Vol 7 # 2 November 15, 2022 | |
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Supporters Still Need to Speak Out in Campaign for PAL’s Permanent Home
We thank all the library supporters who sent emails to their City Council representatives or to the City Clerk’s office for the Life Enrichment Committee (LEC). However, the LEC lacked a quorum and cancelled their November 14 meeting. Another special LEC meeting is scheduled for November 28, which can still send the proposed lease for the vacant CDC building to full Council on the original schedule:
1. The Council would have two readings of the ordinance to finalize the lease agreement on December 6 and 20.
2. If Council finalizes the proposal at its second reading on Dec.20, then the OUSD Board would have to vote and approve on Dec. 21 in order to enact the agreement by the Dec 22 deadline in the proposed legislation.
The proposed lease agreement still needs statements of support, especially from Oakland residents who live outside of Council/Board District 1. Please follow this link for our FAQs with the background and information you will need to state your support before or during these meetings: https://bit.ly/3Up90Pa
Watch for further updates from Friends of PAL about submitting comments for the next LEC meeting; we hope comments already emailed to the City Clerk’s office for the Nov. 14 LEC meeting would be counted for the Nov. 28 meeting and we are trying to confirm whether that will be the case.
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Notes from our librarians
From Remy Timbrook, Acting Manager
Tech Support Fridays beginning December 2nd
OPL has many online resources for our patrons: it's easy to check out eBooks, audiobooks, movies, etc. without leaving your home. Sometimes getting all the digital ducks in a row is not so easy, though. If you're having trouble setting up library e-services like Hoopla, Overdrive (Libby app), or Kanopy -- or if you don't know where to start -- we can help! Bring your phone or tablet and drop in between 3:00 and 5:00PM any Friday for a 15-minute consultation.
Personal Emergency Preparation on Tuesday, December 13th at 6:00
Be prepared to help yourself, your family, and your neighbors! Oakland Fire Department's Emergency Management Services Division team will present a 1-hour training for the general public on how to respond to some of the likely hazards and emergencies we could face at home. Make a family emergency plan. Learn what goes in the go-bag and when to evacuate versus shelter in place. Practice a few basic lifesaving skills. If you've taken any similar training before, this would be a great review. If you're brand new to community emergency response, please attend and learn some new tips.
From Shani Boyd, Children’s Librarian
Join us in celebrating Dinovember! Check out our fun take-home craft and be sure to look at our Dinosaur display!
Heading into fall and winter, Tuesday Toddler Storytime at 10:15 am is either outdoor or indoor depending on the weather. Make sure to bring a coat!
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Staff Changes at the Library
Farewell by Remy Timbrook
It's been a lovely summer and fall at this tiny but mighty library, where the Friends are indeed friendly, and the hold shelf overflows with great titles for active readers. This is a community that cares about its library, and in some ways, I am reluctant to go. But my acting assignment is through, and after boarding a cruise to Mexico to celebrate my 10th wedding anniversary (my first vacation of 2022!), I will return to my permanent position in the Children's Room of the Main Library. I am happy to announce that we've hired a second part-time Library Aide at the Piedmont Avenue branch and, along with our two new Library Assistants, we are very close to being fully staffed -- a goal years in waiting. When the permanent manager is hired, Piedmont Avenue Library will have its full complement of workers to plan and run programs; manage the collection of books, music, and film; check your materials in and out; and help you connect to services and resources. Thank you for showing your interest and your support during this season of change. I hope you find a perfect fit for your library!
Welcome Our New Acting Manager
Starting November 14th, Piedmont Avenue branch will have a new acting library manager, Mickey Vo (they/them). Mickey is currently the systemwide Teen Outreach Librarian. They have been at OPL for a few years and worked mostly in Teen Services and outreach in that time. Mickey is generous, organized and hosts programs that are engaging and fun. I believe that you will meet Mickey at an upcoming Friends of PAL meeting, November15.
By Jenera Burton, Supervising Librarian for branches
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Meet the Staff - Alison Bowman
Among the new faces at the Piedmont Avenue library, Alison Bowman brings lots of experience and a passion for helping people of all ages.
If you ever requested a book, chances are good that Alison or another library assistant had a hand in getting it to you. Her job is to help patrons and assist the librarians in running the library. Alison enjoys working with the public and the variety of tasks. She is also a long-time union steward and leads the library’s Safety Committee. She has worked at several branches of the Oakland Library system as well as the Main Library.
When she’s not at the Piedmont Avenue branch, she could be on a trail in one of our rural parks. She has climbed several 14,000-foot peaks in California and Colorado. In the Bay area, she especially seeks out old growth trees.
Or she might be writing, which she has returned to after neglecting it for a while. She’d like to meet other writers in the area and find ways the library can help them with their pursuits.
Inside, helping others get the most from the library or outside admiring trees and finding paths, that’s Alison, Piedmont Avenue Library’s Alison Bowman.
By Ruby Long, a neighbor whose work has appeared in local and national publications.
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Clean Up At CDC
The volunteers who cleaned up the CDC grounds that join the library area on November 5 were a real, in-life reflection of the population Piedmont Avenue Library serves. The ages of the participants ranged from three-year-old Miles, in his garbage man costume, grandson of Joanna, who organized the event, to soon-to-be 90 Ruby in her warm coat and gloves. You’re never too young or too old to help with a community cleanup.
This site, probably five times the size of the present Piedmont Avenue Library, one of the smallest in the system yet with high circulation and user rates, is an abandoned Child Development Center, which has sat empty for almost 30 years.
John and Valerie, who use the library a lot, came. Heidi from Piedmont raked and Louis, whose children attended the Child Development Center when it operated on the site, filled bags, and helped others get their bags ready for collection.
