The new library steel structure is complete!

The following pictures taken June 8, 2011 show how the Brentwood Library is gradually taking shape:

  The orinal Douglas Fir ceiling and the chimney has been maintained from the old building, but new steel supports have replaced the old brick pillars. New floors are being poured, so that the new and old buildings will join seamlessly.

 

 

 

 

 

  All underground work has been completed. The existing basement will be filled in completely, and the heating and cooling system will be stationed on the roof.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second floor will contain the adult and teen areas as well as the computer learning centre.

The sloping roof in the middle section is held in place by special braces which forms part of the architectural feature of the ceiling.

 

 

 

 

 

The third floor is the staff office and workroom area. It will be part of a mezzanine which overlooks the second floor adult section.

This picture looks south towards Bloor Street.

 

 

 

 

 

This image is taken from the second floor looking up to the third floor mezzanine. The holes in the floor and ceiling indicate where stairs and the elevator will be placed in order to allow easy passage between all levels.

Spotlight on Summer Sport

Summer is high season for sports. Football started just recently, and baseball players are known as "the boys of summer." Wimbledon just passed. Sailing regattas shape up on lakes everywhere, golf is in full swing. Volleyball courts dot beaches. And this year, the granddaddy of all sporting events will be happening in China and broadcast across the world - the Olympics makes its once-in-four-years appearance. This mythic meeting of competitors is the stuff legends are made of, and never fails to create heros, rivet the world, and deliver a few notes of pathos.

Interested in finding out a bit more about sports, the Olympics, the rules and equipment, the history and the players? Head to the 790s, where you can find books on all sorts of sports, as well as many sports biographies. Just don't get so engrossed you miss the Olympic gymnasts - they really are amazing!

The Art of Blogging Life

I recently went to a book launch for a new book, Petite Anglaise, by a blogger, largely based on her blog, in turn largely based on events in her own life. A British ex-pat living in Paris, Catherine Sanderson recounts how her blog became a catalyst to making major changes in her life, including leaving her daughter's father, meeting a man via her blog, and breaking up with him to discover herself again and make a new start. Along the way, she notes how she wrote about all of this on her blog - not always completely openly.

It's not a new concept, this turning life into art via a journal or published letters, nor is it new for the author to mold his or her own image a bit by judicious under- or over-playing of certain episodes or emotions. What I've found interesting in reading this book is how aware the author is of her own re-packaging as she writes her blog. She talks freely about how she presents herself as more confident, more witty and urbane, than she is in real life, not to mention how she put a positive spin on many a moment, or suppressed her uglier feelings.

Perhaps even more interesting is how she reveals this artifice of hers in rewriting that period of her life in the book form, adding another layer to her own self-portrayal at the same time as she appears to strip one off. Indeed, she doesn't do much to make herself appear sympathetic, and there were moments where I found myself decidedly not siding with her.

All in all, the book was an interesting twist on life writing, as well as having great appeal to readers of so-called "chick lit" authors such as Sophie Kinsella, Jennifer Weiner, or Jane Green. As a blogger, it had added appeal in revealing another blogger's techniques and motivations. I could see this being a great summer read, if you are looking for something light with a little hint of depth.

Teen Novel Review: Paranoid Park

Last year, I read Blake Nelson's Paranoid Park, a teen novel of skateboarding and suspense. It was dark, to be sure, captivating, and confident in its way around the world of teens. It was, however, a novel that lived largely inside the mind of its main character, a boy accidentally involved in the death of a security guard.

In it a teen skater - but a Prep, not a Streeter - first goes to an underground skatepark, he thinks it is amazing. But the next time, he and a Streeter get into a bad situation that ends in a death. An accident, but mostly his fault, and a horrible, gory accident, at that. The bulk of the book deals with the aftermath of this andhow he handles it.

The book has a really realistic feel to it, how this massive guilty secret colours everything in the kid's life, how it is never out of his mind, how he wrestles with the idea of telling, of turning himself in, and thinks about who it would affect. How he is careful, guarded, all the time and doesn't feel like he can be open to anyone, in any way, really. How frightened he is when the police ask questions. In the end, the first person narrative is composed of letters written to one person he feels comfortable with, though he doesn't really know her all that well.

