Before the World Series and the ALCS, Fall 2007's first TV viewing marathon came to us from New Hampshire’s award-winning documentary filmmaker, Ken Burns. His latest effort, aptly titled “The War”, chronicles the American experience of World War II through the eyes of those who endured it. The 20th century’s greatest conflict was also perhaps the most visually documented. Combat photographers captured the action and horror of combat and its consequences in both still and moving images. Heavily censored images were packaged into newsreels to support the war effort, and film was used for training, propaganda, and entertainment throughout the war.

Hollywood jumped into the war effort with both feet, producing war films for American audiences soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Here are some examples of feature films released during the war to audiences hungry for any visual representation they could find of what was happening overseas. Now you can find these on DVD at the library.

Casablanca (1942) with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.
Mrs. Miniver (1942) with Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon.
Action in the North Atlantic (1943) with Humphey Bogart and Raymond Massey.
Destination Tokyo (1943) with Cary Grant and John Garfield.
The Fighting Sullivans (1944) starring Anne Baxter and Ward Bond.
Passage to Marseille (1944) with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre.
To Have and Have Not (1944) with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.
Objective, Burma! (1945) with Errol Flynn.
They Were Expendable (1945) with John Wayne and Donna Reed.

Hollywood also produced some spectacular propaganda films during the same period such as:

Walt Disney On the Front Lines: The War Years (1941-1945) - 2-DVD collection of Disney’s animated contributions to the cause.
Why We Fight (1943-1945) – 4-DVD series of 7 propaganda films produced by Frank Capra and shown to American GIs during World War II.

Some of the very best films about the war, however, were produced during the postwar period. Here are some award-winning classics that you’ll find on DVD at the library:

Comedies

Operation Petticoat (1959) with Cary Grant and Tony Curtis.
Father Goose (1964) with Cary Grant and Leslie Caron.
Catch-22 (1970) with Alan Arkin, Buck Henry, and Paula Prentiss.

Documentaries

Victory at Sea (1952) produced by NBC with original music by Richard Rodgers.
The War (2007) produced for PBS by Ken Burns.

Dramas

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) with Dana Andrews, Frederic March and Myrna Loy.
Twelve O’Clock High (1949) with Gregory Peck and Dean Jagger.
From Here to Eternity (1953) with Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, and Frank Sinatra.
Stalag 17 (1953) with William Holden.
The Caine Mutiny (1954) with Humphrey Bogart and Fred MacMurray.
Mister Roberts (1955) with Henry Fonda and Jack Lemmon.
The Bridge over the River Kwai (1957) with Alec Guinness and William Holden.
The Great Escape (1963) with Steve McQueen.
In Harm’s Way (1965) with John Wayne and Kirk Douglas.
Von Ryan's Express (1965) with Frank Sinatra and Trevor Howard.
The Dirty Dozen (1967) with Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, and Charles Bronson.
Patton (1970) with George C. Scott and Karl Malden.
The Winds of War (1983) 6-DVD miniseries with Robert Mitchum, Ali McGraw, and Jan-Michael Vincent
War and Remembrance (1988) 6-DVD miniseries with Robert Mitchum, Jane Seymour, and John Gielgud.
Schindler’s List (1993) directed by Steven Spielberg with Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, and Ralph Fiennes.
Saving Private Ryan (1998) with Tom Hanks, Edward Burns, and Matt Damon.
Band of Brothers (2001) 6-DVD miniseries produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.
The Pianist (2002) produced by Roman Polanski with Adrien Brody.
Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) and Flags of Our Fathers (2007) produced by Clint Eastwood and Steven Spielberg.

and a Musical

South Pacific (1958) with Mitzi Gaynor and Rosanno Brazzi; music by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Looking for more titles? Try Wikipedia's List of World War II films or visit the Internet Movie Database and enter keyword "WWII".

It’s time to apply for college. Or at least time to begin thinking about what comes next. Newsweek magazine’s America’s Best Colleges states that “by the year 2009, the number of graduating high school seniors should reach 3.3 million. Of that number, two-thirds will go on to a college degree.” Down East Magazine did a study of the Bates College admissions process in its November 2007 issue. Although each application is read by more than one individual and each one ranks students in a number of different categories, the actual discussion which determines who gets into Bates, lasts less than five minutes for each applicant. That is not unusual!

Many colleges now use an online common application. Not a lot of opportunity to show admissions counselors who you really are there! How do you separate yourself from the crowd, so that your less than five minutes has the outcome you want? One way is through the application essay. A lot of advice has been given about writing your application essay. I found quite a bit of this advice when I did a search on the college application essay using EBSCO, which is a database of printed articles that can be accessed through the library’s website.

