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Volunteer Spotlight: Meet Archie

Get to Know A Paws-to-Read Volunteer Dog!

Paws-to-Read at the Cherrydale Branch Library has been really exciting for patrons and staff – but it’s the dog volunteers who seem to have the most fun!

Archie, his human Mindy, and young reader Aaron.

 

At the January Paws-to-Read, I had a chance to talk with goldern retriever Archie. He filled me in on what motivates him to volunteer, and what some of his favorite books are.

CHERRYDALE LIBRARIAN: When is your birthday?

ARCHIE: My birthday is on October 4th and I’m 4 years old.

CL: How did you get your name?

ARCHIE: My full name is Archibald Henderson and I’m named after the longest serving Marine Corps Commandant.

CL: When did you move to Arlington?

ARCHIE: My humans and I moved to Arlington from New Orleans this past summer and I’m having fun learning about Virginia.

CL: Why did you decide to join Paws-to-Read? What do you think about Paws-to-Read?

ARCHIE: I decided to join Paws-to-Read because my human is a librarian who enjoys libraries and children and knows the importance of reading. I love having the children sit with me and read and pet me.

CL: What is your favorite thing to do?

ARCHIE: My favorite thing to do is go for a jog or to a dog park.

CL: What is your favorite snack?

ARCHIE: My favorite snack is anything edible.

CL: What is your favorite book or book recommendation?

ARCHIE: I recommend Go Dog, Go! by PD Eastman for beginning readers, and Stanley’s Party by Linda Bailey for established readers or fun read-alouds.

Thanks for letting us get to know you, Archie!

The next session of Paws-to-Read at the Cherrydale Branch Library will be on Saturday, Feb. 23, from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. – call 703-228-6330 to sign up.

 

Have you been to Paws-to-Read at Cherrydale? Tell us about your favorite Paws friend!

Paws-to-Read is a partnership between the Library and  PAL (People Animals Love), a local animal therapy organization. You can learn more about why reading to dogs helps children become better readers from the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.

 

 

Shalma Akther, Youth Services and Computer Volunteer at Central

Enthusiastic Teen Who Loves to Help Her Community

Shalma will celebrate her first anniversary as a Library volunteer this winter – she’s been volunteering in Central Library’s Youth Services department since last March, 2012, and as a Cyber Center Help Desk assistant since last October.

We asked Shalma a few questions about herself:

What makes you continue to volunteer?

I just love being able to help anyone, especially when it comes to helping out when I act as the computer desk assistant. I want to give back to my community by contributing the time I have for a good cause and am pleased that I am making a difference no matter how small it is.

What’s your favorite thing about the library?

I love every part about it from the workers, to the books and to those who come regularly and are so excited to find what they are looking for; so I can never narrow it down to one thing.

What do you do when you’re not volunteering?

I also tutor HILT students after school at Washington-Lee High School and do various other community service with each of my extra-curricular activities such as for Key club, Red Cross, Latin American Student Association, Direct Relief International and Teen Network Board, along with mentoring freshmen as part of a new program I was selected for, called Connect. I also recently started to work at a frozen yogurt store and ado debate for fun. Also watching foreign films and learning new languages are part of what interests me.

Are you a Metro DC native, or a transplant?

I am a resident of Arlington and take the Art Bus to get to central to volunteer every Saturday morning.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Right now I am not exactly certain of what I want to be, but I’ve always been interested in the medical field and also am interested in English along with wanting to do the Peace Corps.

What is the best book you’ve read recently?

I read a lot, but recently have not had time to read my chosen books, so it is hard for me to decide, but I would say a good read is Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky which I had to read for my English class this year. The author’s style captures the reader throughout each page and through the picture he paints of each scene, I as the reader am able to see vividly each scene.

What’s the best movie you’ve seen recently?

I would say an Indian film called Don because through it I am able to practice my Hindi.


We feel very lucky to have Shalma volunteer with us!

 

Interested in becoming a Library volunteer? Check out the Current Openings on our Volunteer Page.

 

From Ukraine With Love

An artisanal apple tree sculpture representing friendship,  knowledge and craftsmanship has taken root at Central Library.

From left: Steve Hodskins, sculptor; Mrs. Anushkevychus; Ivano-Frankivsk Mayor Viktor Anushkevychus; Chrystia Sonevytsky, ASCA Ivano-Frankivsk Committee; Library Director Diane Kresh; blacksmith Curt Welch; and Central Library manager Margaret Brown.

Built in the blacksmith’s shop at Gulf Branch Nature Center, the metalwork was created by local smiths working with visiting craftsmen from Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, Arlington’s newest sister city.

The mayor of Ivano-Frankivsk, Viktor Anushkevychus, presented the work to Arlington Public Library Director Diane Kresh on Jan. 24 at Central Library during a tour of the County.

Ivano-Frankivsk is known for its talented blacksmiths and in May hosts an annual international festival featuring the hand-forged art.

 

 

What Did Arlington Check Out in 2012?

Presenting our most popular titles from last year!