This was a good book, even though it made me tense, because it keeps you in suspense. The emotions of it are clear and believable, and while it seems on the surface like it suggests you can get away with stuff, I think it really does a good job of showing how high a price you really pay on the inside and how it cuts you off from people around you, making it actually a good cautionary tale.

I wondered, then, when I saw that a movie had been made of the novel - how would they pull it off? It is a difficult feat to make a movie that is so focussed on the internal without losing your audience. Director Gus van Sant does have a strong history of making the sort of movie that deals with teen coming of age moments and alienation, as demonstrated in cult favourite My Own Private Idaho and one of my own favourites, Good Will Hunting.

What have reviewers thought? Well, the film has done well at film festivals, to be sure. At Cannes, it was nominated for a prestigious Palme D'Or Award and won a 60th anniversary award, and then won a producer's award at the Independent Spirit Awards, where it was also nominated for best features abd best director awards, as well as performing well in Toronto's own film festival last fall. Wide release, however, has seen reviews that are a little lukewarm, with most reviewers pointing to the slightly slow action.

Have you seen it? Add your own two cents - I'd love to hear what you thought.

Politically Correct Teaching or Re-writing History?

I read an article in the UK's Daily Mail newspaper a few weeks ago that I found unbelievable and disgraceful. It is about what some British students are learning, or rather not learning in school. In the article "Teachers drop the Holocaust to avoid offending Muslims" by Laura Clark (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=445979&in_page_id=1770), Clark makes reference to a study conducted by the Department for Education and Skills that found that some schools at the primary and secondary level are not teaching the Holocaust in history lessons to avoid offending Muslim students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial. Also, some teachers do not cover the Crusades, where Christians fought the Moors for control of Jerusalem, because it contradicts what is taught in local mosques.

As an information professional, I find this type of institutional censorship very detrimental to the learning process. When it comes to history, and life, there are a lot of truths that are not pretty or simple. In an effort to be politically correct, teachers who fail to teach of past atrocities are in effect choosing to re-write history; and denying young minds the opportunity to form their own understanding of historical events that have had a major impact on how the modern world has evolved. Furthermore, they are suppressing their students' right to grasp, question, debate and learn from these events. 

In Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451, Montag  tells Granger that the books the firemen are burning are not lost because they are still alive in the memories of the people who carry them. "But our way is simpler, and, we think, better. All we want to do is keep the knowledge we think we will need intact and safe...We'll pass the book on to our children, by word of mouth, and let our children wait, in turn, on the other people. A lot will be lost that way, of course."

If the stories don't get told they will die with the people. The same is true with history.

Size 12 is Not Fat

Size 12 is Not Fat and Size 14 is Not Fat Either by Meg Cabot are light entertaining mysteries. They are nicely written and keep you guessing until the end, when the main character, Heather, eventually solves the case. The author does a nice job of involving you in Heather’s personal life, so much so, that on a few occasions you forget that there are murders to be solved.  But you are quickly brought back to the crime at hand as Heather’s inquisitive mind is always on the case.

I loved reading Nancy Drew mysteries as a child and this series feels like Nancy Drew for the adult girl. 

In Size 12 is Not Fat, Heather is perfectly happy with her new size 12 shape and her new job as an assistant dorm director at one of New York’s top colleges. That is, until the dead body of a female student from Heather’s residence hall is discovered at the bottom of an elevator shaft. The cops and the college president are ready to write the death off as an accident, the result of reckless youthful mischief. But Heather knows teenage girls and girls do not elevator surf. Yet no one wants to listen, not the police, her colleagues, or the P.I. who owns the brownstone where she lives, even when more students start turning up dead in equally ordinary and subtly sinister ways. So Heather makes the decision to take on yet another new career: as spunky girl detective.

