Monday, November 30, 2009

Digital Photography Class - Picasa! 12-15-09

Meinders Library is pleased to welcome Lester Landgren back to the library to teach a digital photography editing class! Chances are, if you have a digital camera, you’ve got digital photographs saved on your computer that you haven’t done anything with.

This class can help you with those! Picasa is a free software that can be downloaded from the internet and it is capable of doing everything that Photoshop can, without spending all that money. Lester will help class participants learn how to utilize this resource to its best advantage.

Once photographs are edited, they can be used for all manner of projects, including on-line scrapbooking and special collages. Come and learn how to make those pictures look spectacular, just in time to take more at Christmas!

Class dates are as follows:
December 15, 16, and 17 at 6:30 PM
December 19 at 1:30 PM

Please call Meinders Library at 825-6714 to reserve a spot! Space is limited to the first 10 people who sign up for each class.

If you are interested in the computer class, or if you have a book to reserve of renew, give us a call at 507-825-6714. Meinders Library is open Monday through Thursday, from 10 AM to 8 PM, and Friday and Saturday from 10 AM to 5 PM. The Library is located at 1401 7th Street, Southwest, on the south side of the High School.

Holiday Crafts at the Library! 12-12-09

I don’t know about you, but I always get the urge to do crafty things around the holidays, either to give to people or to display in my own house. Bring the kids down to the Library on Saturday, December 12 between 12:30 and 4 PM and we’ll have all sorts of things for them to do to get their hands busy.

We’ll have three different kinds of ornaments that the kids will be able to make and take home: a popsicle stick reindeer, a painted puzzle piece, and a tissue paper/stained glass creation. We will also have white paper and scissors for snowflakes and holiday coloring sheets.

In addition to the crafts kids can take home, we’ll also be making paper chains to decorate the library, ornaments for the library tree, and a hand-print Christmas tree for the library’s front window. Come help us get in the holiday spirit!

Meinders Library is open from 10 – 8, Monday through Thursday, and 10-5 Friday and Saturday. If you have any questions or if you would like to reserve or renew a book, please contact the library at (507) 825-6714. We look forward to seeing you there!!

A New Purse Can Help A Child Learn To Read! 12-06-09

Miss’ Purse-n-ality (Melissa Scotting) will be hosting a special purse party at her home on Sunday, December 6th, from 1-3 PM. This party is just in time for Christmas and is the perfect place to find just the right gift for any ladies on your list. The party will be held at 905 9th Avenue Southwest, Pipestone. Bring a friend and have a great time!

25% of the proceeds from the party will go to Meinders Library to help fund our new program, 1000 Books Before Kindergarten. The program is a reading program open to children from birth until 5 years of age. It is designed to promote awareness of the critical importance of literacy skills in children even before they reach school. The program will also help parents realize and participate in the acquisition of these skills as they step into their irreplaceable role as their child’s first teacher. The ultimate goal is to encourage parents to reach to their children from birth until they begin attending school, and beyond. Once children are exposed to books, they tend to develop a life-long love of reading and that same exposure will help them enter into school ready and willing to learn.

When a child is registered, they receive a book bag (colored canvas and paintable!), a bookmark, a colored pencil, a bound reading log, and a special sticker. For every twenty books recorded in the reading log, participants may go to the library to have their log stamped and receive another sticker. Once 500 books have been read, the child receives a paperback book. Each year, during Children’s Book Week in May, a party will be held to celebrate those children who reached 1000 books during the previous year. At the celebration, each child who completed the program will get a certificate and a paperback book. The children must complete the program before they start kindergarten.

Meinders Library is open from 10 – 8, Monday through Thursday, and 10-5 Friday and Saturday. If you have any questions or if you would like to reserve or renew a book, please contact the library at (507) 825-6714. We look forward to seeing you at the party!!

Christmas Happenings 12-02-09

Can you believe it’s already December? It doesn’t seem as if it’s that late in the year, much less almost Christmas. Now is the time when calendars seem to fill without even trying, with holiday parties, shopping trips, family gatherings, and all sorts of other things.

Meinders Community Library would like to put a few more things onto your calendar. No, really! We can help with the shopping, the urge to do something crafty, and the need to do something with all those holiday photos!

December 6 (1:00 – 3:00 PM): Purse Party for 1000 Books Before Kindergarten
Miss’ Purse-n-ality (Melissa Scotting) will be hosting a purse party at her home on December 6th from 1:00 – 3:00 PM. 25% of the proceeds will go towards Meinders Library to help us start our 1000 Books Before Kindergarten program to encourage children from birth to 5 years of age to read! Not only is buying a purse for yourself or a friend a perfect Christmas gift, but part of the money will go to fund early literacy for children. How can you go wrong?? The party will be held at 905 9th Avenue SW in Pipestone and promises to be a lot of fun. Bring a friend, buy a purse, and help a child learn to love to read!

December 12 (12:30 – 4:00 PM): Holiday Craft Day
I don’t know about you, but I always get the urge to do crafty things around Christmas, either to give to people or to display in my own house. Bring the kids down to the Library on December 12 and we’ll have all sorts of things for them to do to get their hands busy. The kids will be able to make three different ornaments to take home, cut snowflakes, color holiday pictures, and help decorate the library with paper chains and a handprint Christmas tree! It’s going to be a LOT of fun and we hope to see you there!

December 15(6:30),16(6:30),17(6:30),19(1:30): Digital Photograph Editing class (Picasa)
I have oodles of holiday pictures that I have done nothing with. I keep saying I’m going to scrapbook them, but I never do. I have tons saved on my computer as well, just sitting there and waiting. Lester Landgren plans to help us with this problem. Picasa is a free photo editing software that can do almost everything that Photoshop can do and doesn’t cost a dime. It can take out redeye, change tints, and do all sorts of artsy types of things that can get you ready for digital scrapbooking, not to mention fix up all those photos your four-year-old took when she got ahold of the camera. Not that that’s ever happened to me… Call to reserve your spot today!

December 28,29,30 : PAFL Book Sale!
It’s that time of year again! Pipestone Area Friends of the Library (PAFL) will be holding their annual book sale at the Library. Come and browse through a bountiful selection of hardcover and paperback books, VHS tapes, and books on cassette to find some perfect winter reading material. Stop by and check it out!!

Holiday Hours
Meinders Library will have slightly different hours around the holidays. We will be closed on December 24th and 25th, as well as January 1st. We will be open on New Year’s Eve, but we will close at 5:00 PM to allow the staff time to get home for those parties (or time to get home before everyone ELSE goes to parties, as the case may be). We will be open both the Saturday after Christmas and the Saturday after New Years Day. We might be tired, but we’ll be here.

If you have any questions, or have a book to reserve or renew, please don’t hesitate to give us a call at 507-825-6714. The hours for Meinders Library are Monday through Thursday, from 10 AM to 8 PM, and Friday and Saturday from 10 AM to 5 PM. Meinders Community Library is located at 1401 7th Street SW, on the south side of the high school.

Veteran's Day 11-11-09

I come from a line of veterans. My grandfather, from Worthington, Minnesota, served in India during World War II as a veterinarian. My father was a Marine, and though he didn’t serve during a war, he did his patriotic duty. My husband was in the Army and served in Germany, then Iraq for Operation Desert Storm. His parents, in turn, were both in the Air Force and met each other in the service. Veterans Day is a day when we should recognize and celebrate the bravery and sacrifice that soldiers from all branches of the military have made for us. Our soldiers come in all ages, in both sexes, all religions, and all colors. They fought to keep our country free and democratic – to make us what we are today. Make sure to thank them.

