Southeast Steuben County Library 300 Nasser Civic Center Plaza Corning, NY 14830 (607) 936-3713 Questions, Comments:
Corning Inc. Headquarters, Corning, NY
The Hornby Museum & Hornby Historical Society
Campbell Central School
Lindley Community Church
The Conhocton River in Coopers Plains
The Caton Grange
The Depot Museum, Village of Painted Post, Town of Erwin |
Volume 1, November 2005 - July 2007 The Circulator, Southeast Steuben County Library's first online news magazine, was published three to six times per week from November 1, 2005 through July 27, 2007. Thank you, readers, for helping to make this resource a success. Every article is archived and may be accessed via the archive links in the right-hand column of the main page. Scroll down! Articles are classified by date and subject category. July 26, 2007 Reading was Madcap adventure
Selected audience members participated in the production, to the delight of all (shown below). The show was a highlight of the Southeast Steuben County Library's "Get a Clue" Summer Reading Program events series. Next on the "Get a Clue" events schedule is Moreland the Magician. He will perform here at 1 pm on Thursday, August 2. Please join us for this dazzling and humorous performance. It is free and everyone is invited. Performances are held in the Nasser Civic Center rink, next to the Library. Click here for a map and driving directions to Nasser Civic Center Plaza. Or, for bus routes and schedules, click here. Summer Reading events are made possible by the Friends of the Library. Without our Friends, we couldn't do it!
Comments & Questions email: turnerb@stls.org Our (not so) hidden agenda In America, everybody seems to have something to push. Turn on the television and you get more commercials than programming. Read a newspaper these days and you'll be lucky to spot the "news hole." (What is a news hole? That's the space the publisher leaves - begrudgingly - for the editorial department to fill, after all the ads have been placed.) Pick up a magazine, select an article, and just as it gets good you'll be "jumped" to the back pages, which are hard to find. You'll have to thumb through as many ads as possible to get there. Advertising helps make newspapers and magazines and broadcast television profitable. Without advertising there would be less news, fewer magazine articles - also fewer newspapers and magazines - and newsstand and subscription prices would be much higher. Even so, the proliferation of advertising underscores the point that in America, everybody seems to have something to push. Here at the Library, we do not depend on advertising for income. We do not harbor a particular political agenda (although we do give safe harbor to books on politics). We do not want to tell you what to buy or how to think. Even so, we do have something to push. We push reading. We want you to read. We think that reading is good for you. And we want you to read more. We are almost completely shameless in this pursuit. For example, our ongoing Summer Reading Program offers incentive gift drawings for reading books. There are great gift packages for adults, young adults and children. All you need do to be eligible is sign up and read. For details, click here. Also, we put on a great show Thursdays in Nasser Civic Center rink, with cultural events and performances that include the message that reading is fun. See our events calendar for upcoming dates in July and August. Our Summer Reading Program is supported by the Friends of the Library. (The Friends are better than advertising!) Throughout the four seasons, year in and year out, we do our best to encourage everyone to read. Occasionally, when appropriate, we put on hats or funny costumes or organize special events. More often, we smile and try to be as helpful as we can be. For those of you already hooked on reading, we offer free readers guides and suggested reading brochures. You'll find these at the Circulation Desk, along with our popular Browsers Guide to the Collection (A.K.A. the Dewey Demystifier), which makes browsing by subject simple. For children and their parents, we have a new set of bookmarks with suggested reading titles. Ask for them in the Children's Department. For online browsers, try our online book clubs. Click here for more information, or join a club via the link on the Library Home Page. Thanks to our online subscription resources, you have access to Thomson-Gale's Literature Resource Center and the Twayne Authors Series. The Literature Resource Center includes literary criticism, biographies, bibliographies, reading lists and much more. Search by author name, book title, key words and other criteria. The Twayne Author Series provides comprehensive articles about writers of literary note throughout world history. Click here to find out more about these. We make all these resources available to you because we want you to read. We have many more resources for readers. We won't go into these here. That would be pushing it. Comments & Questions email: turnerb@stls.org July 20, 2007 Redhawk Dancers amazed us More than 300 children and adults joined us at the Nasser Civic Center rink yesterday for the second performance in the Library's "Get a Clue" Summer Reading events series. Four members of the Redhawk Dancers, a Native American dance troupe, lit up the arena with vibrantly colored costumes, dazzled with energetic dancing & drumming, and kept our attention riveted with ritual cries and chants. For those young readers who attended last week's performance by Yarina, a Native American musical group from Ecuador, the two events provided an opportunity for audience members to learn about the diversity of indigenous cultural traditions from North and South America. Next up on the "Get a Clue" Summer Reading events schedule is the Madcap Puppets. They will perform here at 1 pm on Thursday, July 26. Please join us for this exciting event. It is free and everyone is invited. Summer Reading events are made possible by the Friends of the Library. Without our Friends, we couldn't do it!
