Giants Pride Week – Excelsior Branch

Even though we are not able to light our building orange like City Hall or Coit Tower, Excelsior Branch Library is showing our Giants Pride with displays of Giants memorabilia from the collections of Branch staffers.

Here at the Excelsior Branch we have many Giants fans (long-suffering and bandwagon-ers alike) on the staff and out in the stacks and chairs. Patrons keep the staff up to date with the scores from GameCast or the latest from KNBR when they hustle in to return a book. But, when the Giants win, we know within seconds: the nearby watering holes erupt with cheers, followed soon after by the parade of cars down Mission Street.



So, when you’re not glued to your TV or radio, stop by Excelsior Branch to see our display of memorabilia from the personal collections of staff members. You can pick out books about the Giants or look for old newspaper articles. You can also see a fine collection of Giants and Seals images from the Library’s Historical Photograph Collection.

If something historic happens, be sure to check out the Newseum’s collection of front pages.

Go Giants! ¡Viva Gigantes!

First Monday Movies - They Live By Night - November 1st

Bowie Bowers (Farley Granger) escapes from jail with two hardened criminals and holes up at Mobley's filling station to recover from a wound. He's nursed by Mobley's daughter Keechie (Cathy O'Donnell). Despite the fact that neither has known anything but hardship and distrust in their short lives, Bowie and Keechie begin to fall in love. The older cons involve Bowie in a bank heist where a man gets killed, and the couple go on the run. Bowie and Keechie are hopelessly naïve, fabricating their own idyllic dream world as the authorities close in. Based on Edward Anderson's Depression-era novel Thieves Like Us. Directed by Nicholas Ray (1948/95 mins)

Monday, November 1st @ 6:30 p.m.

Excelsior Knitters

Knitters & Crocheters - come chat, knit, purl, and spin! Have fun comparing patterns, sharing techniques and trading tips. Make new friends in the neighborhood!

Intermediate and advanced, please come and share your experience and ideas. The room is cozy, private and comfortable. Beginners are welcome to look at patterns and get acquainted. Please bring your own materials. We welcome all. Excelsior Knitters usually meet at the Library on the second Monday each month.

Monday, October 18th - 6:30 p.m. - 8 p.m.

Monday, November 8th - 6:30 p.m. - 8 p.m.

Magic Dan - October 20th

Magic Dan brings his magic show to Excelsior just in time for Halloween! Enjoy magic tricks, juggling and themed games. Ages 3 and older. Space is limited. Please call (415) 355-2868 for reservations.

Clinic by the Bay

Clinic by the Bay, a free health clinic, has opened at 4877 Mission Street in the Excelsior District.

A volunteer-powered, non-profit organization that will serve the primary medical needs of the uninsured in San Francisco and San Mateo Counties, the Clinic's goal is to provide a caring medical home for their patients so they can work, attend school, adequately care for their families and be productive members of their community.

Clinic by the Bay is a Volunteers in Medicine (VIM) clinic. VIM is a national model of health care that was founded by Dr. Jack McConnell in 1992 and opened in Hilton Head, South Carolina, in 1994. (See www.volunteersinmedicine.org.) There are currently 78 VIM clinics operating in 24 states in the United States, the majority of which are located east of the Mississippi.

Clinic by the Bay's Mission: To understand and serve, with dignity and respect, the health and wellness needs of the medically underserved in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Additionally, their goal is to enhance the lives of the volunteers who contribute to the care and wellness of our community as a whole.

For more information, contact the Clinic at 415.405.0222.

Excelsior Salon - Maid as Muse - October 27th

In Maid as Muse, Aife Murray explodes the myth of the isolated genius and presents an intimate, densely realized story of joined lives between Emily Dickinson and her domestic servants. Part scholarly study, part detective story, part personal journey, Murray's book uncovers a world previously unknown: an influential world of Irish immigrant servants and an ethnically rich one of Yankee, English-immigrant, Native American, and African American maids and laborers, seamstresses and stablemen. Murray reveals how Irish immigrant Margaret Maher and the other servants influenced the cultural outlook, fashion, artistic subject, and even poetic style of Emily Dickinson.