Some of the best advice was about choosing your topic. You want the admissions committee to see you as a person, not as a group of statistics. “Go with smaller, seemingly unimportant moments in your life” was a suggestion which my daughter followed to her advantage. She wrote about throwing away her retainer (that thing you wear on your teeth after the braces come off) by accident while eating in a ski lodge with friends. Her essay focused on her struggle between public humiliation and personal responsibility. Personal responsibility won out, and she dug through the trash until she found her retainer. Other good suggestions from these articles : ”make sure to talk about how your topic affects you (this time it really is all about you), don’t make the essay any longer than the suggested length, and remember, the reader wants to know you; literary genius is not the issue here!

If you need more help getting started, NPL has some books to help:

The college application essay by Sarah McGinty
Rock hard apps: how to write a killer college application by Katherine Cohen
How to write a winning college application essay by Michael Mason
Essays that will get you into college by Amy Burnham

OK, ready, set, WRITE! Good luck!

I recently read an article in School Library Journal titled, "Kids OK With No Dewey" and thought it brought up some interesting discussion points. There is a library in Arizona that acts as both the public and school library for grades 9-12. They decided to incorporate a bookstore philosophy of organization and to (insert gasp here) abandon the Dewey Decimal classification system that we've all come to know and love (or hate). Instead the collection is grouped by subject and then organized on the shelf by the author's last name.

The philosophy here is that people have more of a tendency to browse collections to find the book they need.

Here's my thought, isn't this basically the same thing but without the numbers on the spine? Dewey groups books by subject but just assigns it a number to represent that subject. And if only a handful of libraries are following suit, how will the students have the information retrieval skills they need in other libraries such as college libraries?

Here at the Nashua Public Library we have a hybrid of this philosophy where certain collections are separated out by genre for browsing. Mysteries or business books for example, are in a different shelf location but all of the books still use the traditional classification system.

What do you guys think?

I came to work at the Nashua Public Library over thirty years ago and have had the privilege of working in the Children's Department for my entire library career. I often tell customers and friends that I have the best job in the place and I truly believe that is so. When I first started as a library assistant in 1976, my boss asked me if I knew how to sew. Fortunately my grandmother had taught me on a Singer treadle machine at age 10 as subsequently I was asked to make puppets for a "Three Little Pigs" puppet show as well as several other shows that the Children's Department staff would perform to throngs of happy storytime attendees. So began my absolute love and admiration of puppets, puppetry, and puppeteers.

Over the years I have seen a variety of professional puppeteers perform, attended puppetry workshops for teachers and librarians and even ventured into teaching a puppet-making workshop with youngsters on my own. What I discovered early on is that puppets are magical. They truly are magical. Children (and many adults like myself) simply love puppets. Library storytime would just be storytime if it weren't for the anticipation of our amateurish puppet shows that culminate the end of each of five family storytimes we do each week. People call us specifically asking at what time we do the puppet show not necessarily the stories!! And I have discovered that if I start a storytime with a puppet on my hand, my young audience will have rapt attention on that hand and will listen to every word I say because the puppet commands such devotion.

A couple of years ago I decided to reintroduce a service that I had worked on in my early years at NPL. I called it "Puppets-to-Go" in the 70's but now we call it the "Puppet Tree". This is a collection of over 100 puppets that circulate for a three week loan period from the Children's Department. On an average day there may be 12-15 puppets hanging on the rack but never many more than that. To view the entire collection one simply has to do a Subject Browse from our catalog and use the term "hand puppets" to scroll through the entire collection. And although I no longer churn these out from my sewing machine as I have found wonderful suppliers of puppets perfectly sized for small hands, the magic of puppets is always new and available to any child that wants to try their hand at bringing a puppet to life.