On November 15th, the History Channel will be airing never-before-seen footage of World War II. The footage has been digitally remastered in high definition and will give a view of the war that is far more real than much of what we’ve seen before. Check your local paper for listings on the time.

The library has several movies out that have been critically acclaimed for showing how it was for soldiers. If they interest you, come in and check them out.

Band of Brothers (Vietnam)

This series originally aired on HBO and was hailed as one of the best war series ever made. It was produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg and the library has the complete, 10-part set. There is also a disc that includes a documentary on the Easy Company and several other special features.

Invisible Enemy (Vietnam)
Part of a series called American Honor, produced by ABC News, The Learning Channel, and sponsored by the American Legion.

The War (World War II – Ken Burns)
A quarter of this film centers on the community of Luverne, Minnesota, where the movie was originally screened. This set contains all seven parts of the documentary, as well as numerous special features. It lasts for 15 hours and took six years of work. The object of the documentary was to show how to war affected those left at home and Burns uses four different towns in the United States to paint a picture of life during those years.

Flags of Our Fathers (World War II – Clint Eastwood)
This movie, directed by Academy Award Winner Clint Eastwood and nominated for Oscars itself, show the American side of the Battle of Iwo Jima.

And if you don’t feel like watching a movie or the television, the library has a huge selection of books, both fiction and non-fiction, depicting the wars this country has fought. I don’t have space to list them all, but here are two that may spark interest.

The Dardanelles Disaster by Dan Van Der Vat (World War I)
In 1915, the British Navy failed to capture Constantinople and through there, a sea route to Russia. Van Der Vat is a naval military historian who writes that this failure not only prolonged the war, but led to the Russian Revolution and contributed to the destabilization in the Middle East. The book is fascinating and enlightening and a must read for any military historian and others interested.

Soul Survivor by Bruce and Andrea Leininger(World War II – and the Present)
This book might be a bit beyond what would normally be considered war-related, but you’ll have to bear with me. About a year ago, a young man appeared on Oprah with his parents, who had a very odd story to tell. That story is chronicled in this book and gives rise to questions of reincarnation. Was James Leininger a reincarnated World War II pilot? As a toddler, James would say and do things that led his parents to an incredible discovery.

To all the veterans reading this article, I salute you. My salute may not be as crisp as my husband’s, my father’s, or my grandfather’s, but I salute you just the same. From infantryman to general, thank you for serving our country. We would not be the America we are today without you.

If you have any questions, or have a book to reserve or renew, please don’t hesitate to give us a call at 507-825-6714. The hours for Meinders Library are Monday through Thursday, from 10 AM to 8 PM, and Friday and Saturday from 10 AM to 5 PM.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Tis the Season, 11/11/09

Making Christmas lists has always been a painful procedure for me – not only gifts I want for myself, but gifts I want to give to other people. My mother has given up on me and just sends me a catalogue, telling me to circle what I want and then mail it back. I struggle every year over what to buy for my husband, hoping to get just the right thing (it hasn’t happened yet).

So in light of that time of year, I thought I would list a few books that could probably be put on a Christmas list for yourself or for someone you know. A lot of popular authors released books in November and the list I’ve included here is by no means complete. Stop in to the library for a listing of the books we ordered this month. Here are just a few:

Ford County by John Grisham
Seven short stories, set around seven different characters, makes this an unusual book from Grisham. Set in the same area as A Time To Kill, these stories will entertain you and some of them will make you laugh out loud. A definite must for followers of the author.

I, Alex Cross
by James Patterson
An edge-of-your-seat thriller is delivered yet again from Patterson. Alex is pulled from a family gathering to learn that another relative has been brutally murdered. The quest to catch the killer will lead him into a seedy underbelly of secrets, where your credentials can get you anything you want, and there are some that will do anything to keep their fantasies a secret. The revelation the evidence points to could change everything…

Kindred in Death by J.D. Robb
Coming home from vacation, the new Captain of the NYPSD and his wife are looking forward to spending quality time with their daughter, who stayed at home. They return to find her brutally murdered and Eve Dallas is called in to solve the crime. The evidence points them in one direction, but the killer is using all sorts of tricks to throw them off the trail. To start the Dallas stories at the beginning, read Naked in Death.

