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Welcome to Pasadena Public Library
Greetings!
The Fairmont Branch Library is now open full time. Its hours are weekdays 10-6 with Monday and Wed. evenings until 8 p.m. Saturday, the library is open from 12 to 5 p.m. Special thanks to the library staff who worked hard to make this a reality, and thanks to Mayor Johnny Isbell for setting this as a priority for the community. Also a very special thanks to the City of Pasadena landscape crew and their department head, Kirby Cardenas, who did a bang-up job of re-landscaping the building, and to Allan Teague's maintenance crew for the new energy efficient lighting. What a difference!The Library's acquisition team has been getting in many new books and DVD's for the Fall. Fairmont has had its collection increased to match its now-full time operation. Stop in and see what is new. Last month, the library had a rare treat. Johnell Kelley and Robbyn Hill who are life long friends and who grew up using the Pasadena Library, came for a book signing and talk about their new novel, The Getaway Girlz. They write under the pen name of Joan Rylen. The book is described as, "Recipe for a vacation - Ingredients: Four friends, white sandy beach, splash of tequila, salt and lime. Directions: Shake it up. Slam it back. Watch out. Vacation can be...Murder." If you want a cool book that dramatizes the meaning of "Don't mess with Texas," this is it - with two margaritas, if you please. The Getaway Girlz is available in local bookstores, Amazon, on iTunes Books, and the Pasadena Public Libraries. We are looking forward to the next novel by our local Pasadena authors, and their return to the Pasadena Libraries.
As the national political races conclude, and the frenzy of campaigning comes to a screeching silence, it is good to step back and realize that there is some truth in what historians teach us that there is "nothing new under the sun."
I just concluded reading a recently released, critically acclaimed, biography of
Thomas Becket, the once chancellor of England and close friend of King Henry II. Henry made his friend, Becket, Archbishop and head of the Church in England. As Becket fell from grace with the King he rose in grace in his Church. This is the story of two immense egotists and the agonizing struggle to control the power, wealth and future of the Kingdom and the Church. Portraying this early medieval period in all of its splendor and gore, the author draws a scene that reminds us of a chess board, with knights, bishops, kings, queens and the pawns who serve them. Thomas Becket, by John Guy reads more like a novel than the well researched biography that it is. Guy used original source materials and writings to paint a picture of Becket's life in 10th Century England. Surprisingly, a good deal of original source materials from this period has survived, allowing Guy to formulate images of King Henry and Thomas Becket from first hand accounts and their own writings. The image that appears is somewhat different than the movie version of the story which starred Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole, as Becket and Henry, with John Gielgud as the King of France.
Not yet three generations after the Norman Conquest, England was still a wild and often ungovernable domain for its Norman rulers. Henry needed help and brains in governing his realm. What started as a close relationship between the all-powerful but hopelessly immature Norman King Henry, and the ladder-climbing middle class Saxon, Becket, soon turned to enmity of the highest order as Henry makes his good drinking and wenching buddy, first Chancellor of the realm and then Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Church in England. A battle ensues between them as Henry tries to control the Church and Becket strives to become what his nascent conscience tells him he should be. Adding to this incendiary mix Henry of England's liege lord, the King of France, the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, make this a drama of world wide proportions.
It seems the story should end with the grisly murder of Becket in his cathedral at Canterbury by four knights after Henry mutters, in an oft repeated, but likely inaccurate line, "Will no-one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" Becket does die, but Henry's problems do not die with him. Soon reports of miracles and cures are circulating and people from far and wide come to Canterbury to seek the intercession of Thomas Becket who is proclaimed a Saint. Henry must atone for his sins now to keep his political capital. Of course from Becket's death and canonization as a Saint follows another good story, among the first in the English language - Chaucer's Canterbury Tales - stories of pilgrims on their way to the shrine of Thomas Becket. But that is for another time.
You can find Thomas Becket, by John Guy at the Pasadena Public Library. The results and commentaries on this year's (rather tame, by comparison) presidential and congressional elections, will also be found in the newspapers and magazines of your Pasadena Public Libraries. Tom Simiele Library Director |
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Featured Database: MedicLatina
MedicLatina
(Provided by the Texas State Library's TEXSHARE program.)
- Spanish language collection of medical research and investigative journals published by Latin American medical publishers.
- This unique database provides access to full text of nearly 100 peer-reviewed medical journals in native Spanish.
- The majority of full text titles are available in native (searchable) PDF, or scanned-in-color.
- A wide range of topics are covered including neuroscience, cardiology, nephrology, biomedicine, clinical research, pediatrics, human reproduction, clinical pathology, cancer research, and hematology.
- Publications covered in this database include Revista Medica del IMSS, Revista Mexicana de Patologia Clinica, Boletin Medico del Hospital Infantil de Mexico, Archivos de Neurociencias, Revista Biomedica, Veterinaria Mexico, Salud Publica de Mexico, ACIMED, and more.
MedicLatina is available both inside and outside the library with a valid Pasadena Public Library card
.
You will be asked to enter your card number.
HOW TO ACCESS MedicLatina!
- Go to the Pasadena Public Library home page at: http://www.ppltx.net
- Click on Research & Databases
- Click on the letter "M"
- Locate MedicLatina
- Click on "Remote Access" if you are accessing from outside the library.