As you probably know, Donnalee Lozeau was elected mayor of Nashua last night, becoming the first woman to hold that office in the city's 153-year history. For that and her many other significant accomplishments, Lozeau is to be congratulated. But did you know that the first woman to be elected mayor of an American town was Susanna Medora Salter who was elected mayor of Argonia, Kansas in 1887?*

In betweeen Salter and Lozeau, there have been many other prominent female mayors in the United States, including Dianne Feinstein, the first female mayor of San Francisco (in 1978), and Jane M. Byrne, the first woman elected mayor of Chicago (in 1979).**

The library has numerous resources on the topic of women, leadership and/or history. Here are a few that caught my eye:

Tough choices : a memoir / Carly Fiorina. (2006) - (Former CEO of Hewlett-Packard)
Meg Whitman : president and CEO of eBay / Leslie Alan Horvitz. (2006)
A woman in charge : the life of Hillary Rodham Clinton / Carl Bernstein. (2007)
The confidante : Condoleezza Rice and the creation of the Bush legacy / Glenn Kessler. (2007)
Edith Wharton / Lee Hermione. (2007)
Gertrude Bell : queen of the desert, shaper of nations / Georgina Howell. (2007)
Well-behaved women seldom make history / by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. (2007)

Sources:
* "Famous Firsts by American Women", http://www.infoplease.com/spot/womensfirsts1.html, viewed on Nov. 6, 2007.
** "Jane Byrne (American Politician)", Encyclopedia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-1270785/Jane-Byrne, viewed on Nov. 6, 2007

“A library’s goal is to provide service and access to patrons. Public service… is the objective but the origin of the service lies within technical services. Without the work performed by this unit, the library would find it impossible to provide any real service.”
- G. Edward Evans, Introduction to Technical Services

The Technical Services Department is located off the Media Gallery on your way to the Music Art and Media Department.. You might well be confused as to just what technical services are going on behind our doors. It is not an area open to the public. And as such, it may carry a smidgeon of mystery. The technical services actually include ordering and receiving materials, cataloging them and adding stamps, pockets and covers. Access to the collection for customers and other librarians is achieved through the catalog, no longer a catalog of cards but of electronic records. We call the database or iPAC (Internet Public Access Catalog). It is our duty in Tech Services to make sure the database is clear and accurate. To this end, we search for hours to identify and import records into the database to go with our materials. Other records, called item records, attach to these records and produce the holdings statements you see in our on-line catalog. It’s as simple and as arduous as that.
Some librarians have deliberated over the naming of this department in their libraries and for good reason. Professor Janet Swan Hill at the University of Colorado Libraries claims she has had calls to her Dept. of Technical Services from people asking for help with their computers, with software, with courseware, with telephones, and anything else that might be considered "technical". She says that TS Units long ago (50 years or more) started moving away from calling themselves "Processing" because it sounded clerical. Other names that libraries have used instead of Tech Services include: Access Services, Collections, Resources, and Bibliographic Services. These can be confused with access to the building, fines, fundraising and book services. The Brandeis Libraries use the name “Resource Management and Access”. They want to emphasize that they don’t have to own the documents they have access to. This is true for us as well.
The database has records for downloadable audiobooks we share with a state consortia and government documents that are free on the web. In future we will probably have downloadable movies. The database will need a bibliographic record, or bib record, to make access possible. Someone in Tech Services will search for and download them and attach item records to them.
For those of you who would like to read more about technical services in libraries, there is a very interesting website, Texas Regional Group of Catalogers and Classifiers: Cataloging Stories.

As you may know, the library is closed today in honor of Veterans Day. Unlike Labor Day, Columbus Day, President's Day, and Memorial Day, this holiday is generally observed on the same date--November 11--each year. (Yes, I know today is November 12. Because yesterday was Sunday, we are recognizing Veterans' Day today.) The holiday was first observed 1919, one year after the armistice that ended the fighting of World War I, then known as "The Great War." Armistice Day became a legal holiday in 1938 and was dedicated to the veterans of World War I specifically. After many Americans sacrificed their lives in World War II and Korea, Congress amended the act by replacing the word "Armistice" with "Veterans." On June 1, 1954, the approval of Public Law 380 made November 11 a day to honor all American veterans.*

The library has a plethora of books about the various wars in which Americans have fought. But, if you want to read specifically about the experiences of veterans, rather than war strategy or political maneuvering, I recommend two in particular: Forever a soldier : unforgettable stories of wartime service and Voices of war : stories of service from the home front and the front lines. Both books were published as part of the Library of Congress Veterans History Project and recount oral histories from veterans who fought in wars from World War I to Iraq. The stories in these books are memoirs, recorded and written after the wars ended. Two additional books, War letters : extraordinary correspondence from American wars and Behind the lines : powerful and revealing American and foreign war letters--and one man's search to find them, are collections of letters written by soldiers. They provide a unique perspective, as the letters were written during the wars, capturing the thoughts of people while they were experiencing the battles and their aftermath.

*Source: "History of Veterans Day." United States Department of Veterans Affairs http://www1.va.gov/opa/vetsday/vetdayhistory.asp (accessed November 9, 2007).

