November is First Person, SFPL's celebration of Native American heritage and culture. From our reading list at the Magazines and Newspapers Center, here are five articles we recommend on the status of the Land Back movement and indigenous land ownership attitudes in California. Along with some annotations to guide your engagement with these articles, we provide access notes so you can get the most out of your library card and follow these publications year round. Thanks to Gregory Hom, program manager of the Environmental Center at the Main Library, for help putting together this bibliography.
Thursday, November 21, 2024
Land Back in California: A Brief Annotated Bibliography for the 2020s
Saturday, November 16, 2024
Flashback: October 1909 at the Park Branch
MNC Blog Editor Note: Please enjoy this guest post by Doreen Horstin, SFPL Park Branch Manager
Park Branch Library, located in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood, recently celebrated 115 years of service to the community at their annual Open House. Placed near the front door was an October 1909 bound volume of the San Francisco Call, a local newspaper that ran, under various names, from 1859 to 1959 and that was published by Charles M. Shortridge and John D. Spreckels.
A bound volume of the San Francisco Call containing issues from 1909 invites browsing at the Park Branch Library Open House |
What was happening in 1909? Theodore Roosevelt was President, followed by William Howard Taft in March of that year, the NAACP was founded on February 12th, the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, Sigmund Freud arrived in New York City to deliver a series of lectures on psychoanalysis, and in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood, San Francisco Public Library Branch Number 5 – the Park Branch – opened to the public on October 29th. The Park Branch has operated continuously in the same building ever since.
This year, during the Park Branch Open House, patrons carefully flipped through the pages of the October 1909 San Francisco Call. Many news items are recognizable even today:
President Taft toured San Francisco's post-earthquake recovery, laying the cornerstone for the YMCA building at Golden Gate Avenue and Leavenworth, amongst other activities; Secretary of the Interior R. A. Ballinger visited Sacramento to weigh in on the Hetch Hetchy dam project, assuring the public that they would continue to have public access rights to Lake Tahoe; In Berkeley, local members of the SPCA met to discuss the treatment of animals held in shelters; in Manila, a local man was arrested for his role in smuggling opium; pickpockets continued to torment passengers on streetcars; and in baseball, the Philadelphia Athletics headed to San Francisco for a match against the Seals.
Many more eye-catching items are contained within the pages of the San Francisco Call and other archived newspapers. One can easily spend hours marveling at ads for shoes and clothes (such low prices!), chuckling at remedies for dandruff, eczema and varicose veins and gazing at the society pages. To see more, visit the friendly staff at the Magazine and Newspaper Center at the Main Library where this newspaper is available on microfilm.
An advertisement for Sterling Furniture, $1 per yard of carpet and lace curtains for $0.35 each. October 2, 1909, the Morning Call |
A political cartoon of President Taft on the eve of his visit to California, Daily Morning Call, October 2, 1909. |
Friday, November 15, 2024
100th Anniversary of the Legion of Honor
"It's art that keeps us thinking" - Virginia Ernster (San Francisco Fine Art Museums Docent)
Rodin's Thinker, a crown jewel of the Legion of Honor |
Happy 100 year anniversary to a fine art museum of San Francisco, the Legion of Honor, an edifice fashioned after the Palais de la Légion d’Honneur in Paris—one that stands at a Californian's edge of the world, Land's End at the Golden Gate rather than on the Seine—on the Western coast of the United States, looking out on the Marin Headlands and the Pacific Ocean.
View from the Legion of Honor toward the Marin Headlands on a rainy April day |
The museum was the passion project of Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, nicknamed "the great grandmother of San Francisco" for the impact her philanthropy had on the development of the City's culture and environmental form. Her vision took hold when she beheld the French Pavilion at the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition, which was fashioned as a replica of the Palais de la Légion d’Honneur in Paris at 3/4ths scale, and conceived of the plan to bring a building in that form to San Francisco permanently as an art museum.
The French Pavilion at the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, 1915 |
After a delay caused by the Great War, the museum went on to come to fruition and was dedicated on November 11, 1924, Armistice Day. Spreckels populated the museum with art from her own collection, and visited France many times over the years to further collect art, drawing on her friendship with Loie Fuller to meet new artists. It was Fuller who introduced Spreckels to the sculptor Rodin and encouraged her to purchase the famous piece the Thinker, which presides over the courtyard of the Legion of Honor to this day (although it did moonlight in Golden Gate Park for a spell, before the Museum opened).
