New DVDs for December

December was a big month for ordering DVDs. Note that we picked up a couple BBC series like the new Doctor Who and its spinoff Torchwood. Also, we received the second season of Murder in Suburbia and a Masterpiece Theater series The Moonstone and The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard. One movie to note is Man On Wire about the Frenchman Philippe Petit and how he walked on a tightrope between the World Trade Center building in 1974.

The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard
Ballet Shoes
Becoming Green
Black Widow
Burn After Reading
The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian
CJ7
The Clique
The Dark Knight
Dark Victory
Death Note - Vol. 8
Doctor Who - The Complete First Series
Doctor Who - The Complete Second Series
Easter Parade: Special Edition
Encounters At The End Of The World
Fear
First Among Equals
The General
Generation Kill
Hamlet 2
Holiday Inn Special Edition
In God's Name
The Longshots
Mamma Mia!: The Movie
Man On Wire
The Moonstone
Mouse That Roared
The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor
Murder in Suburbia - Series 2
Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony
One Touch Of Venus
Porco Rosso
Priceless
Quo Vadis Special Edition
The Rape Of Europa
Sangre De Mi Sangre
Sense and Sensibility
Step Brothers
Torchwood - The Complete First Season
Traitor
Transsiberian
Wanted
The Women
X-Files: I Want To Believe
Your Road to Passing the U.S. Citizenship Test

Happy Holidays

from the Mission Viejo Library staff

The Most Requested Titles - December 18, 2008

The list hasn't changed too much, though the numbers are a little lower than last time. Having multiple copies of the most requested books make the waiting lists go quickly.

Twilight 63

Cross Country: A Novel 52

Brass Verdict: A Novel 50

New Moon: A Novel 47

Divine Justice 43

The Gate House 35

Lucky One 34

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel 30

Brisingr, or, The Seven Promises of Eragon Shadeslayer and Saphira Bjartskular 30

Scarpetta 28

Plum Spooky 26

The Associate 26

Salvation in Death 26

The Shack: A Novel 24

Eclipse 22

Holiday Recordings

The library has Christmas music to checkout. Located in the Miscellaneous section in the CD racks, we have some traditional and some non-traditional holiday music. Here is just a handful of what the library own.

Feels Like Christmas / Al Green
Christmas Island / Jimmy Buffett
Our Heart's Joy : A Chanticleer Christmas
Christmas Album / Burl Ives
O Holy Night / Luciano Pavaroti

Staff Picks for December

The staff picks bookshelf located by the new book area is brimming with books about the December Holidays. You will find cookbooks with recipes for Christmas and Hanukah along with books with ideas for making your own presents and decorations. Also on the shelf are popular works of fiction and books on compact disc featuring holiday themes. Check out the staff picks bookshelf the next time you visit the library.

The Most Requested Titles

The top holds list this time looks pretty much the same as last time. But there are two items on this list that have not even been published and there are already over 20 people on hold for them. The Associate by John Grisham and Plum Spooky by Janet Evanovich are both scheduled to be released in January. So if you want to check them out from the library in a timely manner, you better get on the holds list soon.

Twilight 87
Brass Verdict: A Novel 59
Cross Country: A Novel 59
Lucky One 46
New Moon: A Novel 45
Divine Justice 43
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel 42
The Gate House 42
Brisingr, or, The Seven Promises of Eragon Shadeslayer and Saphira Bjartskular 35
The Shack: A Novel 28
Eclipse 26
Scarpetta 25
Salvation in Death 24
Extreme Measures: A Thriller 23
Rough Weather 23
The Associate 22
Bones: An Alex Delaware Novel 21
Plum Spooky 21
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society 20

Library Quotation

The fact of knowing how to read is nothing, the whole point is knowing what to read. - Jacques Ellul

New DVDs in the Library

Looking forward to the long Thanksgiving weekend? Here is the list of all the new DVDs the library has acquired for this month that you can checkout from the library. There is a mix of the old and new along with some non-fiction.

Clear and Present Danger
Dare Not Walk Alone
Fred Claus
Futurama - Bender's Game
The Gary Cooper Collection
Get Smart
Hancock
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Kung Fu Panda
Lust For Life
Meet Dave
The Perfect Holiday
Princess Mononoke
The Public Enemy
Pyongyang Concert
Sense and Sensibility
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
This Christmas
Tropic Thunder
Up The Yangtze
Vicky Cristina Barcelona

The Most Requested Titles

Here is a list of the most requested books in the library. Along with the title is the number of holds as of the time of this posting.

Twilight 66
Brass Verdict : A Novel 58
Lucky One 55
Brisingr, or, The Seven Promises of Eragon Shadeslayer and Saphira Bjartskular 46
Gate House 45
Cross Country : A Novel 43
Divine Justice 40
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle : A Novel 39
The Shack : A Novel 30
Extreme Measures : A Thriller 29
Eclipse 28
New Moon : A Novel 27
Rough Weather 24
Bones : An Alex Delaware Novel 22
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society 20
Salvation in Death 20

If you want, you can compare our most requested items to the LA Times and NY Times bestseller lists.