If you want to learn more about the Veterans Day holiday, you can take a look at the US Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Day homepage. For demographic information, the US Census Bureau has a Facts for Features page about Veterans Day.

Customer service is the lifeblood of any good business, and certainly ours at the library. We're here for the customers; we want them to come back. If they don't, there's not much point in us being here. And we're always looking for ways to improve ourselves by taking cues from companies whose service records are impeccable.

One such company is Zingerman's Delicatessen in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Zingerman's is renowned for serving up "service" as good as the food, and stands as a lesson to us all. Co-founder Ari Weinzweig outlines the key to the deli's success in Zingerman's Guide to Giving Great Service: Treating Your Customers Like Royalty, found in the Business section of the library. Weinzweig covers a lot of ground, but let's focus on one topic for now: the need for breaking rules:

"Policies adhered to for the sake of rule-following frequently punish innocent customers who weren't up to speed on our systems. So while we certainly want our staff to adhere to our 'rules', we also want them to think for themselves... and to understand and act on the reality that sometimes we have to break the rules or ignore the systems in the interest of taking care of our customers." (Zingerman's Guide to Giving Great Service, p 83)

This is important but difficult wisdom. Some employees dislike ambiguity and take great security in rules. But while rules are important as general guidelines, they can also be stumbling blocks to "doing the right thing" for a troubled customer.

We try to be flexible here at the library, though I doubt we're as successful as Zingerman's in "just saying yes!" to customers (p 84). Some things are non-negotiable (if you don't live, work, own property, or attend school in Nashua, for example, you won't get a free library card). And if you exploit our flexibility too often (such as with overdue fines), chances are this will catch up to you. But we're not here to enforce rules just for rules' sake. We accommodate people when possible. And if you think a rule punishes you unreasonably or doesn't make sense, we'd like to hear why.

Zingerman's code of service stands opposite that of the legendary Soup Nazi (the Manhattan cook who rigorously enforced rules, yelled at customers who couldn't keep up with them -- sometimes even threw them out -- and inspired the famous Seinfeld episode). Come to think of it, one of my junior high school librarians was a lot like the Soup Nazi. But libraries don't need a militant stewardship. We're here to serve, not antagonize. We may not be as good as Zingerman's, but theirs is a commendable ideal to strive for.

The short of it is that while we don't break rules on a whim, we are reasonable and willing to work with customers for the sake of good will. That is, after all, what public service is about.

Quick! Whose brainchild was Shrek?

Betcha said Mike Meyers, didn't you?

Actually, the man who conceived of Shrek was William Steig, who would have been 100 years old today. Mike Meyers's blockbuster movie was adapted from Steig's 1990 book, Shrek!

For many years, William Steig was a cartoonist for the New Yorker. You'll find samples of his work in The Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker in the oversized books in the Music, Art and Media Department at MAM q741.5973 C. (This will also be a treat for fans of Charles Addams, another New Yorker cartoonist and the man behind the Addams Family.) For more of Steig's cartoons for adults, check out Ruminations at MAM 741.5 S.

Later in life, Steig turned to writing and illustrating children's books. He was quite successful, and garnered many awards for his efforts. Here is just a sampling:

Sylvester and the Magic Pebble won the Caldecott Medal, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and won other honors. "A rock-hunting expedition has surprising results when Sylvester Duncan, a young donkey, finds a magic pebble that grants one wish too many and seems to doom him to a stony future."

Dominic was a National Book Award finalist. "Dominic the dog finds many exciting adventures and great danger fighting the Doomsday Gang after he decides to see the world."

The Amazing Bone was a Caldecott Honor Book. "On her way home from school, Pearl finds an unusual bone that has unexpected powers."

Abel's Island was a Newbery Honor Book. "Castaway on an uninhabited island, Abel, a very civilized mouse, finds his resourcefulness and endurance tested to the limit as he struggles to survive and return to his home."

Amos and Boris: was a finalist for the National Book Award. "Amos the mouse and Boris the whale have little in common except that they are both mammals and save each other's lives."

So whatever the age of your inner child, stop by and take a look at this talented author/illustrator's works!

Nashua is not as big as Manchester, as quaint as Amherst or as cosmopolitan as Boston, but look around our city and you’ll see why people call Nashua home. There are our schools, our shopping, our restaurants, our parks, our location, our music, our art, our sports, our “quality of life,’ and behind it all, many dedicated people – both paid and volunteer – working tirelessly to make our city a better place to live.

