Santa Clara Children Living in Transitional Housing to Receive Book Collections

The Family Literacy program is thrilled that, through the support of the Library’s Friends and Foundation, we received a $1500 grant from the Lois Lenski Covey Foundation. We have used the money to buy more than two hundred books for children and families living in transitional housing in our community. Priya, our Family Literacy Coordinator, will package them in new “Read-to-Me” book bags. We will deposit them at two Santa Clara sites, Sobrato Family Living Center (serving families in transition) and HomeSafe (serving survivors of domestic violence.) Families will borrow the bookbags and exchange for new ones as they wish. On our next evening visit to the Sobrato Center, Priya and I will share the books with the families.

I had so much fun choosing a huge variety of books for all ages, from infants to young teenagers, including board and picture books, folktales, science topics, biographies, and mythology. We know that parents will enjoy reading them aloud to their children, and that older children will read them independently. These new wonderful books will help engage and entertain our families, especially during the long days of school breaks and vacations.

Lois Lenski won the 1946 Newbery medal for Strawberry Girl. The Newbery Medal is awarded annually by the American Library Association to the most distinguished American children's book published in the previous year. She was also the author of many classic books for children such as Cowboy Small and The Little Airplane, and illustrated the Betsy-Tacy series written by Maud Hart Lovelace (which I loved as a child). Ms. Lenski had a life-long concern that good books be available to all children. In pursuit of that goal, she established a foundation to provide grants to public libraries, school libraries, and non-profit agencies serving disadvantaged populations. The Santa Clara City Library was very fortunate to be one of nineteen recipients this year.

posted by EBK

Cool Cuisine: Taking the Bite Out of Global Warming

Santa Clara City Library and the Silicon Valley Reads program present a book talk: Cool Cuisine: Taking the Bite Out of Global Warming, by Laura Stec and Eugene Cordero, PhD, on Wednesday, March 10 at 7:00 p.m. in the Central Park Library Redwood Room. Ms. Stec is a Bay Area chef, caterer, and author with over 25 years experience in the food industry. Currently she is Culinary Health Educator for Kaiser Permanente Medical Centers. Dr. Cordero is an associate professor in the Meteorology Department at San Jose State University, where he teaches a course in climate change.

Cool Cuisine:Taking the Bite Out of Global Warming combines scientific fact and culinary art. It shows new ways of looking at the climate crisis, and how global warming and the agrochemical food system affect each other. Full of inspiring, healthy, global-cooling recipes, the book is divided into three parts: background to the global-warming problem, solutions, and culinary tips and techniques.

Enjoy this evening with Stec and Cordero and discover that food choices can reduce global warming, learn that what we eat does have an impact on the planet, and find out how to create a more sustainable world. Copies of Cool Cuisine: Taking the Bite Out of Global Warming will be available for purchase; the program will be followed by a book signing. This Silicon Valley Reads event is co-sponsored by the Foundation & Friends of Santa Clara City Library. To reserve a place at this free Cool Cuisine book talk, stop by the Reference Desk or call (408) 615-2900.

posted by mb for jb

New Health Information for you at the library

Do you want to learn more about the medication you are taking? Or do you need to write a research paper on a medical condition? You can simply go to Santa Clara City Library's Homepage, click on RESEARCH DATABASES, then look for Health and Medicine. Currently, we have several new databases from EBSCO.

Alt Health Watch
This database focuses on the many perspectives of complementary, holistic and integrated approaches to health care and wellness.

Consumer Health Complete
Here is a good place to begin your search for general health information. It combines information from specific health databases into one search for your convenience.
Also available in Spanish: Salud en Espanol (Consumer Health Complete Spanish version)

Health Source-Consumer Edition
Information on many health topics including the medical sciences, food sciences and nutrition, childcare, sports medicine and general health are found here.

Health Source-Nursing/Academic Edition
Find nearly 550 scholarly full text journals focusing on many medical disciplines.

Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection
This is a comprehensive database covering information concerning topics in emotional and behavioral characteristics, psychiatry & psychology, mental processes, anthropology, and observational & experimental methods.

written by jh posted by mb

Learning English as a Second Language

Do you know someone who wants to speak English better? Here are some resources you might like to suggest to them: the Mango Languages link on the library's home page offers 100 lessons for Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and Polish speakers to learn how to converse in English. (You can also use it to learn a foreign language such as German, Japanese or Mandarin.) The bilingual Oxford Picture Dictionary is a great resource for those seeking to improve their basic English vocabulary. “I understand every word but I don’t know what they mean,” remarked an English Language Learner to me the other day. She was referring to “idioms” like “bite the bullet” and “hit the hay” that we liberally weave into our conversation and writing. 101 American English Idioms may be the answer! The Languages Pavilion at the Central Park Library and the Adult New Reader Collections at the Central Park and Mission libraries have easy-to-read books and tapes to help adults learn English. If you would like to find community resources to help an English language learner, you can search the Community Information Network (CIN) database on our library’s website using the keyword “ESL.”

-SB

New Kid on the Block

Susan and the Pigeon say "Hello."

Hello, blog readers! I’m Susan Baier, the new Library Division Manager of Youth and Extension Services. My husband and I recently relocated to the Bay Area from Los Angeles.

