Instead of a year-end review, I thought I'd offer something different for my last blog entry of 2009: several different ways of looking at the Danbury Library. We've been all these things during 2009 and fully expect to continue to offer these various services during 2010. So, with a wish that everyone who reads this will have a healthy and happy new year, let's begin the list.
1. Technology center: We provide access to forms of technology and software that people may not otherwise have access to, making the library even more relevant in the 21st century.
2. A resource for small businesses: We offer resources that small businesses need, including computers with Internet access, copiers, a scanner, and fax machine. We also provide access to online databases and other business-related resources about finances, marketing, etc.
3. Source of government forms and applications: Either online or through hard copies, we offer all types of federal and state government forms, including tax forms that we'll all soon be dealing with.
4. Resource for job seeking: We provide resources, such as JobNow and Learning Express Library, for resume writing, interview skills, and employment tests to aid community members in their job hunts. We also offer free Internet access for searching online job-seeking services such as Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com.
5. Teen center: We provide a safe place for teens to gather outside of school, get help with school work, and have acccess to great books, music, and Internet and computer games.
6. Community center: The library has several different meeting rooms that allow community groups to hold meetings and programs.
7. Immigration center: Our Langauge Center provides a place where immigrants have access to online, nonprint and print resources to help them learn English, adapt to their new country, and become U.S. citizens. It also holds books, music and DVDs in several foreign languages.
8. Cultural center: Through an ongoing series of programs, including movies, concerts, author talks, programs, and arts and crafts events, the library acts as a cultural center for the community.
9. Research center: While Google and other similar search engines provide instantaneous access to vast amounts of information, the library provides access to databases on various subjects which are not available to the general public, in addition to print reference materials and the expertise of professional librarians.
And last but not least, 10. Huge collections of books, magazines, CDs, audiobooks, and DVDs: The library's collections total more than 122,000 items that are available to take home with a free library card.
So make using the Danbury Library and its many services and resources one of your resolutions for 2010!
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For the first time since 1943, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated 10 movies for a Best Picture Oscar, doubling the 5-movie standard that had been in use for the past 67 years. With the exception of Avatar (a basic version of which is rumored to be released on Earth Day, with the extras-filled version to come out later in the year), the Danbury Library owns or has on order the other 9 movies that were nominated for Best Picture of 2009. In alphabetical order, they are: The Blind Side; District 9 in both standard DVD and Blu-ray; An Education, which is on order for a March 30 release; the winning movie, The Hurt Locker, also available in standard DVD and Blu-ray; Inglourious Basterds; Precious; A Serious Man; Up, which also won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature and is available in standard DVD and Blu-ray; and Up in the Air. So if you missed any of these when they were in theaters, now's your chance to catch up on 9 (for now, at least) of last year's best movies in the comfort of your own home -- and for free!]]>
The great silent comedian and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin said that his 1925 feature, The Gold Rush, was "the picture I want to be remembered by." It's one of only two silent comedies that can be considered epics, the other being our May 2 movie, Buster Keaton's The General (1927). Chaplin chose the Alaska gold rush of 1897-98 as his subject, with just a touch of the infamous 1846 Donner expedition thrown in, and his immortal Little Tramp character is called The Lone Prospector here. Chaplin converted the starvation and cannibalism of the Donner party into two of the best comic food sequences in film history: Chaplin and his partner, who are both starving, dine on a boiled shoe in the first; and in the second, his even hungrier partner imagines him to be a chicken, more than big enough to eat. To be reminded of Chaplin's comic art, or to be exposed to it for the first time, you can't do better than The Gold Rush, which will be shown in its original and longer 1925 version rather than the 1942 reissue. Join us for a delightful afternoon with one of the great Silent Clowns on Sunday, March 7 at 2:00 in the Farioly Program Room.]]>
Even people who might not necessarily recognize the name Harold Lloyd probably recognize the image of the man in the horn-rimmed glasses dangling from the hand of a giant clock high above a busy street. Lloyd kicks off our new movie series called Four Silent Clowns this Sunday afternoon at 2:00, and he'll be followed by one feature each by Charlie Chaplin, Harry Langdon and Buster Keaton. All four of them were the biggest comedians of the silent era, and the feature we've chosen for each represents what is generally considered to be their best work. Safety Last is a wonderful example of two of the main components of Lloyd's on-screen "glasses character." Not only does he play a Horatio Alger-type young go-getter who'll do anything to impress his girl, but he also shows his ability to scare audiences at the same time that he makes them laugh. Even though Lloyd made only five "thrill pictures" out of a career total of more than 200 movies, he is still best remembered for moments such as the one captured in that famous still. If you're not a fan of silent film or haven't had the chance to see many silents, this series is probably the best way to introduce yourself to that particular cinematic art form.]]>
Librarians and clerks who work at reference desks at public libraries across the nation are often asked by magazines, web sites and TV shows to submit the strangest and stupidest questions they've ever been asked. There's been a flurry of these hard-to-believe-they-were-actually-asked questions lately, so here are some of the best, or in this case worst, questions from desks just like our "Ask Me!" desk here in Danbury. 
