All Oakland Public Library locations are closed until further notice. This action was taken as a precaution to help limit the spread of novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Click here for more information.
To sign up for a library card, please complete an online application. For questions about your account or to reach an OPL reference librarian, please email eanswers@oaklandlibrary.org or leave a voicemail at 510-238-3134.
Local author Alex Gino shares a good reason to hope your book is boring -- and gives us a totally awesome new heroine.
Local author Alex Gino has a new book with a powerful message: “Be Who You Are.”
That’s easier said than done in the 4th grade. But it’s especially hard for Melissa, because everyone still calls her George (her birth name) and they don’t know what she knows: She is a girl.
Melissa is transgender and the book George, published by Scholastic, is one of the first middle grade books to give voice to a transgender heroine.
We introduced you to George in a post last week
Today is International Literacy Day! What are you doing to observe the day? We have an idea...
Celebrate literacy today by doing some homework: For the next 30 minutes try to count the number of times you have to read or write something to go about your day.
How many street signs or bus routes? Text messages or Facebook posts? Menus or store prices? Bills or important mail? Job applications or work-related emails? Instructions from a teacher, doctor or pharmacy? What else?
What did you notice? How did you feel? Ask a friend to do the same and talk about your experiences.
Keep Noticing. I'll never forget the book Push by Sapphire (which inspired the movie
Main Library Jewelry-Making Workshop, September 12, 3:00-4:30pm
Who doesn't love jewelry? People all over the world adorn themselves for many reasons. Jewelry can be worn to convey social status, express cultural heritage and individuality, or simply make a fashion statement. Some even believe jewelry has physical and spiritual healing properties. Making your own jewelry in not only fun, it also makes people feel good. Whether jewelry-making is a relaxing, solitary activity or a vibrant social gathering, it relieves stress and gets those creative juice flowing. Here is a few of books to get you started:
Looking for a job? We're posting Help Wanted signs over on Instagram.
We librarians get asked about job openings all the time. In an effort to help answer people’s questions about jobs, Main Library Teen Zone librarian Brian Boies started the oaklandhasjobs Instagram account last September. From a slow beginning where Brian posted one or two help wanted signs a week to a handful of followers, the project has grown. He's now posting at least thirty job opportunities a week. Oaklandhasjobs now has more than 2,000 followers and is gaining about a hundred new followers a week.
You can help us find jobs for these many followers by taking pictures of help wanted signs and sending them, along with the cross streets where you see the signs, to oaklandhasjobs@gmail.com. It’s fun! Once you start looking, you’ll see them all over the place, especially along commercial corridors like College, Piedmont, and Lakeshore Avenues and International Boulevard. Brian and the Teen Services team can’t find them all by themselves.
And keep an eye out for
A coming attraction blog post for Mr. Turner, the DVD
From IMDB: Mr. Turner explores the last quarter century of the great if eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851). Profoundly affected by the death of his father, loved by a housekeeper whom he takes for granted and occasionally exploits sexually, he forms a close relationship with a seaside landlady with whom he eventually lives incognito with in Chelsea, where he dies. Throughout this, he travels, paints, stays with the country aristocracy, visits brothels, is a popular if anarchic member of the Royal Academy of Arts, has himself strapped to the mast of a ship so that he can paint a snowstorm, and is both celebrated and reviled by the public and by royalty.
Mike Leigh's "
June 2015 Is National Adopt-A-Shelter-Cat Month
Each spring during “kitten season,” thousands of newborn kittens join the millions of cats already in shelters across the country. That means your local shelter has tons of cute, cuddly newborns, in addition to all the mellow, older cats and everything in between. And the shelter staff are ready to help you adopt your very first cat — or to bring home a friend for another beloved cat!
TOP TEN CHECKLIST FOR ADOPTING A CAT:
The Oakland History Room has preserved rare and culturally valuable recordings in its collection.
Since 2013, the Oakland History Room (OHR) has been a partner of the California Audiovisual Preservation Project which preserves and provides access to unpublished and rare audiovisual content that is significant to state history. The CAVPP also works to raise awareness of the need to preserve such items and to raise funds for this type of archival preservation. The project, known locally as California Light & Sound, is administered at the University of California at Berkeley.
Through this partnership, the Oakland History Room has been able to preserve such items as 8mm and 16mm film of speed boat races on Lake Merritt and the 1948 Christmas Balloon Parade in downtown Oakland; VHS recordings of community events like the annual Black Cowboy Parade; oral histories recorded on audiocassette, and Oakland junior high orchestra and choir recordings on vinyl. So far, forty-nine items from OHR's collection have been digitized. These recordings now live on the Internet Archive (www.archive.org). Just type in “Oakland History
Veterans can connect to resources at the Main Library starting in mid-April when we open a Veteran Resource Center.
Did you know that Alameda County has the 5th highest veteran per capita population in the state? To help veterans connect with resources, the Main Library will open a Veteran Resource Center in partnership with the California Department of Veterans Affairs (CalVet) in May. Veterans can drop by during open hours to learn about state and federal education, employment, housing, health, disability and other benefits that may be available to veterans and their families. The Center will be open and staffed by trained volunteers. We'll also have a collection of books and other resources, and access to computer equipment for extended periods in order to complete online application and do research. If you have any questions or want a note when we schedule the opening, please email Mana Tominaga, Supervising Librarian for the Main Library, at mtominaga@oaklandlibrary.
Read a book, ride a bike, and make Oakland a better place!
Bicycling is a healthy, non-polluting, low-cost, and quiet form of transportation that is ideal for commuting and recreation. We also want to make it easier for you to bike to the library. Like last year, we've got a number of exciting programs planned in May, 2015, to encourage you to "Bike to Books" as part of the City of Oakland's efforts to promote biking for all!
And you don't have to wait until May to get going with bike-related events at the Library; 81st Avenue Branch hosts a free weekly Fix-It Clinic for minor repairs, every Friday, from 2 to 5 PM.
Programs in May include these events. First, decorate and personalize
March 14 is Pi Day! Time to celebrate math and more!
Yay! It's Pi Day! March 14, when the first three digits of π, 3/14 are the date. Pi Day is exciting more than the usual amount of nerdy interest this year because today is the Pi Day of the Century, the only date this century when the first five digits of Pi will line up in a row: 3/14/15. And at 9:26 and 53 seconds you'll get to experience pi in ten digits.
So what is π, besides a Greek letter and something good to eat with ice cream? Pi, also called Archimedes' Constant, represents the ratio between the circumference and the diameter of a circle, or roughly 3.14. That's about 22/7 so for those of you who like multiple celebrations,you could also celebrate Pi Approximation Day on July 22.
The pi ratio, though not named π until the early 18th century, was known to the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians as a way of calculating the area of a circle. It was the Archimedes who first
