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.