Online Resources Part II
Jeff Price, Reference Librarian

I mentioned in the email newsletter article that knowing which database to use was half the battle to find good information. Also, its not a question of not only knowing which tool, but how to use the tool you selected. Some online sources are ebooks. (Electronic versions of reference books that the library most likely has in hard copy.) So when you look up something online using one of these tools, you can find an exact copy, words and pictures, of the information in a printed book. Examples from our collection include Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia and the Middle Ages Reference Library.

Other sources are kind of a hybrid, some information is only available online while other parts are reprinted from reference books. So these types of resources are databases which contain the articles from many different reference works. For example, the Biography Resource Center contains articles from many different types of sources that contain biographical entries. Consequently, this is a fantastic tool to start with if you are doing any research on a person, from the earliest of recorded history to the most current pop idol.

Another resource I would put in the category is the Literature Resource Center which has entries from a veritable alphabet soup of different sources. (CLC, TCLC, SC, NCLC...) All of which have reviews and criticisms from reference books online for people to access.

Our ProQuest database is very focused and contains the Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times only. But there is a unique twit to this one. The default search looks at both the Times and Register going back to the mid-1980s. But if you want to go way back using the Los Angeles Times Historical Database, you need turn off searching the current articles and select specifically the historical archive, which isn't very intuitive for people use to a Google type search.

And the two most unique online resources we have which isn't geared for children are the Learning Express Test eBooks and Online Practice and the Overdrive down-loadable books, which I'll talk about next time.

Blast from the Past

In April 2002, the library opened its expanded south wing. Prior to then, there was a very nice garden where the Technology Center, Fiction, Biography, Local History and Genealogy section of the library now stands. Here are some photos of the "Garden of Knowledge" that was originally part of the library grounds.

Photos taken by Kathleen Kelton

Reading Recommendations

If you don't know about our NextReads services, it's where you sign up to recieve email lists of recommended books from the library. It's easy and free, and people have commented on how useful it is.

Click Here to go to the sign up page.

Also, if you want to research books yourself, you can the resource called NoveList, which is created by the same company as NextReads.

New DVDs in the Library

Since October is winding down, here is the list of all the new DVDs the library has acquired for this month. Like September, we have a mix of the old and new along with some non-fiction.

4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days
Boy A
Bye Bye Birdie
Death Note - Vol. 7
History Channel Presents - The Universe
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Mongol
Music Man
Normal
Outsourced
Paranoid Park
Pu-239
Rebecca
Spellbound
Standard Operating Procedure
Still Life
The Edge of Heaven
The Incredible Hulk
The Note
The Strangers
The Visitor
You Don't Mess with The Zohan

Librarians Are Hiding More Things

I forgot to mention in the previous post that the library also keeps at the reference desk the Spanish language magazine TV Y Novelas.

Librarians Are Hiding Something

Magazines, or as we librarians call them, periodicals traditionally have been a large part of any library collection. We subscribe to dozens of titles and we put most of them out for people to just pickup and read. And as long as it is not the current issue, you can check out magazines. But there are some magazines that we hide away from you.

But to be fair, we're not hiding the magazines because we want to keep people from reading them. Rather, we had to hide the magazines to protect them. In the deep, dark corners of the library, sometimes our materials get vandalized. And magazines and newspapers are very susceptible. So for their safety, here is a list of magazines that are kept at the reference desk.
House Beautiful
Cuisine at Home
Scientific American
People Style Watch
And of course the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue

Also, we pull sections from the newspaper which tend to dissappear.
The Sunday classified pages from the LA Times and OC Register
The New York Times Book Review section

It's not our intent to prevent people from reading these. In fact, it's really simple to get them. All you need to do is ask at the reference desk.

Do you have a damaged book?

Here is a web site that has instructions on how to repair books.
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~preserve/repair/repairindex.htm

LiveScan Fingerprinting Service

Beginning today, LiveScan fingerprinting services will be available at the Mission Viejo Library, which is now a certified provider of the process.

LiveScan is a digital fingerprint submission transmitted electronically to the California Department of Justice. LiveScan is an automated service for criminal history background checks that may be required as a condition of employment, licensing, certification, foreign adoptions, volunteering and such.

LiveScan fingerprinting service will be offered by appointment during library hours every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday.

The fingerprint rolling fee is $20; payable to the library. Additional fees may apply depending upon the level of service the requesting agency or employer requires.

To schedule an appointment, call 949-470-8420.

Video Game Afternoon

– Saturday, October 11 from 2:30 – 4:00 pm

Come to the Saddleback Room at City Hall and play Super Smash Brothers Brawl, Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero on our big screens. Free refreshments will be available.

Reservations are recommended for both events. Sign up at the reference desk.

