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Arboretum Library Spring/Summer 2012 E-News

June 09, 2012

News from the Library

Amaryllis belladona

Sara Lind, a wonderful intern from the Library School at Stockholm University, created a new online exhibit for the Arboretum Library using images from the Rare Book Room.

This exhibit is one way to see some of the items in the Rare Book Room.  If you are interested in seeing items in person, I’m happy to make an appointment with you to share the treasures in person.

 

Here are the new titles added to the Arboretum Library during January through May of 2012:

10 new children’s books, 41 new articles I thought you might be interested in and 304 “new” books.  

My favorite new book in the main collection is Bamboo Fences.

 Cover of Bamboo Fences

It is another one that made me swoon.  Many of the landscape architecture and garden design around the world books, including Bamboo Fences, came from the Arboretum Foundation’s former board president, Burks L. Hamner.  We are so grateful for the gift and as I told him, he filled important gaps in our landscape architecture section. The American Society of Landscape Architecture magazine had just written about the most influential books in the profession earlier this year and Mr. Hamner’s donation quickly filled the gaps and got them off the Arboretum Library’s wishlist.  The number 304 is really just a taste of the new items that have been added to the online catalog; the ones I thought would really grab your attention.  My volunteers and interns added 1012 titles to the catalog between January and the end of May.  Browse away.  Significant progress has been made in adding non-current magazine titles, uncataloged older books and transferring items from the old, made-up, non-online, classification system.  Total number of titles now in the online catalog is 13,155.  I’m guessing we have at least 10,000 more to go.

I can’t just have one favorite children’s book.  My first favorite is a Tongva legend about the constellation Pleides called A Story of Seven Sisters.

 Cover of A Story of Seven Sisters

  This book came in the mail one day as an anonymous donation from the Children’s Book Wish List.  As I was expressing my delight, my wonderful book repair volunteer, Carl Nicola, confessed that it was his doing.  Thank you, Carl.

Cover of Wiggle and Waggle

   Wiggle and Waggle is my other favorite.  Beginning readers are tough books to make fun to read for both the beginning reader and the adult looking over their shoulder.  This one succeeds with humor and verve and tells a story of worms gardening too!

And the new articles list.  I can’t pick a favorite there, because I gleaned them all as favorites to present to you as worthy of getting off Facebook, blogs, out of the MSN News, LOL Cats or whatever online sight you are fixated with and for you to run down to the Arboretum Library to see what good, old-fashioned journalism has to offer in the gardening, landscape architecture, and botany fields.  Believe me it’s still really good and worth walking away from the computer for.  I can even send you the article remotely if you can’t get to the Library.

Our next Reading the Western Landscape Book Group meeting is coming up on Wednesday, July 11, 2012, 7:00 p.m. in the Arboretum Library.  We will be discussing:

Cover of You Play the Black and the Red Comes Up

You Play the Black and the Red Comes Up by Richard Hallas [pseudonym for Eric Knight]; New York: R.M. McBride, 1938.  

"[…]for many noir aficionados, [this book] remains one of the most evocative and subversive novels of its time.   […]The book does read like James Cain filtered through Thomas Pynchon. Although Knight's first person narrative begins in typical tough-guy fashion, with Dick Dempsey, an Oklahoma-born AWOL Marine hopping a freight in Texas for Southern California in pursuit of his wife and son, it soon moves off in another, wilder direction — more like a noir Alice in Lotus Land than a cool and conventional hardboiled novel.” — Woody Haut , Los Angeles Review of Books

Here is the complete list of upcoming books for the rest of 2012 for the Reading the Western Landscape Book Group:

Here is a link to the books and questions we have finished.

Tell your friends! 

Bookworms logo

The Bookworms story time themes and dates are below:

The story time is recommended for children ages 3-8.

This is a free program for members and free with admission for non-members.

Scales and Shells

Wednesdays, June 6 & 20, 10 am

Saturday, June 9, 2 pm

It Can Come Out of the Sky: Water Conservation

Wednesday, July 18; 10 am

Saturday, July 21; 2 pm

In the Shade: Looking at Trees

Wednesdays, August 1 & 15; 10 am

Saturday, August 18; 2 pm  

Lotsa’ Arboretum Critters

Wednesdays, September 5 & 19; 10 am 

Saturday, September 15; 2 pm

Hard, Fall Fruits: Those Seeds and Pods

Wednesdays October 3 & 17; 10 am 

Saturday, October 13; 2 pm 

Falling Now: All About Leaves

Wednesday, November 7; 10 am

Saturday, November 10; 2 pm 

Not the Peacocks: Our Other Birds

Wednesdays, December 5 & 19, 10 am 

Saturday, December 8; 2 pm

 

The Arboretum Library hours are:

Open Tuesday-Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Open Saturdays, 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Open Sundays, 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Come visit!

We are a circulating library to Arboretum staff and members.  The circulation period for books is 3 weeks with 2 renewals if no one else wants the item.  You can renew by e-mail, phone or in person.  The circulation period for current magazines is 3 days with 2 renewals if no one else wants the item.

 

Our Botanical Information Consultant (for plant advice) is available Tuesday-Saturday, Frank.McDonough@Arboretum.org, or 626-821-3239.

 

For up to the minute Library News, check us out on the Arboretum’s Facebook Page.

 

excerpts from The North West London Blues by Zadie Smith in the New York Review of Books Blog.  In defense of bookstores and libraries…

“Giving the people what they didn’t know they wanted.

[...]Smart books, strange books, books about the country they came from, or the one that they’re in. Children’s books with children in them that look at least a bit like the children who are reading them. Radical books. Classical books. Weird books. Popular books. She reads a lot, she has recommendations.”

Happy reading!  Hope to see you soon! Susan Eubank, Arboretum Librarian, Susan.Eubank@Arboretum.org, or 626-821-3213.

 

Online Library Exhibits

May 23, 2012

News from the Library

February, 2012

Treasures of the Rare Book Collection - Plants of Mediterranean Climate Areas

AmaryllisThe Arboretum Library houses a Rare Book collection featuring unique plant and historical materials going back to the 1500's. This exhibition highlights plant images from those books and connects them to actual species currently available for viewing at the Arboretum. If you have a smartphone, you can take this tour in real time. The Rare Book Room is not open to the public, so here is an excellent opportunity to see some beautiful botanical illustrations from days past. You can view the exhibit here.

November, 2011

Early Fruit & Vegetable Seed Catalogs of Southern California: 1888 - 1945

The Arboretum Library has a large collection of southern California seed catalogs from the early 20th century, so we created an online exhibit to show you a sampling of what kinds of fruits and vegetables were being offered at the time. The exhibit features Agge;er & Musser Small Magazine Coverselected pages from over twenty nurseries in the southern California area displaying a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Highlights from the exhibit include pages from catalogs dating back to 1888 as well as examples of what to grow in your Victory Garden to help support the war. You can view the exhibit here: Early Fruit & Vegetable Seed Catalogs of Southern California. 

 

 

 

 

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