Thursday! PressReader and Flipster Tutorial

Visit the Main Library for Tech Week, October 5-12, and catch the Magazines and Newspapers Center tutorial about reading periodicals on two popular platforms, PressReader and Flipster. Nearly any popular magazine you can think of is available on one of these apps, and you can get newspapers in dozens of languages from all over the world on PressReader! 

Tutorial: PressReader and Flipster

Thursday, 10/10/2024
12:00 - 1:00

Computer Training Center - 5th Fl

Main Library

Address

100 Larkin Street
San Francisco, CA94102

Learn about the two eMagazines platforms available to library card holders via sfpl.org/enews. Each has a collection of publications the other doesn’t and apps that allow you to download magazines for offline reading.  

Presented by a Magazines & Newspapers Center librarian. 

Find out more ahead of the tutorial:

PressReader FAQ entry: https://sfpl.libanswers.com/faq/167356

Flipster FAQ entry: https://sfpl.libanswers.com/faq/167139

See event listing on the SFPL master calendar. 

Share Your Thoughts on "Lola's Story"

It's Filipino American History Month at the Magazines and Newspapers Center, and to embrace the theme we are conducting a read-along discussion that you can do anytime, anywhere this month.  

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Read the article “Lola’s Story” by Alex Tizon about a Filipino-American family’s slave and respond to the piece on a digital discussion board or leave a comment here on the blog. Visit the Magazines and Newspapers Center on the 5th floor of the Main Library to pick up print-outs of the article and author's bio. 

Alex Tizon’s piece in the June, 2017 issue of the Atlantic begins: “She lived with my family for 56 years. She raised me and my siblings, and cooked and cleaned from dawn to dark —always without pay. I was 11, a typical American kid, before I realized she was my family’s slave.” In the following 13 pages, Tizon explores how his grandfather “gave” this woman named Lola to his mother for her 18th birthday, how Lola eventually immigrated to the U.S. with his family and his own process of coming to terms with her caste as a slave within the family. In addition, Tizon masterfully teases out the nuances of the complex emotional bonds each family member formed with Lola and how those bonds affected each family member’s relationship with others in the family.  

Read the article in Flipster, a platform that offers access to hundreds of digital magazines, and share your answers to these questions on our digital discussion board or leave a comment here on the blog. 

1. Does your family’s legacy include any difficult truths similar to the secret held by the author’s family? What effect did it have on your family?  
2. There’s a Filipino value called “Utang na loob,” which translates to “debt of the heart.” Where do you see Lola enacting that value? Do you see other characters enacting it towards Lola?  
3. How does the value of “Utang na loob,” translated as “debt of the heart,” apply to non-Filipino families? Describe how you have seen a similar value enacted in other cultures.  
4. What other examples of modern-day slavery can you think of that would be relevant to the consideration of this piece? 

Resources  

“Lola’s Story” by Alex Tizon, The Atlantic, June 2017  

Alex Tizon – Author Profile & Obituary – The Atlantic, June 2017 

Share Your Thoughts – Digital Discussion Board  

Display in the Periodicals Reading Room with physical copies of the article "Lola's Story" by Alex Tizon. Visit the 5th floor of the Main Library to check it out!

Upcoming Programs in the Environmental Center

We've got back-to-back programs this month that are crossover events with the Stegner Environmental Center and the Magazines and Newspapers Center, both in-person at the Main Library here in Civic Center. We hope you can join us! 

 

Speaker: Alejandro Lazo of CalMatters

Tuesday, 10/29/2024
5:30 - 6:30

Environmental Center Exhibit Space - 5th Fl

Main Library

100 Larkin Street
San Francisco, CA94102

Local journalist Alejandro Lazo will speak about CA environmental issues, from his view at the nonprofit news site CalMatters. The site description says CalMatters "[brings] Californians stories that probe, explain and explore solutions to quality of life issues while holding our leaders accountable." Short Q&A to follow his remarks.

