December 29, 2006

Off the Shelf

From new diets to getting organized, the New Year brings new resolutions

By Tim Collins
Adult Services Librarian

Happy New Year! January 1-7 marks “Diet Resolution Week,” and January itself is “Financial Wellness Month” and “National Get Organized Month.” Whatever your New Year’s resolutions may be, get help observing them with materials available at your local San José Public Library.

Tully Library’s Calendar

For Children and Families
- Tuesdays, 11:30 a.m. – Fun for Ones, followed by Stay & Play

- Tuesdays, 6:45 p.m. – Family Storytimes

- Thursdays, 10:30 a.m. - Toddler Time, followed by Stay & Play

- Fridays, 10:30 a.m. – Preschool Storytime followed by Stay and Play

- Fridays, 4 p.m. – Kids activities

Jan. 5 – Game Day

Jan. 12 – Secret Pal Craft

Jan. 19 – Popcorn Craft

Jan. 26 - Game Day

- Fridays, Jan. 12, 19, 26 - 4:30-6 p.m. – Cambodian dance lessons

- Saturdays, 11:30 a.m. – Family Storytimes

- Saturdays, 10 a.m. - 12 noon – Cambodian language class

- Saturdays, 1 and 3 p.m. – Vietnamese Language class

- Saturdays, 10:30 and 11:30 a.m. – Visual Arts classes for children, ages 4-5;

Registration forms available at the library or at www.vietarts.org.

For Young Adults and Adults
- Sundays, Tai Chi classes, Jan. 7, 21, 28 - Beginning 1-3 p.m.; Advanced 3-5 p.m.

- Tuesdays 5 p.m. and Saturdays 11 a.m. - Computer tutoring

- Wednesdays at 5 p.m. – Conversation Group

- Wednesdays, 6 p.m. – Beginning Computer Classes in Vietnamese

- Fridays, Mobile One Stop, job search assistance from 9:30 a.m. – 12 noon (Tully Library) and 1:30 – 4 p.m. (Evergreen Library)

- Saturdays, 1 and 3 p.m. – Vietnamese/English Citizenship classes (On Sat., Jan. 6, the 3 p.m. class is a legal-oriented citizenship Q&A)

- Saturdays, Jan. 6 and Feb. 3 – starting at 10 a.m. – Special Booksales

- Tuesday, Jan. 16, 6 p.m. – Tully Friends of the Library meeting

- Wednesday, Jan. 17, 6 p.m. – TeensReach Meeting and Orientation

- Thursday, Jan. 18, 4 p.m. – Databases for Students
- Wednesday, Jan. 31, 7 p.m. – Book Discussion, “The Tortilla Curtain” by T. C. Boyle

Library Closures
- Dec. 31, Jan. 1, 2 - Sunday, Monday and Tuesday – New Year Holiday
- Jan. 14, 15 – Sunday, Monday – M. L. King, Jr. Birthday Holiday

Mobile One Stop: Job Search Assistance
The Mobile One Stop van, which provides job search and resume assistance, among its other free services, will be coming to Tully on Friday mornings during January (9:30 a.m. to 12 noon), and the Evergreen Library in the afternoon (1:30 to 4 p.m.).

Databases for Students (and anyone else, too!)
On January 18 at 4 p.m., we will offer a “Databases for Students” class here at Tully. San José Public Library (SJPL) offers its cardholders approximately forty databases. While any one database may be exactly the right tool for a certain project at a given time, there are several that are particularly useful for middle- and high-school students.

People generally know that the library is the place to go to borrow books. But very often the best, most up-to-date material that you can readily find on a subject won’t be in a book sitting on a shelf - it will be in a database. If you have a home computer hooked up to the Internet, and an SJPL library card, you can generally access these databases 24 hours a day from home.

Some of the databases we expect to touch on in our Jan. 18 training include the:

- Biography Resource Center

- History Resource Center

- Infotrac

- LitFinder

- Opposing Viewpoints

- Science Resource Center

- Student Resource Center Gold

- World Book

Encyclopedia Online
If you can’t make it to this training, well, explore the databases on your own. This column and the January 18 class (one of a regular, at least monthly, such class we expect to be offering) focus on databases of particular interest to students. But SJPL databases cover a range of interests: business, health, legal issues, and general news articles, just for example.

So have fun with these databases:

Go to our website, www.sjlibrary.org

On the left side, click on “Articles and Databases.”

At the top right, select the SJPL databases. (If you go to the Dr. King library downtown, you can access San José State databases there.)

Find the database suitable for your purpose, and explore.

Silicon Valley Reads: “The Tortilla Curtain”
The Silicon Valley Reads selection this year is “The Tortilla Curtain,” by T.C. Boyle, a novel concerning immigration. There will be several events throughout Santa Clara County during the month of February: book discussions, author appearances, etc., which will be elaborated on in upcoming columns. However, here at Tully our book discussion will take place relatively early: January 31 at 7 p.m. SJPL locations, including both Tully and Evergreen, have received several new copies of this book. Come, check it out!

Welcome, Carol daSilva
Tully Library welcomes our new manager, Carol daSilva. Carol has been with San José Public Library for 14 years; her immediate past position was manager of the Berryessa and Alviso Branches. Carol is very pleased to be here and is looking forward to working at this exciting branch and getting to know the Tully Library community.

Tim Collins is the Adult Services Librarian at the Tully Community Branch Library, 880 Tully Road, between McLaughlin and Senter. It is one of the branches of the San Jose Public Library. The Library’s phone number is 808-3030. For more information about the library, visit the website at sjlibrary.org.