Comments & Questions email: turnerb@stls.org Your suggestions are important The Southeast Steuben County Library serves a population of 34,000 in the City of Corning and six towns: Campbell, Caton, (Town of) Corning, Erwin, Hornby and Lindley. Hundreds of people visit us each day. Most pay a call at the Circulation Desk. Of these, many have been kind enough to contribute suggestions to our Suggestion Box. Assuming you are a patron facing north, toward Tioga Avenue, the Suggestion Box is located on the extreme right-hand side of the Circulation Desk. The Suggestion Box is equipped with a sidecar filled with slips of paper. Sharpened half-length "golf" pencils are always handy. We want to make it easy for anyone to tell us what they think and to share ideas on how we should improve our services. Sometimes people tell us what we do wrong. Sometimes people tell us what we do right. Sometimes people write notes to us just for fun. We read and appreciate all of this. Because our Suggestion Box is equipped with little slips of paper and golf pencils which have no erasers, most suggestions are rather short and look like chicken scratch. We understand this and do not judge the merit of your suggestions according to appearance. We pay attention to what you have to say. This morning there were 39 suggestions in our Suggestion Box. One suggestion called for longer pencils. Thirteen patrons asked us to acquire specific books, audio books, DVDs or other materials. We also had six general acquisition suggestions, such as "More origami books, please," and "Please get more murder mistoreys!" (Sic.) Thank you. Our acquisitions specialists need to know what you want to read, watch and otherwise check out, and we follow up where possible. Several suggestions had to do with our public computers and children's computers. Most asked for more computers, or more kids computers, or longer time on computers. (There is a one-hour limit.) We are in the process of replacing many of our older computers. We should see multiple service improvements soon. One suggestion called for quiet in the Library, particularly in the computer areas. We are working on it. We work on it every day. Two suggestions called for eliminating parking fees & meters. We are sorry. Parking at the Library is managed by the City of Corning. Parking is free after 5 p.m. and on weekends. One suggestion called on us to "put up a Dewey system index somewhere. No one has it memorized!" We appreciate your suggestion. There is a Dewey Decimal System index posted in the Reference Department. There is a laminated Dewey Decimal System index, for public use, on the Reference Desk. There is a short stack of simplified Dewey Decimal System flyers at each Library Catalog computer station. Another suggestion called on us to install a pay phone. There is a public pay phone in the corridor outside the Laura Beer Community Room, adjacent to the lobby. One (presumably young) patron offered two suggestions. He wants us to give him a PlayStation and, on a monthly basis, a Three Musketeers candy bar. One suggestion out of the 39 conveyed something unmentionable. One just said "Hi!" with a smile drawn. (Thanks!) The last suggestion was our favorite. It made us stop for a moment to take in the good feeling. It read, "All is perfectly fine." Comments & Questions email: turnerb@stls.org Altered books: Art or atrocity?
Less acceptable is the callous treatment of library books by uncaring readers; such as those who turn down pages or break spines by laying books face down. Worst of all is the deliberate destruction of circulating books.
Altering Freud launches formally on July 19 from 5 pm - 7 with a reception for the artists that is free and open to the public. Altering Freud features artwork by Gigi Alvare, Mavin Ambrose, Carol Ayers, Lindsey Bergquist, Dawn Coleman, Jan Kather, Kathy Pilling-Whitney, Sharla Lefkowitz Brown, Ginnie Lupi, Tom Oberg, Debb VanDelinder, and Will VanDelinder. The artists all used copies of Freud: Dictionary of Psychoanalysis as inspiration (and base material) for their art. None of these copies came from our collection.