As we head towards Election Day, bring your questions about environmental issues and how they intersect with the ballot.

See event listing on the SFPL master calendar.

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Author: Rosanna Xia in conversation with Tyrone Jue

Los Angeles Times Journalist in conversation 

with Director of SF Environment

Wednesday, 10/30/2024
6:00 - 7:00

Environmental Center Exhibit Space - 5th Fl

Main Library

100 Larkin Street
San Francisco, CA94102

 

Author Rosanna Xia will discuss stories from her book California Against the Sea (Heyday Books, out now in paperback). In this compelling book, voices of Indigenous leaders, community activists, small-town mayors, urban engineers, and environmental scientists discuss what responses we need for rising ocean levels along our state. Rosanna Xia is an environment reporter for the Los Angeles Times.

Tyrone Jue is Director of SF Environment. He leads the City’s efforts to advance climate action, environmental justice, and sustainability policies. He grew up in San Francisco's Chinatown neighborhood witnessing firsthand the environmental challenges faced by underserved communities, leading to a career in public service.

Local store Dog Eared Books will be available to sell copies of the title at this event.

An RSVP is appreciated, but not required. Please write to EnvironmentalCenter@sfpl.org 

See event listing on the SFPL master calendar.

 

What We're Reading Sept 2024

September was abuzz with news from our deceased pop culture royalty, court case rulings very germane to the business of ebooks in libraries, the dividends of newspaper research, and useful advice in a small business-newspaper crossover event. Read on to get a glimpse of what librarians on the 5th floor of the Main Library were reading in September. 

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The Prince We Never Knew

New York Times Magazine, Sept. 8, 2024

NYT Mag journalist Sasha Weiss spent a year and a half reporting on a documentary of Prince that will probably never be released. Weiss, as one of the few people who have seen it, dispatches the intensity of the documentary, which can be summed up by the following quotes from director Ezra Edelman: “How can you tell the truth about someone who, when you’re talking to people, they all had different things to say?... How can you tell the truth about someone who never told the truth about himself?”

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Why a ruling against the Internet Archive threatens the future of America’s libraries

MIT Technology Review, Sept. 11, 2024 

The Internet Archive received a harsh blow to its mission of making books digitally available the way a brick-and-mortar library would lend books this month when "the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reaffirmed that decision with some alterations to the underlying reasoning," according to this opinion piece by Chris Lewis. The crisis highlights the stranglehold book publishers have over libraries wanting to buy titles in ebook formats, which are priced at up to 300% of the consumer price, and have DRM, or digital rights management, installed on them, causing the books to "self-destruct" once a loan or purchase period ends. *N.B. while SFPL offers the MIT Technology Review in many formats, including on Flipster, this article is an online-only piece and was not published in the print magazine. 

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A boy snatched from a California park in 1951 is found living on the East Coast

NPR, Sept. 24, 2024  

Archival newspaper research can literally reunite families and solve mysteries! The family of a man kidnapped as a child from a park in Oakland conducted newspaper research at the Oakland Public Library in addition to other approaches to find their long-lost uncle. Now we wonder if our newspaper collections at SFPL have ever helped a cause so noble. 

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How to open a bakery in 61 easy steps

San Francisco Business Times, Sept. 19, 2024 

While the title of this piece reads more like a satire from the Onion, the many convoluted steps to opening a business in San Francisco are real. The good news for aspiring entrepreneurs is that the San Francisco Business Times has you covered, starting with offering this in-depth list of necessary steps one must take. SFPL's Business Center will take you the rest of the way. *N.B.: SFPL offers the San Francisco Business Times full text for free through our eNews site and on the Articles and Databases site.