Many of the services and opportunities that we take for granted come from the efforts of those who came before us. Take for example the Hunt family, who gave the city $50,000 – a princely sum in 1892 – for the construction of a public library, or the late Joseph Sakey, who arrived in Nashua in 1956 and served the city as library director from 1959-1971. A tireless champion of education, the arts, and the free expression of ideas, Joe had an impact on the community far beyond the library, serving on more than a dozen boards, and as a founding member of the Nashua Choral Society, Nashua Symphony Association, the Arts & Science Center, and the Gateway Family Planning Association. Joe was instrumental in bringing a new downtown library – our present facility on Court Street – from dream to fruition before he left Nashua to become director of the Cambridge (MA) Public Library. He also insisted that the former library, now the Hunt Memorial Building, be protected, preserved, and used by future Nashuans. Joe, who was well known for his "foresight, persistence and patience in the face of repeated discouragements and setbacks" according to the 1971 new library dedication program, was successful in both these endeavors.

This is why family, friends, and admirers of Joe Sakey will meet at the Hunt Building on Library Hill this evening from 5 to 7 to celebrate Joe’s life and unveil two bronze plaques: one honoring Joe and the librarians who preceded him, and the other detailing the history of the historic Hunt Building. A few of this evening’s attendees have never met Joe, who died in 2004, but can’t help to admire him for his dedication to the free exchange of ideas and to the cultural and intellectual enrichment of his adopted community.

The next time you visit the Hunt Building, stop for a moment in the main lobby to read the plaque and thank Joe for all his efforts on our behalf.

OK, so baseball season is over! It was great; it was exciting, but it's over. What do you do next? I decided to go to a hockey game. As popular as the Patriots are, I am not a football fan! Also, hockey is much more available for watching than football. Who wants to drive to Foxborough when you can go to Manchester, Lowell, Worcester or Boston to see a hockey game. Besides, there is just something about skating!

My love affair with ice skates started with double runners and icy fields when I was very little. When I got older, I practiced figure eights and spins while dodging hockey pucks on our local pond. Every winter the assistant principal had to go out on the ice first. If he didn't fall through, we knew it was safe for everybody! In college, we had to share ice time with the hockey team. I practiced my leaps and spins while trying to ignore the blood frozen into the ice and dodging the deep ruts made by hockey skates. My personal love affair with ice skates ended in college when my head hit the ice instead of my skates. The resulting concussion left me with a profound fear of figure skating!

My interest in hockey continued. I've written about websites for baseball fans, so I went looking for websites for hockey fans. The United States has a Hockey Hall of Fame which has been in existence since 1973. It has pictures of Hall of Fame inductees and information about US Olympic hockey teams. With its location in Eveleth, Minnesota, it's kind of a long drive to visit. Judging from the website, it's not all that exciting either. The Official Hockey Hall of Fame is located in Toronto, Ontario - another long drive. This Hall of Fame looks like it would be worth the trip! If you can't get there, get to the website!

This is another sports website filled with fun facts, trivia, and statistics. The time capsule will take you back in time to the 60s and 70s. Not only do you get interesting facts, but comparisons as well with present day hockey. Did you know the NHL consisted of 6 teams in 1960 and 30 teams in 2006? Did you know that the average NHL player made $18,000 a year in 1970 and $1.4 million in 2006? The Photo Galleries are not to be missed. In the photo Archives gallery is a section called When I was young. You see a picture of a young hockey player and get a clue to help you identify him. Make a guess, click on the arrow and you get his name and a picture of the way he looks now or at least the way he looked when he last played hockey.

This is a great website for occupying some of these long dark hours now that the time has changed. Spring training is a LONG way away. Plenty of time for hockey!

With the holiday season quickly approaching us I thought it might be helpful to remind you of the large collection of cookbooks we have here at the library, more specifically holiday related cookbooks.

We have recipes representing holidays from around the world. Below are just a few that I've decided to highlight. If you'd like to come and browse our collection you'll want to head to the 641.5 or q641.5 (oversized books) area of our non-fiction stacks or check out a new display of holiday cooking and craft books located just outside the children's room.

Holidays of the world cookbook for students by Lois Sinaiko Webb.

The Martha Stewart living Christmas cookbook : a collection of favorite holiday recipes from the editors of Martha Stewart Living.

Coastal New England : winterfare & holiday cooking by Sherri Eldridge

Celebrating the Jewish holidays : cooking, crafts, and traditions by Sharon Kalman ; crafts by Devorah Levinrad ; recipes by Anita Hirsch

Joan Nathan's Jewish holiday cookbook : revised and updated on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the publication of the Jewish holiday kitchen by Joan Nathan.