Free the Soul, by Dawn Coleman is shown at top right. Flippin' Freud, by Mavin Ambrose is shown above, left. Fixation, by Gigi Alvare is shown at right. There is a copy of Freud: Dictionary of Psychoanalysis (Greenwood Press) in the Southern Tier Library System. It is in the collection of the Hornell Public Library. You may place a Hold on it with your Library card and PIN by clicking on the Catalog link on our Library's Home Page. Even if you are an artist, it is not permissible to alter this copy. ***** For those interested in gaining background on the "art" and/or practice of altering books, follow these links: The International Society of Altered Books Outside the Margins: Making Altered Books Comments & Questions email: turnerb@stls.org Want to read more of The Circulator? Visit our archives. Click on the links below "Coming Events" in the right-hand column. |
The Circulator User-Guide
Coming Events: Monday, July 30 Computer Class: Advanced Searching. 3 pm - 5. Call (607) 936-3713 ext 502 to sign up. Free. Tuesday, July 31 Infant Lap-Sit: 10:30 - 11 am. Join Baby Bookworms and caregivers for a half-hour of interactive fun + learning. Chicken Little's Story Time: 10:30 am - 11. For toddlers. Thursday, August 2 Moreland the Magician: 1 pm - 2. This free Summer Reading Event will be held in the Nasser Civic Center Skating Rink, adjacent to the Library. Blankets, Books & Slippers PJ Story Time: 7 pm to 7:30. Wear your pajamas and bring your teddy bears (and caregivers). Friday, August 3 Free film: Smiles of a Summer Night (1957). Swedish, with subtitles. 108 minutes. Not rated. Starts at 7 pm. Doors open at 6:45. Free popcorn! Tuesday, August 7 Infant Lap-Sit: 10:30 - 11 am. Join Baby Bookworms and caregivers for a half-hour of interactive fun + learning. Chicken Little's Story Time: 10:30 am - 11. For toddlers. Thursday, August 9 Brown Bag Book Club: For more information call the Reference Department at (607) 936-3713 ext 502. Doc Possum: 1 pm - 2. This free Summer Reading Program end-of-season party will be held in the Nasser Civic Center Skating Rink, adjacent to the Library. Blankets, Books & Slippers PJ Story Time: 7 pm to 7:30. Wear your pajamas and bring your teddy bears (and caregivers). Monday, August 13 Computer Class: Internet Browsers. 3 pm - 5. Call (607) 936-3713 ext 502 to sign up. Free. Tuesday, August 14 Infant Lap-Sit: 10:30 - 11 am. Join Baby Bookworms and caregivers for a half-hour of interactive fun + learning. Chicken Little's Story Time: 10:30 am - 11. For toddlers. Grants & Nonprofits Training Workshop: Sound Bite Marketing (In 10 Words or Less. 1:30 pm - 4:40 at Three Rivers; 114 Pine Street; Corning. $5 class fee. Call (607) 936-3713 ext 502 or visit the Reference Desk at the Library to register. Thursday, August 16 Blankets, Books & Slippers PJ Story Time: 7 pm to 7:30. Wear your pajamas and bring your teddy bears (and caregivers). Friday, August 17 Free film: Letters from Iwo Jima (2006). Directed by Clint Eastwood. Shows the battle of Iwo Jima from Japanese points of view. 141 minutes. Rated R. Starts at 7 pm. Doors open at 6:45. Free popcorn! Tuesday, August 21 Infant Lap-Sit: 10:30 - 11 am. Join Baby Bookworms and caregivers for a half-hour of interactive fun + learning. Chicken Little's Story Time: 10:30 am - 11. For toddlers. Thursday, August 23 Brown Bag Book Club: For more information call the Reference Department at (607) 936-3713 ext 502. Blankets, Books & Slippers PJ Story Time: 7 pm to 7:30. Wear your pajamas and bring your teddy bears (and caregivers). Monday, August 27 Computer Class: Finding & Evaluating Health Information. 3 pm - 5. Call (607) 936-3713 ext 502 to sign up. Free. Tuesday, August 28 Infant Lap-Sit: 10:30 - 11 am. Join Baby Bookworms and caregivers for a half-hour of interactive fun + learning. Chicken Little's Story Time: 10:30 am - 11. For toddlers. Thursday, August 30 Blankets, Books & Slippers PJ Story Time: 7 pm to 7:30. Wear your pajamas and bring your teddy bears (and caregivers).
Click a date or topic to visit The Archives:
Recent Topics: Final Edition: Thank you, readers Collaborate for arts & education Harry Potter Party here Friday Financial planning series offered Music of Ecuador, here on 7/12 Your suggestions are important Altered books: Art or atrocity? Incredible incentives are here! Photos: Corning Farmers Market
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When
Madcap Productions Giant Puppet Theatre comes to the Library, anything can happen. Today, the Ohio-based troupe
staged a fantasy in which a young woman must read a story to a scary monster (above, left) in order
to save her brother. Because she can read and the monster can't, she finds a way to save her
brother, and hundreds of young audience members learn a little about the value of literacy. The
tale she tells becomes a play within a play, giving rise to additional giant puppet creations
such as the Madcap character, top, right.
Here at the Library, we understand that every time anyone reads a book,
the book changes in some way. The most careful reader will contribute to the aging
of books. When we read books we manipulate fragile paper, we expose delicate inks to harmful
light, we weaken bindings, stretch glues, allow salty sweat and fatty acids from our fingers to
be absorbed into once pristine pages. The aging of books through normal use is a fact of life that librarians
accept, even embrace. After all, a well-worn book is a well-read book.
Therefore, it is with appropriately mixed feelings that we call your
attention to an upcoming "art" exhibit at The Gallery at The ARTS, 32 West Market Street in
Corning, NY. The artists featured in the exhibit altered books - in this case, copies of a
particular book - to create their artwork. Was this an act of premeditated vandalism, or inspired
creativity?
If you just can't wait for the artists reception, visit The Gallery at
The ARTs now through July 30. Call (607) 962-5871 ext 223 for gallery hours and other information.