Maya Angelou Selected Bibliography of Articles from Periodicals

In celebration of the Maya Angelou monument dedicated on Sept. 19, 2024 on the SFPL Main Library's Larkin Plaza, the Magazines and Newspapers Center presents a selected bibliography of articles by and about Maya Angelou, all available full-text from the library's electronic periodicals. These articles have been hand-curated by our team of Magazines and Newspapers Center Librarians.

Reading these articles will give you an in-depth view of milestones in Angelou's life directly from the primary sources reporting on them at the time. The publications include the San Francisco Chronicle/Sunday Examiner, Ebony magazine, JET, Vogue, Ladies Home Journal, and the Smithsonian magazine amongst others, and span the 1950s-2010s.

Image courtesy of the SF Arts Commission

Maya Angelou Selected Bibliography

Angelou, Maya. "Maya Angelou: 'On the Pulse of Morning'." New York Times, Jan 21, 1993, p. A14. ProQuest Historical Newspapers, Full Text Access Link.

Angelou, Maya. “Why I Moved Back To The South: Prominent, Southernbred Author Talks about the South, Southerners and the Long Road Home.” Ebony, vol. 37, no. 4, Feb. 1982, pp. 130–34. EBSCOhost Ebony Magazine Archive, Full Text Access Link. 

“‘Down In The Delta’: In Her Feature-Length Movie Debut as a Director, Maya Angelou Brings the Story of Human Truths to Life.” Ebony, vol. 54, no. 4, Feb. 1999, pp. 96–100. EBSCOhost Ebony Magazine Archive, Full Text Access Link.

Glover, Terry. “Dr. Maya Angelou.” Ebony, vol. 65, no. 2/3, Dec. 2009, pp. 66–67. EBSCOhost Ebony Magazine Archive, Full Text Access Link. 

Grossman, Lev. “Maya Angelou.” TIME Magazine, vol. 183, no. 22, June 2014, p. 16. EBSCOhost, Full Text Access Link.

Haynes, Karima A. “Maya Angelou: Prime-Time Poet: Charismatic Author Takes Center Stage as the Nation’s Poet Laureate.” Ebony, vol. 48, no. 6, Apr. 1993, pp. 68–72. EBSCOhost Ebony Magazine Archive, Full Text Access Link.

Millner, Denene. “Mother Maya.” Ebony, vol. 69, no. 10, 1 Aug. 2014, pp. 108–11. EBSCOhost Ebony Magazine Archive, Full Text Access Link.

Moore, Lucinda. “A Conversation with Maya Angelou at 75.” Smithsonian, vol. 34, no. 1, Apr. 2003, p. 96. EBSCOhost, Full Text Access Link. 

Newton, Dwight. “Will Blacks Still Like Her Next Week?” San Francisco Chronicle/San Francisco Examiner, 21 July 1968, p. 35. NewsBank: America's News – Historical and Current, Full Text Access Link. 

“Oprah Throws A Party: Biggest Birthday Bash Honors Poet Maya Angelou.” Ebony, vol. 48, no. 8, June 1993, pp. 118–22. EBSCOhost Ebony Magazine Archive, Full Text Access Link. 

Paterson, Judith. "Features: Interview: Maya Angelou—a Passionate Writer Living Fiercely with Brains, Guts, and Joy." Vogue, vol. 172, no. 9, Sep 01, 1982, pp. 416-416, 417, 420, 422. ProQuest Women's Magazine Archive, Full Text Access Link. 

"Phenomenal Woman." Ladies' Home Journal, vol. 110, no. 10,  Oct. 1993, pp. 128, 132, 134, 196. ProQuest Women's Magazine Archive, Full Text Access Link.

Robertson, Bob. “Last Song in S.F. – A Life in Africa.” San Francisco Chronicle, 28 Jan. 1962, p. 3. NewsBank: America's News – Historical and Current, Full Text Access Link. 

Stanley, John. “Blacks, Blues And 24 Robbers.” San Francisco Chronicle/San Francisco Examiner, 4 Aug. 1968, p. 217. NewsBank: America's News – Historical and Current, Full Text Access Link. 

