Blog Posts by Subject: Reference

Self-Portrait, 1967.(1)He came from my hometown. As a teenager, he collected photographs of movie stars. A few years later, I clipped fan zines featuring Hayley Mills and the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and the Dave Clark 5 and

Free web access and CD/DVD collections are the biggest draw for Startasha...

It’s that time of the year. Kids sharpen their pencils, pick up the backpack, and head off to school. Here are a few tips to get your child ready for the new school year.

• Re-establish school routines. About a week before school starts get your child used to going to bed early, waking up early, picking out their clothes the night before, and start talking about what is expected from them this upcoming school year.

• Prepare. It’s extremely important that your child has all their school supplies when heading into the classroom. But 

Clark Kent walks into his interview at The Daily Planet.  The interviewer, a prim and proper human resources representative inked to perfection, shuffles some papers, clicks her pen and says, "So tell me, Mr. Kent, what do you consider your greatest weakness?"

What do you think he says?  Go ahead.  You know you want to say Kryptonite.  Just remember:  Clark Kent had to be the responsible alter ego and support Superman's lavish lifstyle.  Dry cleaning a cape gets expensive!

Career TV's video

Tutoring at the Center for Reading and WritingThe Centers for Reading and Writing are recruiting volunteer tutors for our fall class cycle beginning in September, so I've been thinking about what it means to volunteer here in the library's adult literacy program.    

I decided to speak with Gale, who has been volunteering at the Center for Reading and Writing for over twenty years. When I 

If you are actively looking for work and keep networking and applying for jobs, the phone is bound to start ringing.  For job seekers who have submitted over 100 resumes, getting the phone to ring might seem like an achievement on its own.  In a way, it is, but the end goal is to get a job.  If the employer doesn't get the feeling that you want to hear from them, they may decide to opt for someone in their "to call" pile of resumes who has a friendlier phone manner. 

Here is a list of some of the most common job seeker phone 

For our patrons who have already attended John Crant's Self Recruiter lectures at the Science, Industry and Business Library, you already know that he believes the "Submit" button on applications is the company's way of reminding you who is in charge of the process. With some online job applications taking as long as two hours to complete, job seekers should consider whether or not the whole process is worthwhile.

Here are a few things to consider before you do all 

Summerreading.org has launched a great interactive website that allows everyone, young or old to participate in summer reading!

In case you haven’t checked it out, go to summerreading.org and click where it says, “Register now!” (When registering you do not have to fill-in first name, last name, or email address).

Once you have created your account the fun begins. You get to create your virtual person, by dressing it, changing the hair, and picking facial features 

Teaching Research skills to 6^th graders was one of my more daunting tasks and one with which I struggled the most.  When I realized that my frustration level (why weren’t they getting this?) matched my students’ (Why is she making us do this?) I knew I was doing something, if not everything, wrong.

Books with movable flaps, pop-up pages, and other "interactive" features are known to librarians as "Toy and movable books" and more than a thousand examples can be found in the Library's catalog. Most are modern children's books, but the genre has a surprisingly long history, pre-dating even the dawn of printing, and most early examples were 

The Wertheim Study is a hidden gem at The New York Public Library, though certainly treasured by the writers and scholars that use it.  But who was Maurice Wertheim?

Born in 1886 and a Harvard graduate, he wore many hats.  He began his career at the United Cigar Manufacturers Company, moving on to Hallgarten & Co., the Underwood Corporation, the Cuban Atlantic Sugar Company, the Hat Corporation of America, the Bond Stores Company, and his own company, Wertheim & Co.  During WWII he 

Most people are familiar with the name Noah Webster as the father of the American Dictionary, a book that we all grew up with and still use today.  What many people may not know is that besides being a lexicographer, he was also a dedicated orthographer and philologist, working in spelling reform and lingustics, and had a large influence on the early American language.

Webster began his career as a schoolteacher and recognized a need for a quality teaching tool for children learning grammar and 

Courtesy Desk - Bronx Library CenterHey, Adults, looking for that great summer read for the beach or something lengthier than Poetry in Motion while commuting through dark subway tunnels – look no further than the Bronx Library Center. This summer the Bronx Library Center is looking to reward four readers who read and post the most book reviews online at

In 2002, we had our first public program in the DeWitt Wallace Periodical Room, it was a collaboration with CLMP (Council of Literary Magazines & Presses) called “the Magathon”. The Library and CLMP shared the same goal, to support and celebrate literary magazines and what better place to hold the event then a beautiful public space, that collected and housed a vast collection of contemporary literary magazines.

This event and collaboration has continued every 

Last month saw the last of the Library's Handmade Crafternoon spring series, as our special guest Natalie Chanin provided us with a tremendous afternoon of stories, lessons, and inspiration.  (The list of books we browsed that afternoon will come soon, I promise!)  Although I’ll miss our creative community over the summer break, Maura and I will be busy as

As Edmund Blunden's biographer tells it, the poets Edmund Blunden and Siegfried Sassoon sat down together on the night of November 7, 1929 to annotate a book. That book was Robert Graves’ memoir Goodbye to All That, and their notes were anything but laudatory.

Graves had published Goodbye to All That, an account of his early years and service in the first world war, to critical acclaim earlier that year.  Blunden and 

"A collection ... of the finest illustrated books that can be procured, of any country and in any language ... bound in handsome bindings representing the work of the most noted book-binders of all countries..."

* * *

The Titanic disaster portrayed on a contemporary songsheet coverSometime in 1910, according to an often-repeated story that has acquired the status of legend, William Augustus Spencer visited the new central building of the New York Public Library, still

Like a repeated news ticker, once again Facebook  is in the news. As a high player in the social media marketplace, it comes as no surprise that Facebook would lead headlines, but unlike Twitter , who caught media attention for reaching a record of 5 billion  tweets last week, Facebook's latest news round is not so glamorous. It does boil down, however, to the fact that social media is a marketplace.

Harlem Kids Add Their Voices: Keep Our Libraries Open!

Kids from the local school Promise Academy wrote these letters and more to voice their support for their local branch here on 124th street.   Our children's Librarian Leah Zilbergeld made this poster for everyone to see that kids love and need the library in their lives. 

---

Please don't shut down the library.  We need it to get our knowledge and people need computers