Weekly Activities

-Preschool Story Hour for children on Wednesday, July 29, at 10:30 a.m.

-Introduction to Vista demo on Thursday, July 30, at 10:30 a.m.

-Summer Reading Program on Tuesday, August 4, at 9:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.

Activity Details

Introduction to Vista on July 30 is a good time to become familiar with the features of Vista as PC’s operating system. So often we start to use a computer without any introduction to it and use it with what we’re used to. This is an opportunity to stand back and likely pick up some added ways to more fully utilize the features that Vista offers.

Summer Reading Program continues with the sessions on August 4 for ages 8 and 9 at 9:30 a.m. and for ages 12 & 13 at 11:00 a.m. Pre-registration of children is necessary. Parents need not accompany the children but are expected to be present to pick up children after the session.

Active Place

Staff have enjoyed the brisk pace of usage as summer greeted us. We have experienced in the past three summers that usage of the library has been much more vigorous than in previous summers. While it means we need to do staffing a bit differently, it is a joy that more residents are discovering the value of the library.

“I didn’t realize you were here” or “Why I didn’t get a card here before is beyond me” or “How long have you been offering this service?” are all comments we’ve heard and others in related terms. Usage last month was up 4.5 percent over the same period last summer. In practical terms that meant 7,248 people frequented the library in person, and to that mix we can add 128 who called in with questions that required consulting resources to arrive at an answer, and 1,484 hours of Internet time that was used.

Our homepage got 4,445 hits last month so we know that some are using it to good advantage.

We work very hard at adding titles to our collections-whether fiction, mystery, non-fiction, DVD and audios and print. Last month the number of items checked out was up 9 percent. We know this is true as our electronic catalog, which is an aid in locating titles, was used 1,746 times, a dramatic increase since last June.

You may hear about reports in the media that library usage is up and that libraries are being used more than ever. We know that’s true! As a public library, we don’t use tax dollars to advertise so it’s easy for those who don’t use the library to overlook the very important place that a library plays in the community. Still, it’s good to remind ourselves that we must continue to grow as this service to the community remains vital.

Large Print

It’s gratifying for us to see the discovery of the value of large print titles among more patrons of the Beach Library. There was a time when large print seemed to be equated with magnifying glasses, walkers and home defibrillators. Or one picked up a large print title where one could easily think “Bet you can’t lift this book!” But no more.

Publishers have improved the quality of how large print is laid out. Lighter paper is being used and experimentation is underway with a variety of bindings and covers to see if the title is more comparable to regular print. And as a growing ‘younger’ set is discovering, one can take off bifocals and read the title just fine. Large print books, to quote one reader, make her feel like a speed reader.

In response to the growing number who are enjoying large print, we have expanded our large print collection and continue to add titles to it each week.

With 150 million Americans wearing some form of corrective eyewear, and a growing number of people dealing with vision concerns ranging from eye strain to more serious health issues, the benefit of large print books is growing.

We have an extensive collection of titles in 16-point type, which is approved by the National Association for the Visually Handicapped. Titles cover a wide range of genres, including fiction, mystery, romance, historical fiction, westerns, biography, general nonfiction, and our latest genre addition, gentle fiction.

Love

The author of “A Vindication of Love,” (On Order, place Hold to reserve) Christina Nehring, has taken on a big topic. There are so many forms of love that to name just a few (parental love, sacred love, love of food, animals, adventure, art, romantic love, tough love) opens up a vista of the Universe. What kind of love is this author writing about? It is not only love between the sexes, it’s just–well–love among men and women. It can be passionate, intermittent, flirtatious, or hopeless.

She shows us what love used to be like but says it’s not that way any more. It has lost its aura, its mystery, its glory, its romance. Nehring offers as evidence of humanity’s vanished erotic past the amorous biographies of a number of historical couples (mostly, though not exclusively, women with men). She is an avowed feminist, so she portrays an array of breakaway women having breakaway love affairs of one kind and another. Some smack of the illicit, most are strongly unconventional. Few if any illustrate the lifelong commitment, the uninterrupted partnerships that “old timers,” at least, associate with love tried and true. She tends to dismiss enduring love unless it’s hopeless.

Seeing love as hopeless may also be one of the weaknesses of the work-Nehring fails to get in touch with couples who have enjoyed and shared decades of committed love. Most of the couples Nehring profiles, however, are anything but constant lovers, given instead to dalliances and frequent and numerous affairs with different partners.

While you may not find each chapter uplifting, the narratives tell fascinating stories.

True Crime Readers

Fast-paced and authentic, “The Mad Ones: Crazy Joe Gallo and the Revolution at the Edge of the Underworld,” by Tom Folsom, is a crackling must read for true-crime enthusiasts. In vivid, action-packed lingo he recounts the stakeouts, drive-by shootings, ambushes, setups, and other forms of sudden death the Brooklyn mobsters used in their no-holds-barred battle for Mafia supremacy in the 1950s and 60s. The principal adversaries: the Mafia establishment, whose Brooklyn branch of the “Commission” was run by the Colombos, vs. the Gallo brothers, Larry, Joey, and Kid Blast and their colorfully named retinue (Joe Jelly, Ali Baba, Louis Cadillac, Mondo the Midget, among others). A parade of steely-eyed guys with cigarettes dangling from the corners of their mouths; sad-eyed, black-clad Italian mamas; curvaceous Copacabana chorus girls; FBI types; and a sprinkling of celebrities slink, swagger, and sashay through these pages. It is a lively and well-written slice of Americana.

Library Hours

Don’t remember library hours? Call for information. When we are closed, a recorder gives the hours of operation, either on 765-8162 or on 765-8163. Except for holidays, which would be mentioned on the recorder, we are open Monday and Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Saturday 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. We look forward to seeing you.