There will be no Terman sale on this date.

The American Library Association has designated September 20 to 27 as "Banned Book Week" to celebrate the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular.  Past banned works and the party responsible for so doing include Thoreau's On Civil Disobedience (United States Information Service / Senator Joseph McCarthy), Voltaire's Candide (1930 U.S. Customs Office), Aristophanes' Lysistrata (Federal Anti-Obscenity Act), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (South African apartheid government), and Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (1881 Boston District Attorney).  See more information from the American Library Association and the University of Pennsylvania.

With a donation from the Friends of the Palo Alto Library, the Palo Alto Library now has the entire World Book Encyclopedia online, available to all Palo Alto library cardholders from home, school, and office.  Just go to the special World Book website and enter your Palo Alto library card number.

About 300,000 people in Santa Clara County recently read and discussed Francisco Jimenez's Breaking Through, as part of the Silicon Valley Reads program, which encourages community-wide book discussions.  Now, it's time to choose the book for next year.  You can nominate the book you'd like everyone to read by clicking here or at any Palo Alto library.  The deadline is this Friday, September 12.  The top three nominated books will then be voted upon in October and the actual reading and surrounding events will take place in January and February 2004.  

We're excited to have just gotten an extra room at Cubberley so that more books can be put on sale.  The new room is E5, in the "E" wing at Cubberley, which is closer to the street but only a few buildings away from our main book sale room.  We've cleaned the room up and moved in all of our bargain books, both from previous sales at Cubberley and from Terman.  You indeed will find plenty of bargains here.  The room opens at 8:30 am this Saturday, September 13 and then a bag sale will run from 2 pm to 4 pm.  Meanwhile, our main book sale room will be open from 11 am to 4 pm.  Please check the map of Cubberley to see the best parking locations.

There's been a library in downtown Palo Alto since 1893, before the city was even incorporated.  The institution has survived major earthquakes, the Great Depression, and every economic downturn.  But the Downtown Library will be shut down if the Palo Alto City Council decides to accept the recent proposal of the Library Advisory Commission.  Over 1,200 people have signed a petition that the Friends of the Palo Alto Library will present to the City Council at its Study Session on the closure on September 29, from 6 pm to 9 pm at the Palo Alto Art Center Auditorium (1313 Newell Road).  Please attend and speak out on this important issue.  If you haven't signed the petition yet, you can do so right here:

A common misunderstanding is that the Commission's proposal to close the library is necessitated by budget constraints.  That is not at all the case.  Not only has the city managed to preserve its branches despite worse budget crises in the past, but two of four City Council members on the Budget Committee recently voted to increase funding to the Downtown Library in order to restore Saturday hours.  After careful analysis of the proposal, we believe it will actually cost more to close the branch, which is among Palo Alto's most efficient and gets over 100,000 visitors a year.  Service at the Main Library is also likely to deteriorate, because it will only be open for two extra hours per week with no extra staff, while the expected influx of users from the Downtown Library could increase usage by 37%.

Studies have shown that the most important factor in library usage is convenience [Baker and Wallace, The Responsive Public Library, 2002].  The Internet, reference services via phone, and interlibrary loans can bring resources to any branch, but once a branch is closed and people have to drive farther and find parking elsewhere, their use of libraries will fall, as will their support for the entire library system.  Moreover, if the City closes the Downtown Library this year and moves administrative offices in, the branch will probably never open again.  A beloved institution, built on the efforts of staff, donors, volunteers, and taxpayers for more than a century, will likely be lost forever.

The Board of the Friends of the Palo Alto Library unanimously opposes the closing and has been working with other organizations to keep the Downtown Library open.  The Library Advisory Commission proposal also contemplates closing the College Terrace branch.  If we speak out and let the City know that Palo Altans value libraries and do not want to see them picked off one by one, we can save them all.  There's more information at our web site as well.

Learn more about the Children's Library expansion and repair project at the fundraising kickoff party on Sunday, September 14 at the Children's Library, from 3 pm to 5 pm.  We need to raise just $400,000 more to secure all the matching funds for this exciting effort.  As you may recall, the entire project began this year with an anonymous grant to the Friends of $150,000 and a pledge of an additional $200,000 in matching funds.  Next, the City itself pledged over a million dollars on a 1:1 matching basis and the Palo Alto Library Foundation helped with the fund-raising as well.  You can see the expansion plans at the party at the Children's Library and learn about pledging and volunteer opportunities.  There will be refreshments and the entertaining magic and comedy team of the Flying Calamari Brothers too.  If you wish simply to donate directly to the project, please see more information on pledging and naming opportunities.  Map to the Children's Library.  Also, the Palo Alto Whole Foods will donate 5% of its sales on September 24 to the Children's Library project (see the recent San Jose Mercury article). 

Free high-speed Internet access terminals are of course one of the many benefits offered by Palo Alto libraries.  In the 2003-2004 fiscal year, Palo Alto library patrons will use about 108,000 hours of time on the terminals.  This one service alone provides about $1,300,000 of annual benefits to library users, given that a local copy shop charges $12 per hour for Internet usage.  The above numbers do not include the thousands of hours of wireless 802.11b access to the Internet by patrons with laptops at the Main and Mitchell Park Libraries.  Don't forget that the library Internet terminals are a great option if your home computer goes down, you need faster access, or you just want to check and reply to your e-mail while across town.

Fernando Vescia, M.D., will give a talk entitled "In Search of Leonardo" at our annual meeting on October 30 at 7:30 pm at the Palo Alto Art Center Auditorium.  Dr. Vescia is a former Stanford lecturer on the history of medicine.  His previous talk to our group about the Alexandrian Library was very much enjoyed.  All members of the Friends of the Palo Alto Library are also eligible to participate at this meeting in the election of board members.  The Palo Alto Art Center is at 1313 Newell Road, right next to the Main Library.

The Friends of the Palo Alto Library tries to find a home for every book we receive.  Many books that have not yet sold at the monthly sales are then distributed on the following Monday morning to non-profit organizations.  Among the recipients is the Elem Indian Colony, a small tribe three hours north of Palo Alto with an average per capita income of about $3,000.  Janie Sharpe, who works for the tribe, recently wrote: