adult programs

Mulberry Street's Do It Yourself Series continues on October 19th at 6:30 p.m. We'll be constructing a paper magic folding box that is sure to please!

As some of you remember, this year's summer reading theme was "Be Creative!" Here at the Mulberry Street Branch, we participated by starting a summer Do It Yourself Series for adults. The program was held once a month and met with very enthusiastic participants. Mulberry's creative staff members transformed and revamped ordinary items into awesome and useful objects.

The first craft was a cereal box notebook using recycled cereal boxes and scrap paper. Who needs expensive Moleskine notebooks, when you can make your own!

In July we took old t-shirts and transformed them into tote bags! The library may have run out of plastic bags, but these easy to make totes hold all your library materials.

We got a little fancy in August with wearable button art. Using colorful buttons and felt, participants made fantastic brooches with these simple objects.

The staff and participants had so much fun this summer with our adult crafting programs that we've decided to continue the series into the fall. RSVP to our next craft on October 19th by calling or emailing the Mulberry Street Branch!

Book Swap Social at Bloomingdale Library!

Tuesday September 15th, 6:30 - 7:30 pm

Bring one or more books to swap with other book lovers. Whole Foods snacks provided as well as music and raffle prizes. Price of admission is one book to swap. Please bring clean books, no ripped pages, and in working condition! Limit to one bag or box of books to trade at a time. All genres accepted.

Bloomingdale Branch Library
150 West 100th Street (btw Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues)
NY, NY 10025

212-222-8030

The Summer Reading theme for 2009, Be Creative, isn't just kids' stuff. Adults need craft time too, so check out our Summer D.I.Y. Series at the Mulberry Street Branch. In the true spirit of D.I.Y., three of our staff members volunteered to learn and teach some crafts. In June we held a Book Art crafting session--participants brought in cardboard cereal boxes and 45 minutes later they held a handmade notebook. The July program saw old t-shirts transformed into useful tote bags, thanks to a simple craft recipe by Amy Sperber from the book Tease (Sarah Sockit, ed.).

Tempted to get your craft on? Please join us for craft number three on August 19 at 6:30, when the most talented crafter on the Mulberry Street staff will show you how to make wearable art from buttons. Gather up all those strays and create a holiday gift for your Aunt Josephine or sister Claire.

Also mark your calendar for the first ever Mulberry Street Book & Cookie Swap Social on Wednesday, September 2 at 6:30. You bring some books and a dozen of your favorite cookies (homemade or store-bought) for trading, and we'll provide the trading floor, the coffee, and raffle prizes! Not a bad way to bookend your summer.

On June 8th at 6:30 PM, please join us at the Mulberry Street Library as author Elaine Weiss talks about her book Fruits of Victory: The Women's Land Army of America in the Great War.

Fruits of Victory covers the virtually unknown story of the the Women's Land Army. From 1917 to 1920 the Woman’s Land Army (WLA) brought thousands of city workers, society women, artists, business professionals, and college students into rural America to take over the farm work after men were called to wartime service. These women wore military-style uniforms, lived in communal camps, and did what was considered “men's work”—that is, plowing fields, driving tractors, planting, harvesting, and hauling lumber. The Land Army insisted its “farmerettes” be paid wages equal to male farm laborers and be protected by an eight-hour workday. These farmerettes were shocking at first and encountered skeptical farmers’ scorn, but as they proved themselves willing and capable, farmers began to rely upon the women workers and became their loudest champions.

Learn about Project Sunlight— the first website of its kind in New York State designed to make government transparent and accountable. The website gives to its users unprecedented access to information that government keeps, information that until now has been scattered and difficult to retrieve. The website allows you to easily research bill information, elected officials, donors, lobbyists, special interests, state contracts and uncover the links between them. Presented by a Representative of the New York State Office of the Attorney General.

The program will be held at the Mulberry Street Library on May 6th at 6:30 PM. The library is located at 10 Jersey St., between Mulberry and Lafayette.

On Saturday April 25th at 2PM The Jefferson Market Branch will be one of the stops for The Black Maria Film and Video Festival. Yes, I know I know, the weather is finally nice, Spring is finally here, but we've got an incredible line up this year so you really must try and stop by.

"Since 1981, the annual Black Maria Film and Video Festival, an international juried competition and award tour, has been fulfilling its mission to advocate, exhibit and reward cutting edge works from independent film and videomakers. The festival is known for its national public exhibition program, which features a variety of bold contemporary works drawn from the annual collection of 50 award winning films and videos."