Did you read or watch these?  What was on your Top 10?
Click on each graph to enlarge the image.

 

 

 

 

Visit the Library’s Facebook Page for more Graphs of 2012, including the top 25 Books on CD, and the YA reviews favorite books of 2012.

 

Behind the Scenes is our periodic look at how the Library works, brought to you by acting chief of the Library’s Materials Management Division, Rachel Wood.

 

 

17 Fun Films for Foreign Language Practice

Brush up on your French, practice your Chinese, polish your Spanish or strengthen your Arabic!

Whether you turn the subtitles on or off, pause, rewind, or play it again and again, these movies offer great stories – as well as the chance to explore another culture along with another language:

 

The Swimsuit Issue
Swedish [2011]

A botched prank gives Frank, a divorced dad, the idea to mold his motley buddies into Sweden’s only all-male synchronized swimming team. Mayhem ensues as they strive for the World Cup finals in Berlin.

 

 

The Girl Who Played With Fire
Swedish [2010]

The second installment in Steig Larssen’s trilogy. On the eve of publisher Mikael Blomkvist’s story about sex trafficking between Eastern Europe and Sweden, two investigating reporters are murdered.

 

 

Amelie
French [2002]

Amélie, a young woman who had a decidedly unusual childhood, didn’t attend school with other children, but spent most of her time in her room, where she developed a keen imagination. She has a whimsical, romantic nature, taking it upon herself in adulthood to step into the lives of others around her to help them out.

 

 

Queen to Play
French [2011]

Lovely, repressed, and quietly intelligent, French chambermaid Helene comes upon a couple engaged in an intense chess match, and discovers she has a knack for the game. This becomes an obsession, much to the chagrin of her husband and teenage daughter. She seeks the clandestine tutelage of a reclusive American doctor, a liaison that radically transforms both of their lackluster lives.

 

Like Stars on Earth
Hindi [2010]

Eight-year-old Ishaan can’t seem to get anything right in class and gets into more trouble than is parents can handle. They pack him off to boarding school where his art teacher, Nikumbh, realizes that something is wrong and sets out to discover what it is.

 

 

Guzaarish
Hindi [2011]

Ethan Mascarenhas is one of the greatest magicians of his time. Presently hosting a radio show that spreads magic, hope, and laughter through his wit and humor, it is hard to imagine that he has been immobilized with a spinal injury for the last 14 years.

 

 

Eat Drink Man Woman
Chinese [1994]

A retired master chef and widower is worried about the future of his three unmarried daughters who are skeptical about marriage. Yet he himself surprises them with his secret love affair with a young woman many years his junior.

 

 

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
Chinese [2002]

Set in the early 1970s during the later stages of China’s Cultural Revolution, two city-bred teenage best friends are sent to a backward mountainous region for Maoist re-education.

 

The Motorcycle Diaries
Spanish [2005]

An inspirational adventure, based on the true story of Ernesto Guevara and Alberto Granado, whose thrilling and dangerous road trip across Latin America becomes a life-changing journey of self-discovery.

 

 

All About My Mother/Todo Sobre Mi Madre
Spanish [1999]

Manuela is the perfect mother. A hard-working nurse, she’s built a comfortable life for herself and her teenage son. But when tragedy strikes and her son is killed in a car accident, her world crumbles.

 

 

Under the Bombs/Sous les Bombes
Arabic [2007]

“During a cease-fire in the Lebanon-Israel conflict of 2006, Tony, a Christian taxi-driver, brings Zeina, a Shiite woman from Beirut, to the heart of the conflict in the country’s south. While they scour the rubble of local towns for Zeina’s son, they discover that despite their very different backgrounds they have much in common.

 

 

The Human Resources Manager
Hebrew [2010]

The Human Resources Manager of Jerusalem’s largest bakery is in trouble. He is separated from his wife, distanced from his daughter, and stuck in a job he hates. When one of his employees, a foreign worker, is killed in a suicide bombing, the bakery is accused of indifference.

 

 

Italian for Beginners
Danish [2000]

Several students of an Italian language class find romance in their studies of the language of love

 

 

 

Bread and Tulips
Italian [2000]

When a harried housewife is accidentally left behind while on vacation with her family, she decides to take a holiday of her own in Venice. She becomes charmed by the city and her newfound freedom.

 

 

 

Quill: The Life of a Guidedog
Japanese [2012]

The story of a yellow lab retriever guide dog for the blind named Quill. We follow Quill from the litter, his selection to become a guide, and his life with a foster family until his first birthday, followed by highly specialized schooling in guiding the sightless. He is paired with a blind man who is at first reluctant to rely on Quill. But Quill’s great patience, gentleness, and skill eventually win him over and they become inseparable friends.

 

Shall We Dance
Japanese [1996]

A middle-aged businessman’s dull life takes an interesting turn when he signs up for a ballroom dance class just to meet the beautiful dance instructor.

 

 

The Story of the Weeping Camel
Mongolian [2003]

A family of nomadic shepherds assists with the births of their camel herd in the South Mongolian Gobi Desert. One of the camels has an extremely difficult delivery, but with help from the family, delivers a rare white colt.