It was a real community effort and well worth doing. Thirty-five tall, heavy-duty bags were filled to the brim, brought to a covered area, and await collection by the City.
Imagine how good that lot would look if our library moved there, and it was our permanent home!
By Ruby Long, a neighbor whose work has appeared in local and national publications.
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A student in the Reading Partners program at Piedmont Avenue Elementary School wrote this review for the HOOT
Owl Babies by Martin Waddell
I like this book because it is super awesome. Because I like owls. Do you like owls?
This is about Sarah, Percy, and Bill. One night they woke up and their mother was gone! They waited and waited. They didn’t know where she was. They worried and worried. You have to read Owl Babies to see what happens!
This is a picture of an owl baby. By Na’Sasi, First Grader PAES
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The OPL Advocates Holiday Mixer
Celebrate the amazing year the Oakland Public Library has had!
2022's annual mixer will be hosted by the Friends of the Oakland Public Library and the City of Oakland's Library Advisory Commission. We'll join forces on Sunday, December 4th from 1 - 3pm via Zoom to hear remarkable presentations and participate in the virtual celebration register here.
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From the Friends of Pal
The next meeting of Friends of PAL is Tuesday November 15th, 6:30pm, at the library, 80 Echo Ave. Meet our new Acting Manager and hear updates on our campaign for a permanent home.
No meeting in December.
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The Piedmont Avenue Halloween Parade was great fun, we gave away books, met our neighbors and told the community about our library.
The Friends will have a table at the Tree Lighting Celebration December 3rd, 5 - 6:30pm, at the Key Route Plaza, 41st and Piedmont Ave. There will a book give away and crafts. Please stop by.
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The Avid Reader by Louis Segal | I’ve been an avid reader since I could read. In high school I used to cut school to read in the Berkeley Public Library. I’m writing this column to share some of the books I love. I hope, perhaps, you might grow to love a few of them. | |
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Michael Wolff’s On That Note: A Memoir of Jazz, Tics, and Survival [2022]
I came of age in Berkeley. I was blessed to be surrounded by music and many of my friends became musicians. I loved music and, in particular, jazz. I also loved to read about the lives of musicians. As a youth Lady Sings the Blues by Billie Holiday [with help from William Dufty] and Beneath the Underdog: His World as Composed by Charles Mingus were two of my favorite books. Later, as a someone in the precincts of senior citizenship I began to write a memoir and I developed an appetite for the well turned memoir. On these counts I was delighted last week when a friend of mine commended me to Michael Wolff’s On That Note: A Memoir of Jazz, Tics, and Survival [2022].
Wolff, born in Memphis had deep roots in New Orleans and Indianola, Mississippi. He starts his book with memories of being a Jewish kid in the south, of struggling with Tourette syndrome, of becoming by music in Mississippi and Louisiana. Wolff has perceptive things to say about music and race and, unlike Robbie Robertson’s Testimony [2016], he is aware, intellectually, and morally, of the nexus between music, the role of the South, race, and American history. He came to Berkeley in the early sixties. He became a wunderkind pianist, and even as a kid, he played with some of the greats in jazz: Cannonball Adderley, Al Hirt, Sara Vaughn, Bill Evans, Cal Tjader, Sonny Rollins, Count Basie, Nancy Wilson, Miles, Count Basie, and many other illustrious figures in the American songbook. His anecdotes of his life on the road were not only full of tales of Gospel and Blues People but also of his emerging technique and the wit and wisdom of many of his teachers.
Wolff’s anecdotes of coming of age in Berkeley capture some of the heady brew of the dawning counter-culture, politics and racial dynamics. He seems less aware of the geography of class in Berkeley. Perhaps that’s because privilege oftentimes doesn’t perceive what it doesn’t need to perceive. But all and all, this book is full of insight, and it is for the first two thirds a wonderful coming of age tale full of angst, insight, anger, wonder, a memoir of a musician becoming comfortable in his own skin. I recommend it to jazz and memoir enthusiasts, men and women who grew up in Berkeley in the sixties, and those who have interest in North American culture.
The final third of the book is devoted to both the felicities of his domestic life, kvelling about his sons and wife, and then his brush -well, more like his collision- with a rare and deadly form of cancer. Fortunately, he survived the cancer. At the end of the book are passages of both humility and profound love. Wolff’s love of music suffuses the book. “In my heart, I belong to music and jazz and the piano, and my people are the others that share that.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPCOz6YVxDs
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By Louis Segal. Louis was born in Oakland, raised his family in Oakland, dropped out of school in 1968, worked many jobs over the decades, dropped back into school in the 80s, got a Ph.D. in history, taught as an adjunct professor from 1993 to 2015. Retired but not withdrawn. | |
What's Happening at the Library | |
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Every Tuesday at 10:15am Toddler Storytime at the library
11/15 from 6:30 - 7:30pm Friends of Pal Meeting at the library
Tech Support Fridays beginning December 2nd, 3 - 5pm at the library
12/3 from 5 - 6:30pm Tree Lighting Key Route Plaza, 41st & Piedmont Ave.
12/4 from1 - 3pm The OPL Advocates Holiday Mixer via Zoom
12/13 from 6 -7:30pm Personal Emergency Preparation at the library
Check the Friends of PAL website www.friendsofpal.org for details
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Our library is open 6 days a week | |
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Sunday Closed
Monday: 10am. – 5:30pm.
Tuesday: 10am. – 8pm.
Wednesday: 10am. – 8pm
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Thursday: 10am. – 5:30pm.
Friday: 12pm. – 5:30pm.
Saturday: 10am. – 5:30pm.
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The Friends of the Piedmont Avenue Library is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Our tax ID is 84-4203055.
All contributions are tax deductible.
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