- Click on "Library Access" if you are accessing the database from inside the library
- Type your last name & your library card number & Click on "Submit" or call the Reference Librarian at 713-477-0276 (Main Library) or at 281-998-1095 (Fairmont Branch).
For health related books en Espaņol, click here.
Any problems or questions?
Please call the Reference Librarian at 713-477-0276 (Main Library)
or at 281-998-1095 (Fairmont Branch).
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Staff Spotlight
NAME: Lucy Hewitt White Turoff 
TITLE: Adult Services Manager, Central Library
RESPONSIBILITIES AT THE LIBRARY:
Supervisor, Departmental Emergency Coordinator, Reference Librarian, Facilitator of the Silent Auction, Moderator of the Tea-Time Mystery Book Club, Keeper of the Local History Room, Library Liaison to the Chamber of Commerce's Cultural Arts Committee, and general "Jill-Of-All-Trades" when necessary.
WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME:
One of my ancestors was the general (John Fulton Reynolds) who laid out the battle lines for the Union forces at Gettysberg. While he was riding out on the front lines checking to make sure that things were properly in place, he was shot through the head by a Confederate sniper and killed instantly. There is a really nice statue of him on horseback by the front steps at Philadelphia City Hall.
FAVORITE AUTHORS:
Elizabeth Peters, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, CLIVE CUSSLER.
LAST BOOKS READ:
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (for TTMBC) and Getaway Girlz by Joan Rylen (a local Pasadena author).
WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THE PASADENA PUBLIC LIBRARY: It makes a real effort to supply sources of knowledge and fun to the community. It is big enough not to be run on "scraps" and is intimate enough to care about the needs of individual patrons.
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Story Time Hours at Central
Come join us for our weekly story times filled with rhymes, songs and finger plays!
MONDAY MORNINGS @ 10:30 A.M. WITH MRS. BELINDA & SOFIA
2ND TUESDAY @ 6:30 P.M. PAJAMA STORY TIME
(COME IN YOUR PJ'S AND BRING YOUR TEDDY BEAR)
4TH TUESDAY AT 6:30 P.M. - FAMILY FUN NIGHT WITH MS. GINGER & ARGYLE
FRIDAY MORNINGS @ 10:30 A.M.
WITH MS. GINGER & ARGYLE
For more information, please call 713.477.0276 x4132.
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Thanksgiving Craft at Fairmont
Come join us for a Thanksgiving Craft at the Fairmont Branch Library, Wednesday, November 14 at 10:30 a.m.
For more information, please call 281.998.1095
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Holiday Closings
Central and Fairmont Library will close the following days:
Saturday, November 10 through Monday, November 12
(In observance of Veterans Day)
Thursday, November 22 through Sunday, November 25 (In observance of Thanksgiving)
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Book Club Banter
"If you resist reading what you disagree with, how will you ever acquire deeper insights into what you believe? The things most worth reading are precisely those that challenge our convictions."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes-
November brings us a host of things to be thankful for-everything from bright fall colors to cooler weather to elections being finally done to hopes of much fine feasting and family fun to come. If you have the prospect of having many children and teens in the house for the holidays, be sure and check out all the children's picture books, chapter books and the teen fiction books that have been added in the Friends Bookstore recently. The hardback books are only $1.00 each and the youth and teen paperbacks are only 25-cents each, so pick up a sack full for truly thrifty holiday fun. There are also lots of mysteries and other fiction for adults as well as our very popular 50-cent cups of hot coffee, so come and pick out some of "the best" while enjoying our cushy club chairs and a cup of that coffee!
The Fairmont Branch Library's First Monday Book Club will read The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeanette Walls, and will meet in the Conference Room at the Fairmont Library on Monday, November 5, at 6:00 p.m. Come and join the group as they follow the author as a child as she and her three siblings endure the nomadic neglect of their talented and seriously alcoholic parents before they found the resources and will to leave "home."
The Central Library's Tea-Time Mystery Book Club will read Scots On the Rocks by Mary Daheim, and will meet on Monday, November 19 at 3:00 p.m. in the Board Room of the Central Library. Coffee, tea, scones and other "high tea" items will be served as the group discusses the sufferings of inn-keeper Judith McMonigle Flynn as she endures a "surprise" Scottish Highland vacation with her prickly Cousin Renie and their two sneaking sport-fishing husbands only to find yet another body in their newly-exploded castle hotel.
Contact William Simpson
(First Monday) at the Fairmont Library 281-998-1095 x15 or Lucy Turoff (Tea-Time Mystery) 713-475-4984 for more information regarding these two book clubs.
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Photos with Santa
When: Saturday, Dec. 1
Where: Central Library
Time: 2:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.
For more information, please call 713.477.0276 x 4132.
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Tuesday Theater
TEENS ONLY!
When: Tuesday, Nov. 20
Where: Teen Central
Time: 3:00 p.m.
Teens will vote on PG-13 movie to be viewed.
Refreshments will be provided.
For more information, please call Teen Central at 713.477.0276 x4122.
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Fairmont Extended Hours
The new extended Fairmont hours are as follows: Monday- 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday- 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday- 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday- 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday- 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday- 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday- Closed For more information, please call 281.998.1095
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