"Whatever cenotaph was unveiled or tribute paid yesterday to the heroic dead..."
"...no Armistice Day observance the world over was more impressive than that which attended the dedication of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor," according to the San Francisco Examiner, reporting on November 12, 1924 of the previous day's ceremony (page 17). The paper devoted most of the front page of a special section to covering the grand opening and other Armistice Day ceremonies throughout the City. It included a photograph of the courtyard of the Legion of Honor filled with attendees as well as a portrait of M. Alfred Tirman, Counsellor of the State of France [sic], Mrs. Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, donor, and San Francisco Mayor James Rolph.
View the November 12, 1924 issue of the San Francisco Examiner (SFPL card required)
"The Monument... is dedicated to honor and country in memory of the heroes of the World war"
On November 12, the San Francisco Chronicle devoted about a half-page to covering the dedication of the new museum, reporting on the attendance of prominent people, the genesis of the idea for the museum from the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition, the features of the building (like the Theater), and the attributes of the art collection. The article includes a composite portrait of William F. Humphrey, John D. Spreckels, Senator Samuel M. Shortridge, and Mrs. Alma De Bretteville Spreckels.
View the November 12, 1924 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle (SFPL card required)
Find out more about the history of our "palace that will endure for centuries" by visiting the FAMSF's webpage, "Legion of Honor history," and check out the calendar of special events and free openings the museum will be running for the coming year.
Additionally, SFPL will be hosting several upcoming programs related to the Legion of Honor at 100, talks delivered by the museum's wonderful docents.
Remember, here in the Magazines and Newspapers Center, we are able to offer the entire backfile of both the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner, so the historic research doesn't end with the centennial of the Legion of Honor!
Thursday, October 31, 2024
What We're Reading October 2024
Of note this October is what we're not reading rather than what we are reading. What we've been deprived of is a presidential endorsement from the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, which has kicked up a lot of criticism in the form of resignations and a major backlash of subscription cancellations. Thankfully our hometown paper, the San Francisco Chronicle, is planning on running an endorsement, although it makes us wonder if Nov 3 is too late for such things. Regardless, we're continuously grazing on pieces of periodically produced media, so here's our October Four.
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New York Magazine, October 21, 2024 issue
The front cover dares to state Media Elites Tell All! But inside the covers, awash in catchy, bold graphic design, New York magazine's new issue is devoted to the inquiry of "Can the Media Survive?" and they interviewed "57 of the Most Powerful People in Media" for it, including the editors of some big legacy print magazines. They further tackle questions that preoccupy us around these parts, like "What's the Point of Print?" and "Why Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong Hasn't Turned Around the L.A. Times."
You can read New York magazine on the digital magazine platform PressReader.
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Joy Boy: Mychal the Librarian reminds us there is so much good in the world
Curl Magazine, Fall 2024
Celebrity librarian Mychal Threets is out here reppin' us librarians on our bad days (see the NYT piece "Librarians Face a Crisis of Violence and Abuse"), on our good days (see his celebration The Library Afro Revolution), and every day in between. So we were tickled to see his hair spa treatment in the new issue of Curl magazine, where he also chatted with the mag about inclusivity and hair pride at the library. He's on the cover and in a feature article where stylist Gina Marie Rodriguez helps him reach his "big Afro goals."
You can read Curl Magazine on the digital magazine platform Flipster.
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Of Note: Cats in Clara’s Correspondence
Unfolding History: Manuscripts at the Library of Congress, October 24, 2024
While this one isn't from any type of periodical you would need SFPL for, who doesn't love connecting with cat lovers both past and present? This Library of Congress blog explores evidence of cat affection in the Clara Barton Papers, especially in context with Barton's relief efforts in Europe with Antoinette Margot following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War and the resulting relationship between the two women.
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Walk-off Slam Was Product of Work with Dad
Los Angeles Times, October 27, 2024
As we know now, the Dodgers won the 2024 World Series by locking up game 4 last night, but spectators were left breathless at the end of the first game of the series when Freddie Freeman scored a walk-off grand slam with the bases loaded. The Athletic's Andy McCullough did poetic justice to the night in his write-up, but the LA Times' Jack Harris went straight to the heart-strings with his retelling of Freeman's long afternoons spent practicing with his dad in SoCal sandlots. Whether or not you're celebrating for the Dodgers, ruing their win, or are completely indifferent, take a peak at this article for some good sports writing.