Local scholar and author Aife Murray says Maid as Muse came about because of a visit to the Library. She recalls "I was standing in this reading room of the main library in San Francisco one afternoon wondering how Emily Dickinson – prize-winning baker and astonishing poet – managed to turn out so many poems (and breads and cakes). 'Did she have help?' I asked myself. I pulled a popular Dickinson biography from the shelves situated in the far back of the reading room. The book naturally opened at a photographic plate labeled 'the Dickinson domestics, circa 1870.' Three Irish faces stared out just as the photographer depressed the bulb. He let a little light leak into the studio so that a side of Margaret Maher’s beautiful face is bleached out. The man in the center looked a lot like my grandfather.... Seeing that image changed my life."

Join us for an exciting reading and discussion of this below-stairs, bottom-up portrait of the artist and her family. The kitchen pantry where Dickinson spent a good portion of each day was headquarters for people mostly lost from the public record - and it was her interactions with them that changed and helped define who Emily Dickinson was as a person and a poet.

Wednesday, October 27th @ 7 p.m.

LIBRARY CLOSED - October 11th - Columbus Day

The Excelsior Branch and all SFPL branches will be closed on Monday October 11, 2010 in observance of Columbus Day.

Parking Enforcement

MUNI information

BART holiday schedule

Have a great holiday!

"What We Like"

Guji Guji by Chih-Yuan Chen

I love Guji! Guji! by Zhiyuan Chen. It's sort of The Ugly Duckling with a twist. One evening a huge egg rolls down a hill and into Mama Duck's nest. She doesn't notice. She's too busy reading. She sits on all of the eggs until that fateful day when....a water loving-creature cracks its way out of the huge egg. It's first sound is "Guji! Guji!" so that's what Mama Duck names it. And it really thinks it is a duck! But it's not.

To find out what Guji!Guji! really is, and how he saves his duck family from being eaten, you will just have to reserve this fun book.

K Smoak

P.S. I love the illustrations so much, I would decorate the library with them.

"What We Like" features weekly recommendations from Excelsior staff and patrons for Library books, music, movies and audiobooks that we think you might like. If you have something you want to recommend, drop by and let us know!

TUESDAY TIPS

TODAY'S TIP - Using OpenOffice at the Library

OpenOffice – an open source software – is now installed on all Internet Public Computers as of July 9, 2010. OpenOffice Writer replaces Microsoft Word, and OpenOffice Calc replaces Microsoft Excel. The presentation software application OpenOffice Impress is also installed.

These programs work in much the same way as the programs previously installed on library computers, with most of the same features and many of the same shortcuts that have become standard in office software. In fact, you may not even have noticed the recent change.

The Library has created guides for using Writer and Calc, with more information available on the SFPL website. Additional information is available on the web from OpenOffice on their support site.

The library continues to teach computer classes at the Main any many branches. You can find out about the classes by checking the calendar, or other publications. And, as always, we have plenty of resources in the Library's collection that can help you learn more about computers. Just ask a Librarian for assistance.

More about the change to open source software can be found in this press release from the Mayor's office.

Excelsior Librarians and Staff share tips & tricks to help you make the most of the San Francisco Public Library catalog, databases and website. New tips posted Tuesdays on the Excelsior Blog. Watch this space!

Read for the Record - October 7th

Join the Excelsior Branch and the rest of SFPL for this annual program which features stories and activities for children ages 3-5. This year, the book we will be reading is The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.

At 11:00 a.m. on October 7, Excelsior Branch is co-sponsoring a reading of The Snowy Day with Excelsior Family Connections here at the Branch.

Jumpstart's Read for the Record brings national attention to the importance of early education by organizing the world's largest celebration of reading. Each year, the campaign sets a new world record for the most number of children reading the same book on the same day.

Excelsior Festival - October 3rd

The annual Excelsior Festival will be held Sunday, October 3, from 11am until 5pm at Mission Street and Ocean Avenue in the heart of the Excelsior District.
There will be international food, craft vendors, activities for kids, and the Excelsior's Got Talent competition. Live music will include Los Chiles Verdes, Carne Cruda, City College Jazz Band and Gabriel Fuentes.

Excelsior Branch will have a prize wheel for children and literature table at the event. On the half hour (or, as the schedule allows) our Children's Librarians will be offering storytimes with a Green theme. Please stop by and visit us!

Festival proceeds benefit Excelsior Action Group and their efforts to strengthen the Excelsior neighborhood. For more information, contact EAG at 415.585.0110.