Kwanzaa : a celebration of culture and cooking by Eric V. Copage

Children's cookbooks for the little helper:

Chinese festivals cookbook / Stuart Thompson and Angela Dennington

Hindu festivals cookbook / Kerena Marchant

In addition to cookbooks in print you can often find good, quality recipes on the Internet. Do you know of a good holiday cooking website you'd like to share with others? Leave a comment below.

It has been along time coming, but a new program for Nashua parents and their babies has finally taken it's first tentative steps!! Reaching out to parents of newborns at our two Nashua hospitals is something I have wanted to do for many years. I made attempts to get funding from area service clubs over the years but never achieved much success. This fall I achieved success when the Friends of the Nashua Public Library granted me $1000. to buy two board book titles! "Books 2 Babies" was finally born and I feel like a giddy new parent!! Working with my colleagues, we put together a really sweet tri-fold flyer that includes a coupon to be redeemed at the library for a free board book as well as info on books we have for parents, good reads for babies, times when we offer our "Babies and Books" storytimes, etc.. I delivered the flyers to the Family Coordinators at both hospitals one week ago today. The flyers will be distributed to new parents in the take home packets that each hospital provides. For now we are waiting expectantly for the first parent to walk through the door with the coupon for the free board book!! I am beaming from ear to ear!!

When you think about librarians, what's the first thing that comes to mind? NASCAR obviously. Little did you know, but many of Nashua's finest librarians are devout NASCAR fans, and it was with great zeal that we celebrated Jimmie Johnson's repeat as the winner of The Chase this past weekend. Our library has an excellent collection of sports books, but I've pulled together a list of books and videos on NASCAR that are essential reading and viewing for any self-respecting NASCAR fan. Enjoy!

NASCAR essential : everything you need to know to be a real fan!
/ David Poole and Jim McLaurin. (2007)

Driving with the devil : southern moonshine, Detroit wheels, and the birth of NASCAR / Neal Thompson. (2006)

Real men work in the pits : a life in NASCAR racing / Jeff Hammond. (2005)

Once around the track / Sharyn McCrumb. (2007)

Talladega nights. The ballad of Ricky Bobby [videorecording]

Now that the holiday season is here, we can look forward to shows such as How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and Frosty the Snowman. One of the most popular cartoons is A Charlie Brown Christmas, which was the first animated Peanuts special. It debuted in 1965 and is the second longest-running Christmas special on US television. (Who can forget that weepy little Christmas tree?) Although it may not air for a couple of weeks, A Charlie Brown Christmas is on my mind becuase today would have been Charles Schulz's 85th birthday. Born on November 26, 1922 in Minnesota, Schulz created the Peanuts comic strip. Peanuts first appeared on October 2, 1950, and was a staple in comic pages throughout the world. The last daily strip appeared on January 3, 2000, and the last Sunday strip was published on February 13, 2000, one day after Schultz passed away.

If you're a Charles Schulz or Peanuts fan, you should take a look at Schulz and Peanuts : a biography by David Michaelis, a new book in the Music/Arts/Media department. You will recognize the cover reminiscent of Charlie Brown's shirt: yellow with a brown zigzag. The book will be featured in the New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year, which will appear in the December 2 book review section. In the meantime, you can read a Library Journal review, summary, or even excerpts from the first chapter by clicking on the links on the left-hand side of the bibliographic record.

On this day in France, November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II gave a ringing sermon that set in motion what later became known as the First Crusade, and a new concept of Christian holy war that would last for centuries. Urban presented the crusade as a war of defense (against Muslim aggression) and repossession (of the holy lands). But were these really his motives for preaching a holy war?

Perhaps not. Palestine had been in Muslim hands since the 7th century -- not a fresh wound -- and the threat of Islamic aggression had presented itself on-and-off for decades without any response from Rome. Christian territory in Asia Minor had been lost, true, but there was no serious pan-Islamic threat to the Eastern Orthodox empire; Islam was more fragmented and internally conflicted than ever before (which is exactly why the First Crusade was able to succeed). And despite Urban's lurid account of Muslim atrocities, the reality was that Islam and Christianity had been co-existing in relative peace for centuries. The recent conflict in Asia Minor was typical of military struggles which flared up from time to time. Urban certainly exploited the eastern call for military help, and capitalized on a golden opportunity to take back the holy lands, but those probably weren't his real reasons for summoning a holy war to begin with.