Stuttaford, Genevieve. “Yes, the Caged Bird Can Go to the Moon.” San Francisco Chronicle/San Francisco Examiner, 12 Apr. 1970, p. 177. NewsBank: America's News – Historical and Current, Full Text Access Link.

The Owl. “After Night Falls: Dorothy Shay, Park Avenue Hillbilly, Unrolls Racy Act at Venetian Room.” San Francisco Chronicle, 6 Feb. 1954, p. 8. NewsBank: America's News – Historical and Current, Full Text Access Link.

Waldron, Clarence. “Maya Angelou: On Christmas, Dave Chappelle And What Inspires Her.” JET, vol. 110, no. 25, Dec. 2006, pp. 29–30. EBSCOhost Jet Magazine Archive, Full Text Access Link. 

Two Upcoming Virtual Programs: History of the Mexican Press and New Approaches to International Reporting

Presentation: The Mexican Press, Revolution to the Present Day

Friday, 9/27/2024
10:00 - 11:00 a.m.
Register on Zoom

Learn about the role the newspaper press played in Mexican history as a medium of communication between citizens and government officials from the Revolution to the current day.  

Historian Benjamin T. Smith discusses the rise in readership following the Mexican Revolution, gives examples of regional and urban newspapers as important agents of communication and examines the effects of censorship, which has rendered Mexico the most dangerous country in the Western hemisphere for journalists according to a 2022 report from Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).  

Benjamin T. Smith has been writing about the history of Mexico for twenty years. He now specializes on twentieth-century politics, the narcotics trade and crime. But he has also researched and written about indigenous politics, Catholicism, conservatism, newspapers, journalism and censorship. He is the author the 2018 monograph The Mexican Press and Civil Society, 1940–1976: Stories from the Newsroom, Stories from the Street and the co-editor of the 2018 anthology Journalism, Satire, and Censorship in Mexico. He is a Professor of Latin American History at the University of Warwick and holds a PhD in History from Cambridge University.  

Connect

Benjamin T. Smith – Website | Benjamin T. Smith – X  

See event listing on the SFPL master calendar.

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CANCELED: Presentation: How Do You Like Your International News?

Friday, 10/4/2024
9:00 - 10:00 a.m.
Register on Zoom

This program has been rescheduled from the original date of May 29, 2024.

Discover news from Nepal that is reported with accuracy and dignity by Kathmandu-based journalist Shilu Manandhar and how her work is different than reporting done by “parachute journalists.” Learn about the mission of Global Press to carry out this work.

Global Press uncovered how Asian American and Pacific Islander audiences in the U.S. prefer to get their international news in a 2023 report. Many respondents reported preferring international news from legacy news outlets that deploy “parachute journalists” from the U.S. or the U.K., but Global Press has a better approach that offers more dignified and precise coverage from local reporters who are part of the fabric of the foreign country. Team members Cristi Hegranes (founder and CEO of Global Press), Laxmi Parthasarathy (COO of Global Press) and Shilu Manandhar (Nepal senior reporter) will discuss how Global Press was able to change API respondents’ minds by demonstrating what ethical, effective and inclusive reporting looks like and how on-the-ground reporting in the Global Press style is clearer, more interesting and more meaningful. Manandhar will share examples of her own reporting from Nepal and will break down the components of the Global Press style as exemplified in her work, most likely awakening the appetite for Nepalese news you didn’t know you had.

Global Press was founded in 2006 by Cristi Hegranes, a young journalist who once dreamed of becoming a foreign correspondent. But after going overseas on her first assignment, she realized that she was the wrong person to be telling the world’s stories. Instead, Hegranes passed her pen to local women in the community who had the social, historical, cultural context and the source access to tell accurate, world-changing stories. Since 2006, Global Press has trained more than 250 local journalists across 40 communities. Together, they're transforming global narratives.

