Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Upcoming Library Closure

Just a reminder to all of our blog-reading patrons that
the Brooks Public Library will be closed on the following days:

  • December 24th
  • December 25th
  • December 26th
  • December 31st
  • January 1st

Happy Holidays and a Very Merry New Year
from All of Us at Brooks Public Library!

Saturday, December 16, 2006

If You Like Books, You'll Love This...

I was going through my usual batch of websites today when I stumbled across something very cool: LIBRARYTHING!!

Yes, it deserves both exclamation marks. LibraryThing will help you catalog books, search for books, and get book recommendations. The really fun part? Getting book suggestions, or better yet, un-suggestions. What are un-suggestions? Basically, if you give the search engine a title that you enjoy, it will give you a list of titles that you will probably dislike. It sounds odd, but it's fun. Click here to play: SUGGEST/UN-SUGGEST.

If you're serious about finding some good reads, I'd also recommend our databases. Both Novelist and What Do I Read Next? have some awesome search engines to help you find just the right book for you. Just click HERE to go to the database homepage and click on the little house beside Novelist or What Do I Read Next? to search from your home. (If you happen to be in the library, click the other icon!)

Happy Reading!

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

What rhymes with 'Laureate'?

It was announced on December 4th that Canada’s new Poet Laureate is John Steffler. I had heard about poet laureates before, but I didn’t know too much about what the title meant (I pictured a guy wearing tights and carrying an oversized quill) so I did a bit of research HERE (The Parliamentary Poet Laureate homepage).

The position was first appointed in 2002 to help draw the attention of Canadians to poetry, both spoken word and written. Canada’s Poet Laureate is chosen every two years to write poetry for important Parliamentary occasions, sponsor poetry readings, and advise the Parliamentary Librarian on the Library’s collection.

One of the coolest things that I discovered is that during their tenure, all of Canada’s Poet Laureates have posted one poem a week on the Parliamentary Poet Laureate website. You can read them all HERE.

In honour of our new Poet Laureate, I thought I’d try my hand at writing a poem:

Crouching Reader, Hidden Book

There once was a book on the case
That was decidedly out of its place.
A reader went by,
The book caught his eye,
And the book was finally found.


Okay . . . so I’ll never get a job as Canada’s Poet Laureate, but if you’re interested in reading some of John Steffer’s books, we can help you find them HERE.