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
Harrison Shepherd is American born, but raised by housekeepers in Mexico. His journey back and forth across the border brings him into contact with Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Lev Trotsky and dozens of other vivid characters as he throws his lot in with art, revolution, and politics. Kingsolver does an excellent job showing how one’s life can be formed and altered by public opinion and her settings and characters are rich and engaging.

Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton
The year is 1665. The place is Port Royal, Jamaica. From the storyteller who brought us Jurassic Park comes a swashbuckling story of treasure, piracy, and adventure. A ragtag group of English ruffians, led by a notorious pirate, learn of gold contained within a Spanish galleon and can’t resist the lure, though the capture of such a ship seems impossible.

The Scarpetta Factor by Patricia Cornwell
Kay Scarpetta has been asked to host a television series in the midst of all the other strange things going on in her life. Someone leaves a possible bomb at the front desk of her building, she’s receiving strange phone calls, and suddenly finds herself sucked into a situation that involves a famous actor and a missing millionaires. Don’t miss this one, though if you need to start at the beginning, start with Postmortem.

Shades of Blue by Karen Kingsbury
Life doesn’t always play out like a fairy tale, even if it seems like it’s going to. Brad Cutler believe he has everything he wants – a perfect fiancĂ©, a perfect job, a perfect life – until memories begin to haunt him and he realizes there’s an old love he needs to make amends to. Turning to God for help, Brad struggles to regain the fairy tale he so desperately wants.

206 Bones by Kathy Reichs
If you enjoy the Bones series on FOX, you really should be reading the books the series was based on. While the television series is only loosely based on the book series, the books are fabulous. This installment finds Dr. Brennan not only trapped in a tomb, but fighting to save her reputation after an alleged botched autopsy. If you haven’t been reading the series but would like to start, the first book is called Deja Dead.

Under the Dome by Stephen King
What would you do if the town of Pipestone was entirely sealed off from the world by an invisible forcefield? What if your family was at home and you were running errands in Marshall? King explores this scenario with the fictional town of Chester’s Mill, Maine. What happens to the people of a town when they are suddenly and very completely on their own?

We also have six new DVDs, four new audio books, and several non-fiction and largeprint selections, but you’ll have to come in and browse for yourself to get those titles. Yes, that’s my shameless way of getting you into the library.

And if books are just not your thing, then I must admit I’m at a loss. Having purchased everything from hockey lessons to specialty wine corks for Christmas gifts, I have a tendency to be a little wacky. Just hope I won’t be your secret Santa.

If you have any questions, or have a book to reserve or renew, please don’t hesitate to give us a call at 507-825-6714. The hours for Meinders Library are Monday through Thursday, from 10 AM to 8 PM, and Friday and Saturday from 10 AM to 5 PM.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

National Game Day @ Your Library!

Meinders Library will join hundreds of libraries throughout the country on November 14, 2009, to celebrate the second annual National Game Day @ your Library! Like so many other libraries across the country, Meinders Library will offer special gaming opportunities for the whole family.

Meinders Library will have board games available from 10 AM until 1 PM on the center tables for anyone interested to play. While we have not gotten enough money yet to purchase our Wii, the computers will be available for games all day. Anyone who has a game they would like to bring in and share is more than welcome!

National Gaming Day @ your library is a national initiative supported by the American Library Association, and 2009 sponsors Hasbro, Top Trumps and Wizards of the Coast. For more information on National Gaming Day please visit www.ala.org.

Meinders Library is open from 10 – 8, Monday through Thursday, and 10-5 Friday and Saturday. If you have any questions about the gaming event or if you would like to reserve or renew a book, please contact the library at (507) 825-6714.