Maybe not the most significant mention of last night’s speech by Pres. Barak Obama, but certainly one that brought a smile to my face.

The president said he heard about a nearly 100-year-old school in South Carolina that sorely needed refurbishing because of a letter written by a student, Ty’Sheoma Bethea. The eighth grader apparently went to her public library to write a letter to Congress about her community’s sad situation at the J.V. Martin Junior High School in Dillon.

The letter found its way to First Lady Michelle Obama and then to the president. And the rest is history.

Last night Ty’Sheoma Bethea sat next to the first lady and was introduced to the nation — and the world. Here’s a photograph from www.michelleobamawatch.com, ( the site credits MOW reader Sandy from Obama Mamas provided the photo.).

Needless to say, the American Library Association, based in Obama’s Chicago, is thrilled with the shout-out, especially at a time when library budgets are being slashed in many communities just as libraries are seeing increased usage.

“This anecdote not only shows how engaged the young people in our country are, but it also sheds light on how important the library is to these students,” ALA President Jim Rettig said in a press statement.

“The public library is the only source of no-fee access to the Internet for 73 percent of communities and a place where individuals like Ty’Sheoma can access computers and technology as well as benefit from the trusted guidance of a librarian. I thank President Obama for sharing Ty’Sheoma’s inspiring story. I hope it encourages our nation’s governors to use stimulus money wisely to ensure that every community has a local library – a library open ample hours with a librarian to help every child like Ty’Sheoma who needs a place to study or aspire. Our libraries are important not only to our youth, but also to adults; libraries are helping to rebuild the economy through assistance with online job searching and resume development, education on personal finances, and other services that respond to today’s pressing needs.”

The teenager came to Washington with her mother. To read more about her journey, check out Monday’s  Bellingham Herald.

There’s nothing like an eye-catching poster to send a clear message.

Here’s one I saw in the office of Ed Hallisey, the principal at Putnam Valley Middle School.

“Reading is key to lifelong learning,” said Hallisey Tuesday afternoon as I admired the colorful poster with simple message on his wall.  He said he saw it more than 10 years ago and picked up copies for his co-workers.  He put plastic over his copy to preserve it and it has moved with him from the elementary school to the middle school. He has been in the Putnam Valley district for more than 20 years.  (He couldn’t recall where he got it and there was no credit line on the poster.)

Teachers, parents and librarians are always searching for ways to encourage children and teenagers to read more often. This is a good way and I bet there are others.

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression has put together a guide to help retailers fight censorship and answer questions from customers and others. And, I suspect this guide would be good for librarians as well. There really are quite a few situations when book, magazine and video choices are questioned. Knowing how to talk about free speech and how it is applied in our stores and libraries can make a big difference.

It is also important for booksellers to understand their rights in protecting the privacy of their customers.

The new Free Speech Training guide is written to use along with a video, “Scenes from a Bookstore: Free Speech VIgnettes” that was shown to booksellers at the industry trade show, BookExpo America.

When a customer complains about a material on the shelves or when something expected isn’t found, the ABFFE says there are good and bad ways to respond.

“Free speech problems occur in bookstores without warning. Our training guide is designed to help booksellers be ready for them,” ABFFE President Chris Finan said.

Sports writer Howard Megdal is totally fascinated with Jewish baseball players of yore and has put together what his publisher describes as “the definitive position-by-position ranking of baseball’s chosen players.”

In “The Baseball Talmud” from Collins of HarperCollins Publishers due out March 31, he talks of which players refused to play on Yom Kippur and which player chose baseball greatness over becoming a rabbi.

Megdal is 29 and lives in Airmont. This is his first book, but he writes for the New York Observer, ESPN, Mets Inside Pitch and other outlets, and he is clearly well-versed in baseball.

He was raised in Cherry Hill, N.J. and certainly seems to understand the Jewish psyche. He totally gets it that baseball is a major passion for many Jews but only some have the demonstrated talent to excel at playing the game. He has his own blog, where he offers other details and perspectives.

Megdal attended Bard College, and studied literature while creating the Bard Sports Radio Network, which consisted of him broadcasting for a 1-19 basketball team every year on a 10-watt station.

In the introduction, he says he got the idea for the book while at the batting cages with his college softball team and the topic of two baseball greats, Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax, came up.

As a baseball fan myself (and from a Jewish family), I was intrigued with the book and Megdal’s serious, yet humorous, take on baseball history.

Here is a question-and-answer interview we did through email.

Read more of this entry »

David Letterman has his now famous Top Ten lists that often make us smile because they are clever.

Here is one from American Library Association — ten leasons people should support their public libraries — that should make us nod in agreement and recall a community asset.

10 Reasons to Support Libraries

Libraries. . .

1. Serve everyone.


2. Are places of opportunity.


3. Are great places for kids.


4. Bring you the world.


5. Help us lead better lives.


6. Build better communities.


7. Promote literacy.


8. Are essential to education.


9. Attract businesses.


10. Are a great value.

With my new vision of personal fiscal responsibility, I am borrowing more books from my public library and reading more.  It’s economical and I forgot how fun and satisfying it is to read for long stretches of time.  Who needs to pay extra for HBO when I can read Updike?

Share your library thoughts with your local librarians.

Remembering that this is Black History Month I am reaching back to a Tonya Bolden, a participant of the Westchester Library System’s 11th annual African American Writers & Readers Literary Tea kicking off a celebration ofAfrican American history, literature, and culture throughout Westchester’s 38 public libraries.

Bolden, a celebrated children’s and young adult writer, tells us she is writing a book about the New Deal. It’s perfect timing and she says she will wrap in  some perspective about our current economic condition.

But what is she reading right now and what is a favorite of hers? That’s what  I want to know.

Right now, she writes in an e-mail, “I am not doing any pleasure reading. It’s all work-related.”

She says: “Paul Krugman’s “The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008” and Kevin Phillip’s “Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism” are on the top of the pile vis-à-vis my book for teens on the New Deal. This book will include an Author’s Note on the economic upheaval that hit while I was working on it.

“One of my all-time favorite books is C.S. Lewis’s “The Screwtape Letters” for its guiding lights and insights on the faith walk.”

Bolden wrote “MLK: Journey of a King” for which she was awarded the 2008 National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and won Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children.

Here is a photograph of Bolden (on the left) signing books for fans at the WLS Tea. (photo courtesy of WLS and Co-Communications, Inc.)

The Field Library in Peekskill is celebrating  the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth Centennial with a gallery exhibit throughout the month and a talk by an artist this Sunday. Tomorrow, Feb. 12, is Lincoln’s actual birth date so this very good timing indeed. Peekskill is known as a site of a Lincoln visit and later this month the Lincoln Society holds its annual Lincoln parade.

At the library, though, Yorktown resident and artist Paul R. Martin III will be displaying “Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and the American Civil War” until Feb. 24. There will be a reception in the library gallery from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday with Martin to help put his work into perspective.

Martin presents colored-pencil portraits of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass and landscapes of Civil War battles showing the historic people and places.

Martin is a board member of the Lincoln Society in Peekskill and the Yorktown Historical History, and is Vice-President of the Lincoln Depot Foundation. As the President and Program Director of the Rockland County Civil War Roundtable, he was responsible for securing a $250,000 grant from the New York State Senate for the repair and restoration of more than 100 New York State monuments that still stand on the fields of the Battle of Gettysburg. (To the right, is one of Martin’s works from his Web site.)

Other related artwork is also on display in the gallery.

The Field Library is at 4 Nelson Avenue, Peekskill. For further information please call Sibyl Canaan, Library Director at (914) 737-7110.