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In This Issue
The Poe Project
2013 Play Summit
Summer Reading: Mission Accomplished
Big Wheels roll into Franklin
September Events: Authors and Open Houses
Travel Book Travels Back from Japan
Volunteer of the Month
From the Foundation
Become a Friend
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Library News 
September 2013
From the Director

 

Rivkah

Rivkah K. Sass

Library Director

Get Your Poe On!

 

We are very excited about our 2013 One Book Sacramento celebrating the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Reading Poe together as a community is going to be one astounding experience. If you have loved Poe all your life, or if you've always meant to read "Hop-Frog" but just never got around to it, please join us in October for a month-long celebration of Mr. Poe.

 

We believe that your experience reading Edgar A. Poe will be even better if you read the very special anthology of Poe's works that we have published just for our community, The Slender Poe. Thanks to Poe aficionado and Sacramento poet John Allen Cann, as well as the creative talents of SPL staff, we have produced (on the I Street Press) a beautiful book that we can't wait to share with you.

 

We also have planned some wonderful programs to celebrate Poe, including our opening night event on Wednesday, October 2, featuring winning films from "The Poe Project," our partnership with the Capital Film Arts Alliance, reading and commentary by poet John Allen Cann, and some surprises. We'll continue with a month of special programs celebrating the work of the man credited with being the author of the first detective story, featuring everything from an evening of haunted stacks to a film finale.

 

We want to thank community partners who are joining in the celebration, including New Helvetia Brewing Company, which came up with a literary first, "Edgar Allan Porter," and DoughBot, which has promised doughnuts celebrating Poe. A Poe-bot perhaps?

 The Poe Project 

  

Our celebration of Edgar Allan Poe starts on Friday, September 13, at the Crest Theatre with a screening of The Poe Project. This series of 11 short films, all 13 minutes or less, by local directors based on Poe stories, was put together by the Capital Film Arts Alliance. The screening will be part of the 14th Annual Sacramento Film & Music Festival. The Poe Project reception starts at 5:30, followed by a Poe-inspired fashion show at 6:00 p.m. and the film screening at 7:00.  

 

Then come join us for our One Book launch of The Slender Poe on October 2 at the Tsakopoulos Library Galleria. And stay tuned for more Poe and Halloween-related events in October--complete with numerous characters, and just maybe, the ghost of Poe himself.  

 

2013 Play Summit  


  

Childhood is when our brains are growing faster than they ever will again, forming connections we will rely on for the rest of our lives. Research shows that play is vital to children's cognitive, emotional and physical development. But playtime is also being endangered in a world where children's lives are increasingly scheduled and busy.

 

Please join us for the 2013 Sacramento Play Summit. This one-day conference on the importance of play will take place at the Sacramento Central Library  at 828 I St. on Saturday, September 7, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The event is sponsored by Fairytale Town and ScholarShare Speaks. We'll have a trio of great keynote speakers:

  • Dr. Melissa Arca. Arca will speak on "Child's Play: On Protecting the Most Important Work of Childhood." She is a mom, pediatrician, blogger at Confessions of a Dr. Mom and a guest columnist at The Sacramento Bee.
  • Barney Saltzberg. The author/illustrator of nearly 40 children's books and singer/songwriter of four CDs for children will instruct adults on how to wake up their inner child and be a better play partner.
  • Myla Marks. Marks is the director of training at Playworks,
    a nonprofit that organizes constructive play programs at schools. 

Register online. $35 per person, $25 for students, seniors, members of Fairytale Town, Friends of the Sacramento Public Library or ScholarShare Speaks account holders. Daylong parking is available for only $6 at the 8th and J Street parking garage adjacent to the Library.

 Summer Reading: Mission Accomplished!        

 

 

When we kicked off our 2013 Summer Reading program back in June, we had a modest goal: to break our previous all-time records by signing up 30,000 people to read 100,000 books.  

 

We say modest because we did it with time to spare. A review of our unofficial final numbers:   

  • We passed 30,000 signups on July 30, and eventually hit 33,317. This is up 30 percent over last year and 11 percent over our goal for the summer.   
  • We hit 100,000 books read on August 9, and reached 132,822 by the end. This was an amazing 212 percent higher than last year, and 32 percent over our goal.  
  • We set a new record with 11,225 finishers on August 17, and drove that new record to 13,321 by the end. This was up 18 percent from last year and 11 percent above our goal. 

We've said it many times, but it bears repeating. Summer Reading programs help fight the "summer slide," where kids lose up to two months of the reading skills they gained during the school year over the long summer break. By that standard, the 9,894 kids who completed our program prevented 1,694 years of summer slide.  

 

While all of our libraries pitched in, the Rancho Cordova Library was the overall winner in all three categories. The Rio Linda Library was our top-performing small library, despite the fact that they've been closed for relocation since July 28!


Jolene Moua wasn't happy about getting her photo taken as dad Sai and sister Makaelyn looked on. They were at the South Natomas Library on August 8 to see County Supervisor Phil Serna read at the library's preschool storytime.
Big Wheels roll into Franklin

My, what big wheels you have!  

 

Please join us for the second annual Big Wheels at the Franklin Library on September 21 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. We'll have more than two dozen vehicles of all sizes and shapes--including some real kid (and dad) pleasers!  

