Santa Clara City Library Foundation & Friends

Lead Volunteers Visit the Northside Library

keith — Sun, 12 May 2013 21:46:02 +0000

Several of the lead volunteers for the Foundation and Friends visited the under-construction Santa Clara North Side library. Later this month many of the current donors to the north side will be able to go on short tours of the building as well.

Self publishing in the 21st Century, Sunday May 5th from 2-4pm at Central Park Library

keith — Wed, 01 May 2013 23:00:27 +0000

Santa Clara artist and author Clarence Robert “Bob” Tower will be talking about how he published his charmingly illustrated historical fiction novel, The Adventures of Zach Gentry: a Tongue-in-Cheek History of the Opening of the West, using Amazon’s CreateSpace. Quoting from James Cox, Editor of the Midwest Book Review: “From witnessing the beginning of the Pony Express, to mining gold and silver in Nevada Territory, to the gut-wrenching massacre that took place at Wounded Knee, The Adventures of Zach Gentry pulls no punches in its retelling of icons and legends of American history…Famous personalities abound in Gentry’s travels, which blend legend and adventure into a satisfying whole. A choice pick for reader’s of all ages”!

Kathy (Kathleen) Gonzalez will also talk about the publishing field. Kathy, a teacher and a writer has been published by Simon & Schuster and she has written many feature stories and essays for newspapers and magazines. However, she has also started her own publishing imprint, Ca’ Specchio, and self published books about Venice. Her latest book is Seductive Venice: In Casanova’s Footsteps, a Venice guidebook and e-book about the places associated with the life of one of the world’s most famous lovers!

A book-signing program will follow the lecture. Books by both authors will be available for sale.

Please help the library bookstore!

keith — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 20:24:28 +0000

The Santa Clara Library Friends would like to sell additional items in the store we have inside the Santa Clara Central library. Currently we have a wide selection of soft and hard cover books, DVDs, BluRay discs available to the public. But, we’d also like to be able to sell pencils, paper, and other items that would be convenient to patrons of the library or children doing homework.

In order to sell things here, they need to be donated to the foundation. If you could buy things off our wish list on Amazon, then we’re able to re-sell them in the store.

You can see what we’d like by clicking here. Anything you buy for us to resell would be greatly appreciated. ( You can also buy these items locally and bring them into the bookstore if that’s more convenient to you. )

It’s Fun! – Reasons to be a Santa Clara Reads Volunteer, #1

keith — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 01:35:00 +0000

“Overall, I find it just plain fun to be a Read Santa Clara tutor. It’s fun to meet and get to know new people – your learner, other tutors, the Read Santa Clara Staff. It’s fun to learn new things in the orientation and training about how to help adults read and write better. It’s fun to discover new resources the library has available for new adult readers and all its patrons. It’s fun to discover things you have in common with your learner that can serve as a basis for some of your lessons. It’s fun to watch your learner become more proficient each time you meet. It’s fun to share your joy of reading with others.” — Pam Leitterman, volunteer tutor

If you’d like to be a Santa Clara adult literacy tutor, get more information from here at the Santa Clara City Library website.

Money Week programs at the library, April 21-27

keith — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:57:12 +0000

The Santa Clara City Library Foundation and Friends partially funded a number of free events in the library for “Money Week”, including

4/21 “Personal Records Retention” at 1pm
4/21 “Elder Fraud and Scams” at 3pm
4/22 “Financial Literacy for Kids (K-2nd), 4pm-5pm”"
4/22 “Financial Literary for Kids (Grades 3rd-6th), 6:30pm-7:30pm”
4/23 “Financial Literary for Adults”, 6:30pm-7:30pm
4/24 “Investing 101″; 6:30pm-7:30pm
4/25 “Searching Value Line Research Center”, 10:15-11:15am
4/25 “Building a Financial Foundation”, 6:30pm-7:30pm
4/26 “Medicare 2013-What you need to know”, 2:30pm
4/27 “ARMA Silicon Valley Shred Day”, 9am-noon in the St Justin’s Parking Lot

For full information on each session, go to the city library website by clicking here.

“Inspiring & Rewarding” – Reasons to be a Santa Clara Reads Volunteer, #2

keith — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 01:34:10 +0000

“Every adult literacy learner I’ve met or heard about inspires me. They come from all walks of life and socio-economic backgrounds. Of course, some are non-native English speakers from other countries. One learner in the program was a physician from China who read and spoke English fluently but had never really learned to write it. Another was a young woman from Somalia who had learned to read and write English a little bit when she came to the States in her teens, but who had never attended school in own country and did not even know how to write her own language. One, a native Californian now in his golden years, discovered in the Read Santa Clara program that he was dyslexic, a condition that had never been diagnosed when he was in public school. Another younger native California, diagnosed with a speech problem in elementary school, missed a lot of class time for speech therapy as a child which took a toll on her writing skills; as an adult she realized it was taking her three times as long as her peers to write an e-mail at work.

