Reading Together Again

The Livermore Public Library is again asking the Livermore community to read together. We are moving the annual Livermore Reads Together event to the month of February. This year, 2008, the selected books are any in the Dune series of science fiction.

Begun in 1965 with the publication of the original Dune, by Frank Herbert, the series now encompasses 14 different novels about the Dune universe. Frank Herbert wrote the first six novels in the series. After his death in 1986, the series was continued by his son Brian Herbert and Livermore’s own Kevin Anderson. Together they have written 8 additional novels, three of them as preludes to the original Dune and the remaining five as sequels. The most recent novel, Sandworms of Dune, published in 2007, has recently been on the New York Times Bestseller List.

Kevin Anderson, who worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as a technical writer and editor for 12 years, will headline an impressive schedule of programs during the month of February. Anderson is the author of over 90 novels including many which have appeared on national and international bestseller lists. In addition to the Dune series, he is the author of a series of bestselling Star Wars anthologies and novels and has collaborated with his wife, Rebecca Moesta, on a Star Wars series for young readers. Anderson will talk about his Dune experience on Sunday, February 24 at 2 pm at the Civic Center Library. He will also enjoy a lunch with a lucky winner of the Dune contest so ask at the Civic Center Library Information Desk for an entry form to win this or other prizes.

Other events celebrating Dune in February include an art exhibit of astronomical artworks in the Civic Center Library Art Gallery; the presentation of the Livermore School District’s portable Planetarium of the Stars; several author talks on subjects mentioned in the Dune books and Out of This World storytimes. Pick up a brochure at any Livermore library outlining all the exciting Dune events. Many of the events have been underwritten by the Friends of the Livermore Library.

The Friends of the Livermore Library continue to provide much appreciated support to the Library in other areas as well. Through their generosity, the Library is able to present its Authors and Arts programs in addition to their support of Livermore Read Together. Elsewhere on our library web site you can find information on all of the upcoming Authors and Arts programs including Los Californios, the Alta California Orchestra which is also sponsored in part by the California Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Western States Arts Foundation. The Friends also generously support our teen programs including sponsoring our Teen Art Expo in April and t-shirts for our summer Young Adult Volunteers.

The Friends of the Livermore Library are able to provide support for library programs through the sale of used books from their bookstore at the Civic Center Library and their monthly book sales at the old library under the portico. The Friends have a new bookstore manager, Kyle Cabral. Kyle says they are always looking for new volunteers to help in the bookstore so if you are interested in working with books and helping a very worthy organization, contact Kyle at 373-5520.

It also helps the Friends if you shop at the Bookstore which is open almost all the hours the library is open—so check it out!

The Friends can also use your support as a member. It is easy to join and you can do so online at their web site. Just click on the link from the Library site to the Friends site and click on membership. Your small contribution helps the Friends and more importantly shows you care about your community library.

The Friends web site has lots of other interesting information on it as well as the opportunity to join. They have archived their award winning newsletters on the site. This newsletter won the “Best Medium Sized Library Friends” newsletter award from the Friends of Libraries USA. They also have a link to their Amazon.com store where they showcase their really special and valuable books from the Bookstore.

The Library Café is currently going through some growing pains and has started closing at 3:00 PM. They have found it is expensive to be open in the afternoons when only drinks and snacks are being sold. They will be evaluating this closing to see if it helps their shortfall. However, more and greater patronage overall is what they really need. So next time you are at the Civic Center Library, try out one of their great sandwiches or a special coffee. We would really like to see them do well so they can add hours to their schedule and stay in business.

The Library has just completed its annual customer satisfaction survey. The results look good and, in future blogs, I will be sharing with you what our patrons are saying about the libraries. In the meantime, don’t forget to let us know what you think.