Many historians tell us that Urban was more proactive than reactive, designing the crusade to meet his own needs: to consolidate papal power and expand his sphere of influence. According to William of Malmesbury, Urban engineered the holy war in order to gain popularity and create enough upheaval to allow him to recapture Rome from the anti-pope Clement -- a stooge of Urban's worst enemy, Emperor Henry IV.

But why would the crusade make Urban so popular? By making warfare sacred under the right conditions, he was able to address the spiritual dilemma of medieval knights whose violence had been tearing apart Europe for the past century (the 1000's were the worst in French history), and which the pacifistic Peace of God movement had tried in vain to remedy. "You who have been the terror of your fellow men, go and fight against the infidel," preached Urban. By demonizing the Islamic world, Urban was able to channel violence abroad and make bloodshed -- for the first time ever -- holy and penitential. In the words of a medieval preacher: "By this kind of warfare, people make their way to heaven who perhaps would never reach it by another road." That's hard for us to respect even from a distance (and unacceptable theology in today's world), but it made sense in a medieval context. Knights and nobles lived for combat; their honor depended on it.

Urban's overriding agenda, in other words, was to establish his position in Italy. He needed the popularity and power that would turn the tide against his secular enemies, and the crusade gave him both. Knights now had an unprecedented opportunity to slaughter "infidels" for the remission of their sins. It's no exaggeration to say that the First Crusade was primarily about exporting violence in a time of internal chaos for France. In the process, to be sure, the pope hoped to achieve solidarity with the eastern churches and recover the holy places. But these goals were subordinate to his immediate agenda at home, as he struggled to stay on top of secular authorities and their influence -- particularly that of the Holy Roman Emperor -- and to win the hearts of the laity.

To learn more about the fascinating (and often disturbing) era of the crusades, check out various books from the library's history section, such as:

God's War: A New History of the Crusades, by Christopher Tyerman. The most up-to-date and comprehensive treatment of the crusades written by an Oxford scholar. See the endorsements of this book, and also check out Tyerman's online interview.

The Atlas of the Crusades, edited by Jonathan Riley-Smith. The best visual resource for the crusades. Highly detailed, with color plating. Riley-Smith is today's leading historian on the crusades.

The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, by Amin Maalouf. An important account of the crusades from an Arabic perspective.

The Crusades: The Essential Readings, edited by Thomas Madden. An assortment of essays, each of which broke important ground in crusade scholarship.

What Were the Crusades?, by Jonathan Riley-Smith. Assesses different understandings of the crusades.

The First Crusade: A New History, by Thomas Asbridge. The most up-to-date account of the First Crusade. It reads almost like a novel in some parts. Like Tyerman, Asbridge emphasizes the proactive rather than reactive nature of Urban's crusade.

Nothing brings home mortality like watching little kids performing brilliantly at sports you once dabbled in. Over the weekend, I spent some time at a swim meet, cheering as tiny 8- and 9-year-olds sprinted down the pool. Techniques and rules have changed over the years, so an amazing number of these young swimmers had beautiful, quick strokes that would put an old swimmer to shame. So, naturally, I had to head to the catalog to find a book to fill me in on what's changed. Here are some of the more recent titles on competitive swimming:

Championship swimming : how to improve your technique and swim faster in thirty days or less, by Tracey McFarlane Mirande and Kathlene Bissell ; with photos by Ben Van Horn. Tracey McFarlane Mirande is a former world champion swimmer. Here she provides advice for beginners to advanced swimmers. See 797.21 M.

Swimming fastest, by Ernest W. Maglischo. This is the revised version of Swimming Even Faster, with everything from stroke basics to training strategies. Includes entire chapters on increasing propulsion and reducing resistance. Find it at q797.21 M, in the oversized 700s (after 799 but before 800).

Breakthrough swimming, by Cecil M. Colwin. In addition to stroke instruction, coach Colwin gives the history and development of swimming. Another oversized 700, q797.2109 C.

To inspire the kids (of all ages!), Greg Kehm's Olympic swimming and diving takes a look at swimming in the Olympics, from 1896 to 2004. Find it in the Children's Department at JUV 797.2 K.

Before you plop down $15 to $20 on a CD, you may want to check and see if the library owns a copy, so you can hear whether you want to spend your hard-earned cash. The library has a collection of about 4,000 music CDs, and every month or two we order 20 to 30 new titles, budget permitting. With your library card, you can borrow up to 10 CDs. Except for our Holiday CDs, which circulate for one week only with no renewals allowed, our music CDs can be borrowed for 3 weeks, and may be renewed if they have not been requested by another patron.

