February 2012
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“Libraries are gateways to opportunities.”
– New York City Mayor, Mike Bloomberg, as quoted in the Village Voice on how New York City libraries, including Queens Library at Flushing, helped connect 35,000 New Yorkers to employment opportunities in 2011.
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They Tell Me of a Home: Book Review
Daniel Black’s They Tell Me of a Home is like watching an episode of The Maury Show or The Jerry Springer Show — without the commercials. Entertained by someone else’s drama, it kept me flipping pages.
Tommy Lee Tyson, the main character in this book, has some important lessons to learn. And his hometown in Arkansas, which he leaves so abruptly at age 18 — when, free from parental control,...
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Vampire Books and Movies We Love
So it’s nowhere near Halloween, but I just finished reading the third book, The Night Eternal, in the vampire series from Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan. (It started with The Strain.) It got me thinking about how much I love a good vampire book (or movie), and how I love the way authors and directors play with the enduring myth of vampires. It was kind of cool, for instance, that...
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3DS "Super Mario 3D Land" Review
The 3DS is a fun hand-held and a decent enough upgrade to the DS and DSi, but one of the admitted drawbacks to converting to the system has been a lack of notable launch titles. It’s taken a while, but Nintendo has finally come through with a reason to for people to try out the 3DS, and that is Super Mario 3D Land (I’ll talk up the merits of the 3D re-release of Ocarina of Time another...
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People of Queens: Do you need spell check when... →
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Retrace the Beatles' First Steps in America --...
The month of February is full of events — Black History Month, Valentine’s Day, Mardis Gras, President’s Day, and Groundhog Day. I’d like to add one more celebration, “FABruary!” This would be in commemoration of the Beatles first visit and concerts in America from February 7–22, 1964. Well, regardless of whether the makers of calendars ever take note of my suggestion, you too can...
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Celebrate 500 Episodes and 25 Years of The...
There are many things to celebrate this year — among other things, 2012 will bring us the 500th episode of The Simpsons and the 25th anniversary of the Simpson characters’ introduction on the Tracey Ullman Show. Unless you don’t own a television, chances are good that you can name at least three Simpsons characters and have uttered the exclamation “D’oh!” quite a few times over the past two...
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Queens Library Card Holders Get Free Music...
Free music for you to own legally is now available at Queens Library thanks to our new partnership with Freegal. The name Freegal comes from “free and legal” and they offer three songs a week to Queens Library cardholders from the Sony Music Entertainment catalog. For more information about Freegal, use the FAQ on the site.
Most music shoppers search by artist, so my first Freegal tip is...
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“NYC is the hub of Social Media Week.”
– Mike Lazerow (via nycdigital)
We’re participating, by hosting “Ushering Your Company into the Social Media Age” — a free Social Media Week event in Long Island City. Are you?
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January 2012
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The Dance Company of Guatemala Performs at Queens...
Earlier this month, the Dance Company of Guatemala gave a standing-room-only, free performance to an audience of nearly 300 people at Queens Library at Corona, presenting a multicultural dance repertoire, including Creole, Guatemalan, Latin American, and European styles. La Compañía de Danza de Guatemala se presenta en La Biblioteca de Queens A principios de este mes, la Compañía de Danza de...
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“When it opened more than 45 years ago, the Queens Central Library in Jamaica was...”
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Multi-million dollar facelift is transformiing Queens Central Library
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Urban Chickening: Can You Really Raise Chickens in... →
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Exciting Renovations at Queens Library →
Praise from NY Daily News of our recent renovations at Central Library: The Children’s Library Discovery Center and the new Cyber Center; and upcoming enhancements: a new Teen Area, an expanded Media Center offering an extensive collection of CDs and DVDs, and a new cafe/gift shop.
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Nintendo's Wii U to Come with an E-book Platform? →
Could Nintendo’s Wii U’s potential e-book platform be a game-changer for e-readers and for getting young people excited about reading?
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Popular Science investigates "library" smells. →
Hint: They have nothing to do with staff, customers, or the buildings themselves.
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Why Authors Tweet →
Interesting read from the New York Times on authors who use social media: “With the digital age come new conceptions of authorship. And for both authors and readers, these changes may be unexpectedly salutary. All the actively tweeting authors I interviewed agreed that the genre’s formal constraints (140 characters maximum) make it enticing.” Do you follow your favorite authors on...
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Young Adults Prefer Customer Service Via Social... →
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Small Study Finds Children Prefer E-books to Print →
“A new ‘QuickStudy’ – so named for its short duration and the small size of its sample group – from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center observed 24 families with children ranging in age from three-to-six reading both print and e-books in the Summer and Fall of 2011. Most of the children in the study preferred reading an e-book to a print book and comprehension between the two...
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Are You Showing Off Your Favorite Books on... →
Many use the self-proclaimed “online pinboard site” Pinterest to show off their favorite books and movies. Are you? Or is Tumblr still the place to be?
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25 Reasons Real Books Are Here to Stay →
Queens Library would add a twenty-sixth reason: libraries. Would you add any others?
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Praise from the New York Times for Our... →
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Yes, Teens Still Read and We’re Glad They Do...
As a librarian, working with teens has taught me a lot, and some of it is quite surprising. You may have seen the cover article in The National Geographic magazine for October 2011, outlining research that shows that the human brain is still growing and developing into the early twenties. This may account for some of that teen behavior that seems diabolically designed to drive adults mad!
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