October 2009 marked the 40th anniversary of the first episode of the "Monty Python's Flying Circus" TV series in England. Using a theme song that came without a copyright and therefore wouldn't cost the BBC anything (it was John Philip Sousa's "The Liberty Bell," which ever since has been much better known as the Monty Python Theme), and with opening animated credits that ended with a giant foot stomping the TV show's title, what followed was unlike anything British (and later, thanks to U.S. PBS stations, American) TV viewers had ever seen. "And now for something completely different" could mean anything from a dead parrot being returned to a pet store, whose owner insisted it was simply tired after a long squawk, to a man trying to get a grant from the Ministry of Silly Walks to further develop his own rather un-silly walk, with some of the silliest and/or most intellectual comedy bits -- all highly original -- in between. The Danbury Library now owns all 45 unedited and uncensored episodes of the four seasons of this ground-breaking and still hugely popular TV series on DVD. So if you haven't seen any episodes for a while, or have never seen them, check out a DVD or two to find out why the Oxford English Dictionary added the adjective "Pythonesque" a few years ago.
If you've ever visited Manhattan during the Christmas season, you know that one of the free, fun things to do is see the window displays of the big stores on Fifth Avenue. If you can't get there this year, or if you want to be reminded of window displays that you may have seen in the past, you should take a look at Through the Shopping Glass: A Century of New York Christmas Windows, by Sheryll Bellman. With a chapter for each decade of the 20th century, the book is filled with black-and-white and color photos of displays both simple and elaborate, but almost always beautiful. You'll learn that American department store arcade window displays in the 1920s gained a new prominence, and Christmastime saw the most elaborate displays; while movement and animation in the displays became dominant in the 1970s. And here's something that I never knew: the graceful wire-and-light angels that now grace the Rockefeller Center Concourse were originally part of the exterior display at Saks in the early 1950s and were later bought by Rockefeller Center, where they've appeared every year since.]]>
Since Connecticut's own Maurice Sendak has been in the news lately as a result of the recent release of Spike Jonze's feature film version of his classic book Where the Wild Things Are, I thought I'd share a Sendak story with you. 
I realize that I missed the date by three full weeks, but I wanted to make note of National Punctuation Day, which promotes the proper use of punctuation and was celebrated this year on September 24. I often joke that my ability to spot most punctuation mistakes is a combination of genetics (both of my parents were very careful writers) and excellent English teachers during junior and senior high. In any case, the web site for National Punctuation Day gives helpful hints about how to use common and less-common punctuation marks. My punctuation pet peeve has always been the apostrophe, especially when it's misused to incorrectly make a word plural but instead makes it possessive. My favorite example was a sign on a tire store on Route 7 in Georgetown. For years it proclaimed "Buy Tire's Online," and for years it drove me nuts. What were we buying online for Tire? A new sign finally got it right, and I felt briefly disappointed. Closer to home, downtown Danbury used to be filled with fliers for the former hockey team, the Mad Hatters, which stated "Hockey at it's best" -- and which could have added "Punctuation at its worst!" In addition to the National Punctuation Day site, you can of course revisit Lynne Truss' former bestseller Eats, Shoots and Leaves to brush up on your punctuation marks.]]>
After the first successful city-wide reading event last fall, the Danbury Library, Danbury High School and Western CT State University are happy to announce Danbury's second One Book, One Community event. In a dramatic change of gears, the 2009 Steering Committee has chosen a work of nonfiction (after last year's novel The Namesake), Michael Greenberg's memoir Hurry Down Sunshine. It tells the story of the extraordinary summer when, at the age of fifteen, Greenberg's daughter Sally was struck mad. It begins with her visionary crack-up on the streets of Greenwich Village, and continues, among other places, in the out-of-time world of a Manhattan psychiatric ward during the city's most sweltering months. A variety of programs that focus on the book itself and the broader topic of mental health will be presented during the month of October, including book discussions, movies, a health fair, and an apprearance by Greenberg himself. For full details, visit the OBOC website. And be sure to check out a copy of the book from our special OBOC display at the front of the library (we actually recommend that you place a hold on a copy, since only 9 of our 100 copies are on the shelf today), which includes books as well as the full-color brochure that lists all of the events. ]]>