Previously I served as the Youth Services Supervisor for the Torrance Public Library in southwestern Los Angeles County. Despite living in California for the last seven years, I’m still a Midwestern girl at heart. I grew up a coal miner's daughter in a village in Southern Illinois with a whopping population of 400. (I joke that the population is now 399 since I’m gone.) My grandparents spent their entire lives in Southern Illinois, and my parents still haven’t quite forgiven me that I left.

My husband, a St. Louis native, is excited about adopting the Sharks as his new favorite hockey team (but for baseball, he’s a Cardinal fan forever and always.) I am looking forward to scouting out the best places to shop and eat in the South Bay. Have any suggestions? Stop by the youth services desk and tell me!

I consider myself very fortunate to join the staff of this city and this library, and am eager to continue the tradition of superior public service in Santa Clara. The staff is top-notch, and I am thrilled to be a part of such a dedicated, talented team. The library division I supervise includes youth services, Mission Branch, extension services such as homebound delivery, and our adult literacy program Read Santa Clara. You’ll find me performing storytimes and children’s programs, staffing the youth services desk, and discovering ways to even better serve children and their families. I'll also be a frequent visitor to the Mission Branch and participating in their many literacy activities. Wherever you see me (I'm hard to miss because of my red hair, the bane of my existence or my best attribute depending on my mood), please come up and say hello!

posted by spb

Mission Library now has a popular resource, Inglés sin Barreras, for Spanish speakers to learn to speak and write in English. The resource comes in 12 kits, with each kit containing a book, an audio CD and a DVD. The program teaches vocabulary and grammar in the context of real-life situations.

Catch the Reading Bug @ Mission Library!

Summer Reading Program for Adults
begins Monday, June 9

• List the titles of the books you read in the next two months in a reading log.
• Bring the completed reading log to Mission Library in August to receive a gift card to a Friends of the Library book sale.
• Last date to sign up: Friday, July 18

If you have questions, please call Mission Library at (408) 615-2964, Monday & Wednesday: 10:00 a.m.-9:00 p.m., Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday: 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.

sb

A Way With Words

Over 800 million adults worldwide do not have basic literacy skills, according to the UNESCO.

A Way with Words : Literacy Then and Now by Ruth J. Colvin, available in the library's Adult New Reader Collection, describes how she started the largest network of adult literacy providers in the world called Literacy Volunteers of America. Now known as ProLiteracy Worldwide , the organization runs adult literacy programs in 65 countries in the world. She was awarded the Congressional Medal of Freedom in 2006 for her tireless work for adult literacy.

Read Aloud Handbook

The American Academy of Pediatrics has stressed that reading aloud to infants and toddlers plays an important role in their brain development. The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease describes why parents and teachers should read to children; how to begin reading aloud and which books to choose and how to create an atmosphere in the home and classroom that welcomes readers. The book, available in the Juvenile and the Adult New Reader collections, lists more than 1,200 new and classic children's titles, from picture books to novels, that are perfect for reading aloud.

Volunteer Tutors Needed!

Read Santa Clara needs volunteer tutors to help English speaking adults improve their reading, writing and Math skills. No prior teaching experience needed! Tutors meet with their learners two hours a week for a minimum period of six months. The literacy program offers 12.5 hours of tutor training. The first step to becoming a volunteer tutor is to attend an orientation. The next volunteer orientation will be at the Mission Library Family Reading Center, 1098 Lexington St, Santa Clara on Tuesday, January 29,6:30-8:00 p.m. Volunteers can then sign up for the next round of tutor training to be held on Saturdays, 9:30 a.m.- 3:30 p.m. on February 2 and 9 and March 15(9:30 a.m.- 12 noon.) To learn more, please call (408) 615-2956.

The Gift of Literacy

“I believe that it does not matter what age you are, you can always learn to read and write. Especially for a person like me who is 59 years old and still learning to read and write. I don’t give up…Without the library program, I would not be where I am today. I have not reached yet where I want to be, but I am getting there.” This was written by an adult learner for Read Santa Clara’s new book of learner writings, In Our Own Words, Volume VII. The library’s adult literacy program trains volunteers to tutor English speaking adults who seek to improve their basic reading, writing and math skills to achieve their goals as family members, workers, community members and lifelong learners. To find out how you can help, please call (408)615-2956.

Adult New Reader

The library has a special collection of high interest easy to read materials for adults who are seeking to improve their basic reading and writing skills. The collection called Adult New Reader has both fiction and non-fiction books on diverse topics as well as audio books and special newspapers written for adults learning to read, such as News for YOU. The books have colored dots on their spines to indicate their readability level.

Dyslexia

Did you know there are an estimated 93 million adults nationwide who struggle with everyday tasks that require reading and writing? (National Assessment of Adult Literacy)

These adults have limited literacy skills due to a variety of reasons. Many suffer from a learning disability, such as dyslexia. What makes the dyslexic brain different? What methods hold out hope for dyslexics to improve their reading and writing skills? Overcoming Dyslexia: a new and complete science-based program for reading problems at any level by Sally Shaywitz, explains how neuro-imaging techniques have helped researchers answer these questions. Click here for a list of resources in the library about dyslexia.

Read Santa Clara

Our library is not only a place where patrons come to "read to learn" but also to "learn to read." Read Santa Clara is the library's adult and family literacy program serving English speaking adults who wish to improve their basic reading, writing and math skills. The literacy program's trained volunteer tutors provide over 3000 hours of free literacy instruction to 100 adult learners each year helping them achieve goals as diverse as helping their children with schoolwork, filling out job applications, reading health information or writing letters.