Whatever the reasons for the gaps in their current abilities to read and write English, these and so many other adults have been courageous enough to sign up as learners with Read Santa Clara. These are committed adults – no one is making them go to school. They sign up for tutoring because they personally want to improve their literacy skills. As their skills improve, they also become more productive in their lives and more confident overall. Working with these adults, witnessing their literacy growth and the justifiable pride they take in their accomplishments, is immensely rewarding. Literacy tutoring – try it; you’ll find it rewarding, too.” — Pam Leitterman, volunteer tutor

If you’d like to be a Santa Clara adult literacy tutor, get more information from here at the Santa Clara City Library website.

“In Our Own Words” authors readings

keith — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 21:58:26 +0000

Come celebrate with the authors of “In Our Own Words”, the book created by participants in the Adult Literary Program of the Santa Clara City Library, and hear them read some of their submissions.

This event is open to the public, and activities for children will be provided. Dessert will be served following the program. Call (408) 615-2956 for more information.

April 6th, 2013 from 2pm until 4pm.

Location:
Mission City Center for the Performing Arts
on the Wilcox High School campus
3250 Monroe St, Santa Clara, CA

“The Joy of Discovery” – Reasons to be a Santa Clara Reads Volunteer, #3

keith — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 01:33:15 +0000

“As mentioned in my previous post, I’m currently using my learner’s resume as one source of word practice for our sessions. In particular, we’re working with a number of regular verbs to understand how the verbs change depending on whether you are talking about something that happens today versus something that happened yesterday. As my learner added “d’s” and “ed’s” to the ends of words such as adhere, bond, clean, and coordinate, he and I also discovered at our last lesson that sometimes by changing the verb to the past tense you add an extra syllable as in “bonded” and “coordinated”, but in other cases like “adhered” and “cleaned”, you just add a “d” sound without an extra syllable. How do you know which way to pronounce the words? How do you know to add a syllable or not?” my learner asked. “Hmm,” I said, “I think you just have to learn the words and you will over time,” I tried to encourage him.

When I went home after that lesson, I decided to make a two-column study aid, putting the past tense verbs that added an extra syllable in one column and the ones that didn’t add an extra syllable in the other. And then, lo and behold, I looked at the lists and noticed there was actually a pattern. The root verbs that ended with a “d” or a “t” sound had the extra syllable sound in the past tense; every other verb did not. Eureka! I felt like I had discovered a gold mine – a pattern that would make it easier for my learner to know how to pronounce words as he was reading them.

What I discovered in a few minutes of sorting sample verbs into two columns, is very likely documented somewhere in resources already at my disposal. No matter. Whether I uncover ways to help my learner through resources or resourcefulness, the discovery is still joyous, and working with my learner is a grand adventure as we both learn new things along the way.” – Pam Leitterman, volunteer tutor

If you’d like to be a Santa Clara adult literacy tutor, get more information from here at the Santa Clara City Library website.

“Practical, Learner-Centered Approach” — Reasons to be a Santa Clara Reads Volunteer, #4

keith — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 01:32:13 +0000

“One of the great things about being an literacy tutor is helping other adults reach their literacy goals based on their specific needs and interests. Here are just a FEW examples:

Read labels on over-the-counter and prescription drugs.
Read product names and labels in a supermarket.
Read a recipe.
Read to own children or grandchildren.
Read a repair manual.
Complete a job application.
Write a resume.
Write an e-mail.
Read to learn more about a hobby or interest.

As a tutor you build your lesson plans for comprehension, word usage, writing and spelling around the topics that are most useful or interesting to your learner. For example, my current learner is a skilled assembly worker who likes to fish. In our first session, he told me about a recent fishing trip he had made with some relatives, and I wrote down what he said. Then we read his words together, identified words he already knew by sight and others that he understood but had not previously recognized when he saw them, and so on. His “language experience story” served as the springboard for our first tutoring session. We continued to use the theme of fishing for several lessons, reading other books and stories about fishing, writing sentences about fishing, etc. At present, we’re practicing reading, writing and using various forms of words that are part of his work vocabulary such as: weld, welds, welding or manufacture, manufactured, manufacturer. Big words or small are easier to read, write, and use when they are personally relevant to you. That’s why a practical, learner-centered approach is so valuable.” — Pam Leitterman, volunteer tutor

If you’d like to be a Santa Clara adult literacy tutor, get more information from here at the Santa Clara City Library website.

Northside construction moves to the building interior

keith — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 21:04:44 +0000

Now that the exterior construction of the new north side library is nearly complete, work is moving to the interior. Here you can see the structs that will support the raised floor of the library ( and allow heating and electrical to be run underneath the floor ) as well as the atrium and many windows. Even though they haven’t installed the interior lights yet, the building is bright because of all of the windows.