 

 

 

Do You Know What Your Street Used To Be Named?

How Arlington Made Sense of its Street Names and Paved the Way for Our First Federal Building

The 1935 Arlington County Directory of Street Names represents a unique moment in Arlington history-- a time when many Arlingtonians had to re-learn the names of their streets and those of their neighbors.

Page 1 from the Arlington County Virginia Directory of Street Names, 1935, screenshot of scanned document opened in the Community Archives.

In 1932, Arlington County had already begun a boom in population that would only continue over the next several decades. Between 1900 and 1930, the population of the once-rural area had grown by over 350%--from 6,430 to 23,278--despite the annexation of sizable portions of land by the city of Alexandria in 1915 and 1929.

New streetcar suburbs began popping up all around Arlington County--between 1900 and 1910 alone, plats for seventy new subdivisions were entered into the County Deed Books.

However, these new developments sprang up with little to no coordination or central planning, and by 1932, this was beginning to create problems. The developments formed what was, in effect, a confusing archipelago of small, unconnected towns, and street names were frequently repeated throughout the county. There were, by one account, as many as twenty-five different roads named "Arlington," for example, as well as many roads known as "Washington," "Virginia," and "Lee."

Visitors found the county difficult to navigate, neighborhood names had to be attached to mailing addresses to ensure that letters arrived at the right building, and some DC-area businesses even refused to deliver to customers in Arlington. There were also concerns about the Fire Department being dispatched to a house at the same address in the wrong subdivision.

1935 Arlington County Franklin Insurance Property Atlas

The newly-established “County Board-County Manager” Government of Arlington decided very quickly to try to rectify this situation. One of the primary issues motivating them seems to have been the desire to see a Post Office in Arlington, as mail service to Arlington had been routed through Washington D.C. since 1925, and the Post Office Department had dictated that no Post Office would be allocated to Arlington until its street naming scheme was more coherent and logical. To this end, a Street Naming Committee was established, tasked with rationalizing the county's street naming scheme.

Initially, the committee considered simply eliminating duplicate street names, leaving one street with each repeated name. The committee quickly decided that this approach was insufficient, and that a more general, systemic plan was necessary. Soliciting feedback from the county’s residents, the committee got a variety of proposals, from continuing DC’s alphabetical/numeric scheme to having the residents of each street vote on a street name.

Eventually, the committee decided on essentially the county’s current street naming scheme:

  • The county is divided into two sections, North and South Arlington, generally separated by Arlington Boulevard (US Route 50).
  • Numbered streets generally run east-west, parallel to Arlington Boulevard, and North and South designations follow numbered street names.
  • Named streets generally run north-south, and North and South designations precede named street names. These streets are generally named in alphabetical order from east to west, skipping the letters X, Y, and Z. When the end of the alphabet is reached, it is repeated with additional syllables-- thus Oak and Quinn Streets are to the east of Oakland and Quincy, which are in turn east of Ohio and Quantico Streets.
  • Boulevards, Drives, and Roads are generally major thoroughfares with historically recognized names, most of which were not renamed. Generally, these are the only through streets, unlike numbered and named streets, which tend to be broken up at times and intended primarily for local neighborhood traffic.

The Committee’s recommendations were put forward for public comment, and were approved with several small amendments in August of 1934--thirty months after the project began. In 1936, Arlington County was assigned a local Postmaster for the first time in over ten years, and the next year, the Postmaster General of the United States of America was on hand for the dedication of the cornerstone of the new Post Office in Clarendon--the first federal government building in Arlington County.

For people researching Arlington before 1934, the street name change can present challenges. This searchable PDF of the Arlington County Virginia Directory of Street Names, which opens by clicking or tapping on the cover image, can help with navigation of Arlington before the change.

To learn more about Arlington's history, visit the Center for Local History on the first floor of the Central Library.

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One Easy Way to Raise a Reader!

Storytime Counts

Did you know that singing slows down your speech patterns, which helps children hear the sounds inside of words?

This is why our baby storytimes are designed to teach you and your child fun songs and games, to help children associate books with fun, and help your child develop a love of reading:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdwhBh74dZc[/youtube]

This video was created by Arlington Independent Media’s Field Production Class, with special thanks to AIM instructors Nathan Bynum, Quin Paek and Jackie Steven.

 

Learn more about Kids Events at the Library.

 

 

Safe on the Internet

Understanding the Internet, for Grades K-3

This excellent video series was created by Planet Nutshell, for Utah PBS Station KUEN TV.

 

NetSafe Episode 1: What is the Internet?

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/18733653[/vimeo]

 

NetSafe Episode 2: What is Personal Information?

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/18734341[/vimeo]

 

NetSafe Episode 3: Tell an Adult

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/18734250[/vimeo]

 

Net Safe Episode 4: Be Kind Online

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/18791651[/vimeo]

 

 

Find more Video for Kids from the Arlington Public Library.

 



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