I put out our Silicon Valley Reads 2006 books and I was happy to see a few people borrow a couple of the books right away. This coming February, SVR has chosen two books, The Souvenir by Louise Steinman and When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka. The two books both deal with the World War II from different viewpoints. Otsuka’s novel tells the story of a Japanese American family imprisoned in an internment camp. Steinman’s book examines her father’s experiences as a soldier during WWII. Both of these topics are pretty open for programs. The library I work for will host an author visit by Julie Otsuka. I’m working on some other programming ideas including some photo/slide shows of Manzanar, Tule Lake and other internment camps. It’s getting hard to find people to talk about their experiences but I’m hopeful that some folks will volunteer their stories. There is ample room to expand it beyond the Japanese experience and look at the how so many American Citizens were treated because of their ethnicity including how the Italians had their cameras and radios confiscated.
A big thanks to Emily for hooking us up with a speaker about Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage for seniors. The library will be hosting the program for sure on December 15th at 2pm. This will be my first publicity challenge as a librarian, hopefully we can draw a good number of folks and we can help clarify the complex issues.