Since joining the Music/Art/Media desk in February 2007, I've been having a lot of fun really getting to know our collection of music CDs. We have the most extensive collection of any public library that I've been to, with a wide variety of artists and styles. We have recently started weeding the collection of items which are in poor condition or have otherwise outlived their usefulness, in order to make room for new material, both purchased and donated, and cleaning up the CDs we've decided to keep.

In addition to the items we purchase, we also greatly appreciate donations, most of which we either add to the collection or save as replacements for items which become damaged or go missing. Over the summer we received a large gift of folk, country and world music CDs from a generous patron. And recently we've added some pop CDs, some heavy metal, and, of course, some new (to us) holiday music.

In selecting music, the resource we turn to most is allmusic.com, a comprehensive website with listings and reviews of artists, composers, and recordings in all genres. Periodicals like BBC Music Magazine, NME and CMJ are also good sources of information about new music. And of course, we always want to hear what you would like to see in our collection, because ideally your taste should be driving the direction of the collection.

While some libraries organize their collections by Dewey Decimal number, or by an intricate classification system called the ANSCR ("answer"), we use a system inherited from our collection of LP records (remember LPs? like CDs only big and black), combining a color code for genre with a Cutter number. A Cutter number is an alphanumerical formula representing a name or title, a letter or two followed by a number. Between the letter(s) and number is an imaginary decimal point, so the number is read left to right. It causes a certain amount of confusion, but the general feeling is that it would be too costly and labor-intensive to reclassify and relabel the entire collection, and that using two systems concurrently would be untenable.

Some of my favorites among the titles we've added in the past several months include:

Yiddishbbuk, contemporary chamber music with Klezmer, folk and synagogal influences by Argentinian Jewish composer Osvaldo Golijov.

Magic, the new album by Bruce Springsteen. A great pop record along the lines of Born to run and The river.

Voices, by Hall and Oates. The 1981 album is a great mix of punk, rock & roll, soul and new wave featuring four of their biggest hits including the best version ever of "You've lost that lovin' feelin'"

Get the Knack, by the Knack. Classic rock and roll. Parental discretion advised.

Crystals, by Sam Rivers. Avant-garde orchestral jazz.

The music of Elliott Carter, vol. 5: Nine Compositions. Short chamber works by (some say) the greatest living American composer.

Washington Square Serenade, another great album by outspoken singer/songwriter Steve Earle.

Translated by love, a flawless album by underrated country singer Kelly Willis.

Time on earth, the new album from Crowded House. Great comeback album from a great band.

Some suggest that CDs have become obsolete with the advent of MP3s, the iPod, and internet streaming. So come check out these quaint little dinosaurs while you still can.

At least if you are a procrastinator, it's always the season. It's usually almost past the season before you get the motivation to do something about it. You may not be a procrastinator, but I'm sure you know one. That would be the person who is always late getting something done, always has an excuse, is always sorry, but never changes. In my family there are two of us. I will admit that I am one of them, but I always have a good reason! My son makes no excuses for himself. He doesn't own a watch or a calendar and usually doesn't care what day of the week it is. The other two members of my family thrive on clocks, calendars and schedules and always have things done early. I can't imagine what that says about them.

I decided to look for information on what makes me procrastinate and what I could do to stop. I thought that self-help books on procrastination would be the best way to begin. I didn't find too many, but one I did find covered the topic very well. The Tomorrow Trap by Karen Peterson identified two types of procrastination, one related to tasks and one related to people. Many people apparently can display both types at the same time. This book is for people with serious issues and covers compulsive behavior and psychological and health related issues which all derive from procrastination. Maybe a little too in depth for someone like me. My issues include things like conveniently forgetting to call the dentist for 3 days in a row.

If procrastination has left you living in a disorganized disaster zone or maybe it's the other way around, there are two good books at NPL to help you organize that disaster. Simplify your life by Marcia Ramsland, a professional organizer, will give you advice for organizing and uncluttering every aspect of your daily life. Getting organized by Stephanie Winston includes organizing your work life as well as your personal life. In one section of her book, procrastination is listed as an efficiency saboteur, and steps are given for making a huge task more managable and less likely to inspire the urge to procrastinate.

After the self-help books, I decided to look on the web to see if there was more help to be found. I discovered an article from Psychology Today discussing ten things you should know about procrastination. The Writing Center from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has a handout on line which deals with