Cristi Hegranes is the CEO of Global Press, the Publisher of Global Press Journal and the author of Byline: How Local Journalists Can Improve the Global News Industry and Change the World. She founded Global Press in 2006 to create a new form of ethical, accurate global news. Her values-driven approach to journalism prioritizes newsroom representation to create a dignified, precise news product. Previously, Hegranes worked as a journalist for Village Voice Media in New York and San Francisco. She has a Master’s degree in journalism from New York University and a Bachelor’s degree from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

Laxmi Parthasarathy is the COO of Global Press. She leads global operations across each Global Press brand, spearheads the global expansion strategy to build new bureaus and develops new partnership strategies to bolster the organization’s reach and long-term sustainability. Over her career, she has led initiatives at the intersection of media and development in Canada, India, Rwanda, Mexico, Spain, Argentina and the UK. Parthasarathy holds a Master’s degree in Media, Communications and Development from the London School of Economics and did her undergraduate studies at Carleton University in Canada. 

Shilu Manandhar is a Global Press Journal senior reporter based in Kathmandu, Nepal. She specializes in migration and environmental reporting in Nepal. She studied at Christ College in Bangalore, India. Manandhar’s coverage of Nepalese migrant workers in Qatar has won numerous awards and been cited in legislative changes.

Connect 

Global Press – Website | Global Press – Twitter | Global Press – Facebook | Global Press – Instagram 

Cristi Hegranes -- Website | Cristi Hegranes – Twitter | Cristi Hegranes – LinkedIn | Cristi Hegranes – Email 

Laxmi Parthasarathy – Twitter | Laxmi Parthasarathy – LinkedIn 

Shilu Manandhar – Facebook | Shilu Manandhar – Email  

See event listing on the SFPL master calendar.

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View other Magazines and Newspapers Center programs on the SFPL event calendar under the What's News heading. 

Tutorial: PressReader and The Economist

 

Tutorial: PressReader and The Economist

Thursday, 9/12/2024

12:00 - 1:00

Learn how to access The Economist and other magazines covering world politics, economics, business, science and technology using PressReader, a digital newspapers and magazines platform.   

Newsweek, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The Guardian are other news titles available in PressReader. 

Presented by a Magazines & Newspapers Center librarian.   

See event listing on the SFPL master calendar.

View other Magazines and Newspapers Center programs on the SFPL event calendar under the What's News heading.  

 

Post-Tutorial Update (Sept. 17, 2024)

Missed our tutorial last week or want to watch it again? 

➡️ Watch the recording of the tutorial. 

➡️ Download the handout for the tutorial.

What We're Reading: August 2024

Summer is over and what an epic summer we've had! From reading about Kamala Harris's historic democratic nomination for president, beginning with her 2003 run for SF DA and through to the celebratory selfies at the DNC; to the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, which saw the amazing placing of Cal and Stanford athletes, who outperformed some countries; to our own race for San Francisco mayor heating up (where do the candidates stand on public safety?)—there has been no lack of riveting articles to inform us. Nonetheless, this August edition of What We're Reading is serving up some articles to give a break from the exhilarating and exhausting news cycle we've been on. 

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The best livestream so far this year? A corpse flower slowly blooming

New Scientist, August 10, 2024

Read it in Flipster, an eMags platform courtesy of SFPL

For journalist Annalee Newitz, this was a favorite story to write this year. As they said on the social media platform Bluesky, "Plant time is the best way to get away from social media chaos." Watching the plant slowly grow day by day on livestream wasn't the only draw; spectators also got to watch the blossom's owner cut a small "window" in its spathe in order to be fertilized by pollen from a corpse flower in another state. After 13 years of growth, this corpse flower gave virtual watchers the ability to unplug from tech while using tech, and get pretty emotionally invested in the process.

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She Survived the Maui Wildfires. She Couldn’t Survive the Year After.