In Size 14 is Not Fat Either, Heather has settled nicely into her new life as assistant dorm director and can even cope with her rocker ex-boyfriend’s upcoming nuptials, dubbed The Celebrity Wedding of the Decade by the press. But she’s definitely having a hard time dealing with the situation in the dorm kitchen, where a cheerleader has lost her head on the first day of the semester. Actually, her head is accounted for—it’s her torso that’s missing. Surrounded by hysterical students, her ex-con father, and her bothersome ex-boyfriend, Heather welcomes the opportunity to play detective again. If it gets her mind off her personal problems and teams her up again with the gorgeous P.I. who owns the brownstone where she lives, it’s all good. But the murder trail leads her into a shadowy world. If she doesn’t watch her step, Heather will soon be singing her last song.

Library Databases Online

I enjoy helping customers find information and showing them how to use new resources that they had no idea were available to them. I find that they are usually surprised and grateful to discover these new resources. This is particularly true of the library's electronic databases, the majority of which are available remotely to customers through the library's website. All you need is a library card.

Did you know that you can access articles from thousands of newspapers from Canada and around the world? Are you looking for car repair and troubleshooting information? Use the Auto Repair Reference Center database which has car manuals from 1945 to  2007. Do you have an issue to debate for class, for example cloning, euthanasia or political corruption? Check out the Opposing Viewpoints database to research both sides of the argument.

The Learning Express Library resource has practice tests that you can take, such as TOEFL, EMS, firefighter, math tests, reading and writing tests, LSAT, GED,etc.

You can also access full-text reviews from Consumer Reports for all but the most current three issues.

These are only a few of the resources available. Ask your local librarian how you can access this wealth of information.

And Our Readers Say...

What did you consider the very best book you read in 2006? This could be fiction or non-fiction, and may not have been a new book, (ie-not published in 2006) but it is up to you to decide which you liked the best!

My vote goes to No Need to Trouble the Heart by Patrick Conlon (Non-Fiction), with The Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly as the runner-up. So hard to choose just one!

Let’s hear what you have to say!

Understanding Graphic Novels: Part 1

The graphic novel is an extension of the comic book format. The idea behind the comic book or single comic dates back thousands of years to the Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics, where images and text were used in patterns to tell a story. But there are many other formats of art work that can be seen as using the comic or graphic story telling form. A few of these are: stained glass windows, 18th century picture stories, diagram pamphlets (such as those used on airplanes telling you how to inflate your personal flotation device), tapestries and quilts.

To better understand graphic novels we must first consider the definition of what a comic or graphic novel is. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a comic book as being: a book or magazine containing a single narrative told through comic strips. However, this definition suggests that a story must be told through juxtaposition, that one panel must be next to another panel in order to tell a story. But any of you who have read Family Circus know that it uses one panel to tell its story/joke. So the Dictionary may not be the best place to get a definition for this genre. This is especially true in this era when the way we define comics and grahic novels is changing. If you take the Dictionary's definition of a comic and the inherent need for juxtaposition in order to tell a story - then logically a film strip can also be considered a very slow paced comic or graphic novel.

In reading a comic one must be aware that there is an inherent dialect or vocabulary that we accept as being normal or natural, i.e. in the Batman T.V. series it was commonplace to use words in comic form as the impact during fight scenes. It became accepted that a punch was being thrown and received and that the evidence of this was the word telling us so. 

I will explore this further in an upcoming blog entry. Stay tuned....

Young Voices 2005/2006

The new Young Voices Magazine is now available free at your local library. It features poetry, prose and artwork by teens age 12-19. I was amazed by the creativity, originality and inspiration showcased. I got a sense of how aware and engaged these teenagers are, in terms of society, politics, education and the environment. Here's an excerpt from the poem Guineapig by Scarlett Coppins, Age 12,

"Why should I,

try

to define

why war is still alive?

We're always worried when people like us get ill

but then why do people like us still kill?" (p. 48)

Here are a few of my favourite works: Self Image by Kee Seuk Kim, Age 15 (p. 22); Cerebus' Grandmother by Roland Tecson-Bourgeoais, Age 15 (p.31); Paradise by Ria Carter, Age 15 (p.61); Two Fireflies by Justin Moga, Age 17 (p. 77); The Truth Is by Andre, Age 17 (p. 78).

I recommend you pick up a copy to read. You can also read previous editions online at: http://ramp.torontopubliclibrary.ca/secondary/expressyourself/writinggonewild/youngvoicesmagazine/three-content.jsp