exhibits in its display cases, on the 2nd floor of the Main Library. Librarian Steven Lavoie takes great care in assembling relevant materials, including newspaper clippings, photographs, and historic artifacts from the History Room's impressive collection. Each exhibit tells a story, usually zeroing in on a locally relevant topic or theme. Bond of Perpetuity: Oakland and the Lincoln Legacy, which will run until February 28, 2009, is no exception. 
                                                              
The new display will commemorate the enduring legacy in the East Bay of the presidency of Abraham Lincoln as the 200th anniversary of his birth approaches. Photographs and materials from the collection reflect on Lincoln's influence in monumental developments such as the Transcontinental Railroad (see photo, above), the overland telegraph, and the Civil War. Memorabilia from the Lincoln Highway, named in his honor, will also be included. 
 
The Oakland History Room is located on the second floor of the Main Library, 125 14th St. For information call 510-238-6571. You can find information about the Oakland History Room on its website.

 

Act now if you still haven't made it over to the African American Museum and Library at Oakland (AAMLO) to see the exhibit Banned and Recovered: Artists Respond to Censorship. The exhibit is scheduled to close December 31 - possibly earlier, if the City Council's plans for a citywide shutdown are realized (see "December Holiday Schedule," above, for more on that). 

The exhibit, a first-time collaboration between AAMLO and the San Francisco Center for the Book (SFCB), features works from over 60 artists working in a variety of media, with most artists interpreting a banned book of their choice. 
 
Timed to open during Banned Books Week (September 27 - October 3), sponsored by the American Library Association, the Banned and Recovered exhibit has provided, in the words of curator Hanna Regev, a "powerful reminder of the fragility of our freedoms, many of which are being chipped away by the Patriot Act. It is a powerful testament to the irrepressible creative spirit."  
 
AAMLO, located at 659 14th Street (near Preservation Park), is open Tuesdays through Saturdays, 12:00 to 5:30 p.m.

Nonprofit organizations and other grant seekers now have access to a valuable resource at the Oakland Main Library, which has become a Cooperating Collection of the Foundation Center of New York. The collection includes The Foundation Directory Online, which profiles over 91,000 U.S. grantmakers; Foundation Grants to Individuals Online, a database of more than 6,500 foundation and public charity programs that fund students, artists, researchers, and other individual grantseekers; print directories; and proposal writing guides. The online databases can only be accessed at the Main Library, but are available on any catalog or Internet work station there.

Established in 1956, the Foundation Center is the nation's leading authority on organized philanthropy, serving grantmakers, researchers, policymakers, the media, and the general public.

For more information about these resources, please call (510) 238-3138. 

 

Xochitl Leon's young daughter loves the César Chávez library preschool storytime on Wednesday morning, where Acting Branch Manager and Children's Librarian Derrick DeMay reads stories and sings songs in English and Spanish to his largely Hispanic audience. So when Xochitl's employer, Wells Fargo, solicited nominations for its Amigos employee resource group's annual Hispanic Spirit Awards, she nominated Derrick and his program. 
 
Friday, November 14th, Derrick and Gerry Garzón of the Oakland Library, and Ellen Moyer of the FOPL board, attended the sixth annual Wells Fargo Hispanic Spirit Awards reception in the penthouse of the Wells Fargo building in San Francisco, where the César Chávez storytime was one of ten Bay Area programs honored with an award.
 
FOPL is proud to accept a $2,500 donation on behalf of this excellent library program, and will donate these funds directly to the César Chávez library in support of Derrick and his storytime.
 
Visit FOPL's Website for information about how you can support the Oakland Public Library. FOPL operates The Bookmark Bookstore in Old Oakland, open Monday through Saturday except holidays (December 25 and January 1).  
 
[In the picture, from left to right: Derrick DeMay, Gerry Garzón, Ellen Moyer, Xochitl Leon.]