New York Times, Aug 21, 2024 

This story, which is available to SFPL patrons through the weblink above rather than in any print edition we can offer, follows the trajectory of wildfire refugee Edralina Diezon following the 2023 Lahaina fires in Hawaii. Having emigrated from her homeland of the Philippines to Lahaina in 2015, Diezon worked as a janitor at a local hotel and managed to survive the wildfires by sheltering there. But, as the article explores, getting help following the disaster was ultimately too difficult.

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SF Investor Uprooting Businesses

San Francisco Chronicle, Aug 20, 2024 

This disturbing piece by business and real estate reporter Laura Waxmann started ringing alarm bells in our neck of the woods as it doled out bad news for legacy businesses like the beloved restaurant La Med in the upper Fillmore. Good news came a few days later in an August 27 follow-up about proposed legislation from supervisor Aaron Peskin that would protect these businesses and was tempered by a contrarian piece in the SF Standard that ran August 26. Update 9/30: Investor in the project Neil Mehta counters the "sinister plan" in an SF Standard op ed.

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Gen-Z Is Killing the Curveball

FanGraphs, August 22, 2024 

Baseball writer Michael Baumann is a poet! In this online and openly accessible piece, he rhapsodizes about the disinvestment in the curveball by younger pitchers who prefer the slider for its efficiency. Baumann characterizes his beloved curveball as a "calligraphy brush, all swooping lines and fine control," while the "changeup is a Blackwing pencil, rich and precise, its marks here one moment and gone the next." The worse insult comes for the slider: it "is a crayon." Sports writing is anything but dull in this piece, which reads as a sext in praise of the finer nuances of a baseball's movement.

Recap: Bound Magazine Bingo Activity

On Saturday, August 24, the Magazines and Newspapers Center presented a program featuring an intriguing selection of magazines from SFPL's extensive archive of bound volumes. Presented in partnership with the Art, Music, and Recreation Center, the activity was called Bound Magazine Bingo, and participants were given bingo cards whose squares had different types of content you could expect to find in historic magazines. The objective was to find examples of the types of content on the bingo cards in the magazines in order to win a prize. 

What is a bound magazine? 

Magazines are published as individual issues per time interval (week, month, bi-monthly, etc.) and after a certain amount of issues have been published, the library's team sends them to a bindery to get combined into a single volume. Using the term "bound magazines" is meant to signify the historical characteristic of the object; if a magazine's issues have been around long enough to be bound, then it is no longer "current" and has passed into the realm of presumed historical significance. 

A participant looks through a volume of McCall's next to a book cart of bound magazines

How do you play bingo with bound magazines?

Rather than participants relying on a person calling numbers to mark on a bingo card, they are self-directed in attempting to find various content types in the magazines. The content types for which they search are indicated on the squares on the bingo cards, and participants mark off the content types they find with a highlighter. Those who mark off a row, column, or diagonal of squares can win a prize, and anyone who can achieve a "black-out card"--getting every single square--wins a grand prize.

Honestly though, participants just loved the ability to freely graze on the interesting selection of magazines on hand. 

Participants play bingo with bound magazines

What magazines were included? 

A librarian from the Art, Music, and Recreation Center at the Main Library curated the selection of magazines, and drew heavily on design magazines of all types. Anyone up for some Art Direction, Communication Arts, Step-by-Step Graphics, or Designers West? The selection also included staples from annals of American magazines like McCall's, Vogue, Thrasher, and Better Homes and Gardens. Special shout-out to the extremely historically significant magazine Soviet Life, volumes of which we had on hand for 1967 and 1980. 

>> See the full list of magazines.

You can request any of these magazines on the 5th floor of the Main Library even if you missed the bingo game! 

Two carts holdings the selection of bound magazines pulled for the game 

When is the next time the Bound Magazine Bingo activity will be offered?

Hopefully soon! Let us know a time that would work for your schedule in the comments. 

An example of one of three bingo cards!