 

Last year's event drew more than 1,700 people to the Library's spacious 60,000-square-foot parking lot for a day of festivities. In fact, it was so successful we decided to make it an annual event. Enjoy food, entertainment, storytimes, prize drawings every hour and tables where you can learn more about the great services we offer.  

 

Come talk to the drivers and learn more about what they do all day.

This year, we'll have an 740B Articulated Hauler (shown in the photo above), SWAT vehicles from the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department and the Elk Grove Police Department, a bucket truck from the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, an OMG Burger Truck, Mr. Sancho's Ice Cream Truck, a Brinks armored car, and drag racer from the Sacramento Raceway, a delivery truck and bookmobile from the Sacramento Public Library (of course!), and the Radio Flyer Car--that's right, a full-sized car shaped just like a kid's little red wagon.

 

Then there's a vehicle that's always a favorite with the kids: a Waste Management garbage truck (Don't worry, they'll wash it first).  

 

The event is one of our highlights for Library Card Sign-up Month. The American Library Association has held this nationwide event every September since 1988 as "a time to remind parents and children that a library card is the most important school supply of all."

September events: Authors and Heritage
Summer's over, school's in--but we're not slowing down. Some of our September highlights include:

 Travel Book Travels Back from Japan 


We made national news in August--in a completely unexpected way.

It all started back on April 25 when a patron checked out the travel book Eyewitness Travel Japan. The patron lost the book in May while traveling in that country, and paid the replacement fee. But then it arrived back on August 8 in a package from Japan with a very nice note from the person who found it in a train station.

We posted the story on our Facebook page and it quickly became one of our all-time most popular posts. Several TV and radio stations then picked up the story. Here's the ABC News10 story on the book, and another by CBS affiliate KOVR. Both stories also traveled a great deal, appearing on local news stations around the country.


We're happy to report that Eyewitness Travel Japan will go back into circulation. The patron is getting a refund. The thoughtful person in Japan will soon receive a copy of The Slender Poe.

Here's the funny thing: Our travel guide saga didn't even take the distance record for the month. That distinction went to a Sicily travel guide that someone mailed 10,000 miles back to a library in Australia.  


Volunteer of the Month: Susan Bloom  

 

 

How did you start volunteering at the Library?  

 

I'm working on my MLIS [Masters of Library and Information Science] degree at San Jose State, 100 percent online. I accepted an early retirement package from Hewlett-Packard in August 2012.  

 

I started with 916 Ink, an organization supported by the Library. It focuses on improving literacy through writing workshops for kids. The first workshop I did was at the Colonial Heights Library. The atmosphere appealed to me because it was a very active community center. I started as a technology assistant. In May I volunteered as a job coach

  

You also helped Alan Candee create an "Exit Notebook" for when he retired from Walnut Grove?

 

I wanted to help him figure out how he would transfer his institutional knowledge to whoever will replace him. I found that helpful when I transferred out of my job at HP, to have someone talk over what I needed to leave behind.  

 

And you're a Summer Meals Volunteer Coordinator?

 

I coordinate the volunteers for the Summer Meals program at Valley Hi-North Laguna. This is an exciting program which provides meals to kids 18 years old and younger during the summer. We have a roster of about 28 awesome volunteers. We have a fabulous volunteer who reads to the kids after they eat and teen volunteers who spend quality time with the kids in active play.  

 

I spend about 15 hours a week on the various volunteer jobs. Volunteering at the library has given me a chance to gain experience within libraries and contribute to the community.

From the Foundation

 

What a delicious summer it was. 

 

The Sacramento Public Library Foundation donated $100,000 for this year's Summer Reading program. We are thrilled with the increases in participation this year and will to continue to support the growth of SPL's Summer Reading program.    

 

Of the nearly 25,000 children younger than 18  who signed up, nearly 10,000 have completed the program by reading five books. For their effort, they were given a book of their own to take home and an opportunity to enter a drawing.  

 

But we still have room to grow. As well as we did, we still only reached about 7 percent of the under-18 population of Sacramento County. Wouldn't it be great if we could reach 25%? 

 

Summer reading helps children maintain--and sometimes increase--their reading skills and consequently avoid the summer learning losses. By supporting summer reading, we support our children to be reading-ready at every grade level. If you would like to make a donation to next year's summer reading program, call 916-264-2990 or visit www.saclibraryfoundation.org.

 

April L. Butcher

Executive Director

Sacramento Public Library Foundation

Friends of the Sacramento Public Library

Please join the Friends of the Sacramento Public Library, a

nonprofit organization that raises money to benefit the Sacramento Public Library. Friends' membership dues (only $15 a year!) help fund library programs such as the Summer Reading program. Friends members enjoy benefits like members-only preview sales, book sale discounts, news and alerts, and special events like the Annual All Friends Dinner in October.    

 

The Friends of the Sacramento Public Library hosts book sales at the Book Den's warehouse six times per year at 8250 Belvedere Ave., Suite E, Sacramento (off Power Inn Road, one block south of 14th Avenue). There's always a wonderful selection of books, CDs, DVDs and more, sorted by category. Prices range from 50 cents for paperbacks to $2 for hardbacks. The next Friend's Warehouse Sale starts Oct. 4.  

 

The Book Den is open for regular hours from Thursday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more information, call (916) 731-8493. Many branches also have book sales throughout the year. Find upcoming library branch book sales near you.   

Sacramento Public Library
828 I Street
Sacramento, CA  95814
916.264.2770