Half Hollow Hills memories

Come back in time with us. Our Melville building is reaching it’s 50th anniversary next year, and we need your help identifying some of the faces from our community’s past. Were you a brownie visiting the library in the 60’s? Did you come for a school visit or a summer storytime? Your face may be up on our new blog, Half Hollow Hills memories.

Would you like to contribute some pictures? We would be happy to digitize them for you and add them to our site.  Please call the library at 421-4530, ext. 324 and ask for Ellen.

New York’s Libraries See More Visitors During Difficult Times

This was the headline in a press release from the New York Library Association the other day. Historically, library use increases during tough economic times like we are seeing now. And that seems to be true here at Half Hollow Hills. The first two months of this year we are seeing more library patrons coming in our doors, borrowing our materials, using our wireless Internet connection, reserving materials and asking questions.

Quoting from that same press release, Michael Borges, Executive Director of the New York Library Association said “When the public’s buying power shrinks and household expenses grow, people tend to rely more on their public libraries for free reading materials and services, like literacy programs and computer training.”

Stop by the Library and see how you can save money by using its resources.

Library Public Information Meeting/Meet the Candidates, Tuesday, April 1, 7:30 pm

The Annual Budget Vote & Trustee Election is Tuesday, April 8th, 9:30 am – 9 pm at the Dix Hills Library building.

At the Public Information meeting on April 1st there will be a presentation about the proposed 2008 – 2009 budget and an opportunity to meet the three candidates for library trustee.

All are welcome.

Take a tour!

A walk through the library from a teen’s point of view.

WorldlinQ.org

We’ve added a link to WorldlinQ to our library website. Put together by the Queens Borough Public Library, it’s a multi lingual portal to the internet with resources for speakers of Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, French, Korean, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, and Ukrainian with more coming.   They’ve got an extensive About Us and FAQ, but what’s best about this award-winning site is that it’s always available to anyone with an Internet connection, not just library card holders.

What is your favorite children’s book character?

I was listening to NPR on the way to work this morning and they were discussing a children’s book that was groundbreaking when it was published in 1964, Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh. [If you would like to hear the piece go to http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=87779452] I was already in high school by the time it came out and didn’t read it until I was a children’s librarian some time in the 70s. But I absolutely loved it; I was like Harriet in some ways. But the two female characters in children’s books that I identified with while growing up were Ramona from the Beverly Cleary series (now I was absolutely like Ramona) and Pippi Longstockingby Astrid Lindgren (I wanted to travel and be an exotic adventurer just like Pippi).

Have you introduced your children to any of these characters? If you haven’t you must. They are all great read-alouds and lots of fun. Or you can listen to them on CD or download them from the Library’s website. Do you have a favorite children’s book character to share?? Tell us about it.