Author Talk and Book Signing with Local Young Adult Author Marlene Perez

- Saturday, October 11 from 11 a.m. – 12 p.m. in the Heritage Room

Stop by the Heritage Room on Saturday, October 11 for a talk by South Orange County Resident Marlene Perez. Marlene is the author of Unexpected Development and the recently released Love in the Corner Pocket and Dead is the New Black. Dead is the New Black is the first installment in a creepy, campy new mystery series.

Kate Jacobs
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
7:00 p.m. in the City Council Chamber

Kate Jacobs’ first novel Friday Night Knitting Club became an instant bestseller and is currently on the New York Times paperback best seller list. “It reads like Steel Magnolias set in Manhattan, Julia Roberts is set to star in the movie version of this story.” –USA TODAY. Her latest novel is Comfort Food.

Kate is a native of Vancouver, British Columbia. She moved to New York and broke into magazine publishing at Redbook and then became a writer and editor for Lifetime Television. After a decade of Manhattan living, Kate recently moved to Southern California and is enjoying suburban living.

Join us on October 7 for this free event. Refreshments will be served. For more information about this program, please call the Mission Viejo Library reference desk at (949) 830-7100 x5105.

Whistling in the Dark
For the library blog statistics are kept on how many people visit the site. You can see these for yourself by going to the bottom of the window and click on the little white "sitemeter" graphic. The statistics say we average about 4 visitors per day. That not really too many of you. Hopefully we'll be able to raise this number by providing more reasons to come here. We'll try to add more informative information and resources for you to look at. Also, the comments section is up and running for you to respond to anything on our blog. Or even if there is something off topic which you want express, by all mean, please leave a comment. We here at the library love hearing from our patrons and look forward to any input you might have.

Where in the library?

I know you all understand how the library works. We have books and things for people to come in and checkout. After a couple weeks, they return the item and we put it back on the shelf for the next person. It’s a great system that has been working for libraries for the past couple centuries.

But there has always been a problem with this system. From the days if index card catalogs to our modern computerized catalog, how do you know where the item is located in the building?

Well, for your benefit, I’ve labeled a map of the library with all the various areas and codes showing their location. But before we get there, let’s review some of the things we librarians take for granted.

First off, everything has a call number. So when you look at the catalog, make sure you notice the Call No. column. Abstractly, the library collection is broken up into two areas - Fiction and Non-fiction. Fiction usually has a name or title attached as a call number while non-fiction for the most part uses the good ol’ Dewey Decimal System for its call numbers. So don’t be confused when a call number doesn’t have an actual number in it.

Also, to make things still more confusing, some call numbers might be exactly the same, but the collection might be different. These areas I've labeled with blue text. If you want to know more about these, drop me a line and I’ll try and explain it to you.

Enough explanation, on to the map!

D. P. Lyle M.D., Forensic Consultant and Author
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
7:00 p.m. in the City Council Chamber

D. P. Lyle M.D. has worked as an advisor to the writers of CSI: Miami, Law and Order, Women’s Murder Club and many others.

If you enjoy Patricia Cornwell, Law and Order, CSI, this program will give you insight into psychological drive that causes characters to act as they do in fiction and on television. If you are a writer, D.P. Lyle, M.D. has worked with many novelists and with the writers of popular television shows.

Dr. Lyle received the Macavity Award for his non-fiction books, Murder and Mayhem, Forensics for Dummies, Forensics and Fiction, Forensics: A Guide for Writers as well as the thrillers, Devil’s Playground and Double Bind. Dr. Lyle will be signing his books at the end of the program.

This free program is sponsored by the Friends of the Mission Viejo Library. To reserve a seat, please call the reference desk of the Mission Viejo Library at (949) 830-7100 x5105 or email stanton@cityofmissionviejo.org

Hi Everyone,
Jeff here. The person who normally updated the blog is out on maternity leave, so I'm helping to fill in for a bit. Since I do the purchasing of the DVDs for the library, I'm gong to post a list of all the new DVDs that the library received that were released in September. Some are rentals while others are re-releases of older movies. And quite a few of them are non-fiction documentary shows.
Beyond Belief
Married Life
Then She Found Me
Baby Mama
The Fall
The Forbidden Kingdom
88 Minutes
Blood Simple
Constantine's Sword
Finding Amanda
Made of Honor
Sixteen Candles Flashback Edition
Speed Racer
The Love Guru
Young@Heart
Green Solutions: Growing Green Babies
Beijing 2008 Olympics - Opening Ceremony
Deception
Family Name
Leatherheads
Run, Fat Boy, Run
Sex and the City: The Movie
The True Story Of Che Guevara
This American Life: The Complete First Season
Beijing 2008: The Games of the XXIX Olympiad
Chapter 27
Edward The King
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Freedom Is Not A Gift From Heaven- The Century Of Simon Wiesenthal
Iron Man
Michael Phelps Greatest Olympic Champion - The Inside Story
Taxi To The Dark Side
The Mindscape Of Alan Moore
When We Left Earth - The NASA Missions