Please click through to see the selection of films we are screening...  read more »

Film noir is the theme for Jefferson Market’s Monday night films this month. We’ll start the series with Fritz Lang’s Hangmen Also Die. Please take a look at The New York Public Library’s online calendar for our other upcoming films.

We’ll also have a special non-noir Saturday film screening of Blithe Spirit on March 21, 2009 at 2pm. Based on the play by Noel Coward, Blithe Spirit is getting a revival on Broadway this month. The 1945 movie poster described the film as “super-naturally spicy screen entertainment” in “blushing Technicolor. Can you resist? I think not!

Our February films came to an end with a screening of a film about Harold Arlen, the composer of such standards as It’s Only a Paper Moon and Stormy Weather and the music to The Wizard of Oz. The film had some wonderful performances by Rufus Wainwright, Debbie Harry, and Jimmy Scott, whose appearance was a highlight for me.

When I first moved to New York City I made a short list of jazz performers I wanted to see. The list wasn’t short for long, as a handful of names were added each time I’d scratch one off. Most of the individuals on this list were musicians who were around in the 1950s and were amazingly still around and performing. Jimmy Scott was on that list and the first show I saw upon moving to NYC. You might remember Scott from his haunting performance in the last episode of Twin Peaks.

A few of the other names on that short list that were quickly marked off include:  read more »

If you’re like me, perhaps you started seeing a new word recently—Wifi-- and puzzled over it, then started seeing Wii, and thought somebody must be misspelling something, and what were all these annoying intruders into the lexicon, anyway???

Well, the former is pronounced like hi-fi, is usually hyphenated, and is a type of wireless Internet service. The latter is pronounced like “Wheeeee!,” and I’m sure that interjection has escaped from the mouths of many who tried the Nintendo Wii videogaming products in public libraries or elsewhere. The Wii is a video game console that can be used with a wide variety of software products including Wii Sports, with which one can play virtual tennis, baseball, bowling, golf, and boxing.

Wii Gaming at the Riverdale YM-YWHA

When I say “videogaming” do you think teenage boys? If so, think again. According to a report of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, over half of American adults play video games. 23% of survey respondents 65 and older and 40% of those 50-64 report playing video games. Video games include games online and/or with devices such as desktop or laptop computers, game consoles, cell phones, Blackberry, some other handheld organizer or a portable gaming device. Older adult gamers play games more frequently. Over one-third of gamers 65+ play games every day or almost every day. 28% of adults in the study have used a game console such as Xbox , PlayStation or Wii.

Wii Gaming at the Riverdale YM-YWHA

A recent article in American Libraries magazine tells us that Old Bridge (NJ) Public Library began Wii gaming with teens around 2006. When staff, especially then-manager of Senior Spaces there, Allan Kleiman, saw how seniors in senior centers and nursing homes were taking to Wii, he thought, “Why not libraries?”. Teens were used as mentors and training instructors; they had to demonstrate their ability to teach adults the technology by training Kleiman and Youth Librarian Theresa Wordelman. After a few months, the older adults became accomplished gamers and started teaching others themselves. They’ve since had multi-screen game events, with simultaneous bowling, Guitar Hero, and Brain Age Academy, and they’ve held tournaments between the teens and their former mentees.  read more »

They are all topics of programs or workshops for adults coming up at various New York Public Library locations over the next few months!

Leg warmers will be knitted at the Chatham Square Library in Chinatown. Wakefield Library in the north Bronx will host a useful series of free food preparation workshops by Cornell University Cooperative Extension Program. St. George Library Center on Staten Island will be the place to meet 6 wrestling champions, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem will present a live screening of the 2009 Inauguration Ceremony.

And there are over 400 other free programs and classes for adults listed. Flamenco, English Sword Dancing, and Figure Drawing—it’s all there. Take a look: at the New York Public Library website, click on Calendar, then All, then limit to Adults.

And a special event I’d like to invite you to: on Wednesday, January 14, 2009, representatives of The New York Public Library will speak at the Riverdale YM-YWHA (5625 Arlington Avenue, Bronx, New York) to hear about a wide range of services that The Library offers targeting older adults, specifically—but not only—those living in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx. This presentation is co-sponsored by the Libraries & Cultural Affairs Committee and the Aging Committee of Bronx Community Board 8.

If you need more information, leave me a comment and respond on the blog.