Wednesday, October 23, 2024
Share Your Thoughts on “False Star” by Sterling HolyWhiteMountain
Read the short story “False Star” by Sterling HolyWhiteMountain about a young Blackfeet man who turns eighteen and comes into money due to him from a claim check. Leave a comment on this blog post in response to the suggested discussion questions below.
In the beginning of HolyWhiteMountain’s story from the March 20, 2023 issue of the New Yorker, the narrator explains: “As far back as I could remember, I had heard discussion of claim checks. There was something elemental about it: the talk circled round in a seasonal way. People joked about being claim-check rich and then later laughed about being claim-check broke. They bought claim-check cars, got claim-check drunk, and some got claim-check married. That’s how it was for us for a long time, until the money ran out. The Feds are never more careful with limits and end dates on their moral awakenings than they are with us, such is the concern that we might steal the whole country right out from under them. Then we were back to where we were before, a bunch of broke skins way out on the Northern Plains, teasing one another. So this is a story about how I got my part of the money, how I spent it, and the people in my life at that time, such as Big Man, who raised me, and of course June, who I loved before any other, and who has been gone now longer than any of us had the chance to know her when she was alive.”
Read the story in Flipster, a platform that offers access to hundreds of digital magazines, and click "Post a comment" or "comment," below, to share your thoughts on these discussion questions.
- Have you ever come into a windfall of a large sum of money like the narrator in the story? What did you spend it on?
- In “False Star,” the narrator ultimately buys a black Bronco which transforms him into "look[ing] rich or at least like a real fancy guy” (53). Later he describes having a car as the equivalent of an Indian having a good warhorse. What was your first car and how did getting it transform the way you saw yourself?
- In many ways, this is a story about the Blackfeet and their land—the claim check that is the catalyst for the story stems from the tribe selling the Sweet Grass Hills to the U.S. Federal Government during a period of duress. How does the environment play a role in this story? Feel free to quote sections of text that describe the land. What effect do these descriptions have on the overall narrative?
Resources
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
Digital Newspapers In Spanish on PressReader
Read newspapers from all over the world in Spanish by using the platform PressReader. There you can find US newspapers in Spanish, newspapers from countries where Spanish is an official language, and newspapers in Spanish from countries you wouldn't expect (like Switzerland and China!).
Don't know what PressReader is? It's a website and an app available through SFPL that provides digital versions of thousands of popular magazines and newspapers exactly the way the print publication appears. See more:
FAQ: Q. How do I access newspapers and magazines on PressReader?
Here are step-by-step instructions on how to read Spanish-language newspapers in PressReader. These instructions are for a desktop/laptop experience in a web browser. Following them on the app will be similar, but may be different.
1. Navigate to PressReader
You can do this in a variety of ways, including through the Articles & Databases menu on the SFPL website, the eMagazines and eNews menu, the SFPL FAQ knowledge base, or through this direct link.
2. Select Newspapers
After closing the initial "hot spot" page menu, go down the page until you see the Newspapers section. Click Newspapers.
3. Find the Language Menu
Look on the right side of the PressReader screen for a menu that says All Languages. Click that to expand the language options. Choose Spanish and click done.
Screenshot showing location of the language menu on the right of the screen. Click to enlarge. |
4. Find the Country/Region Menu
Further refine the selection of Spanish language newspapers in front of you by clicking the menu next to the language menu, All Countries/Regions. Here you can pick a country, including most countries in Central and South America, some in the Caribbean, as well as countries in Europe.
Screenshot showing location of the Country/Region menu on the right of the screen. Click to enlarge. |
5. Bonus: Create an Account
Bonus step - create an account to "heart" a publication and add it to your favorites. If you do this, next time you bring up PressReader, your favorite Spanish-language newspaper will be at the top of the list. This is an optional step that is not necessary, but if you want to do it, just look for the green "Sign-Up" button on the top right of the screen in PressReader.
Screenshot showing location of green heart to "add to my publications" on a newspaper landing page. Click to enlarge. |
6. Going Further: Advanced Features
Captivated by PressReader now? It offers additional language features. Check out the short article Translating Titles & Articles. You can also change the interface display language by going to the top right corner of the screen, clicking on the three dots, and changing the language from English to your preference. For power users who are logged into their account, it is possible to Set Up Topics in your saved searches, and indicate Spanish or any other language as your preference there.
Screenshot showing location of preferences menu, which includes the interface language option. Click to enlarge. |
Saturday, October 5, 2024
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
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.
Friday, October 4, 2024
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.
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.
- 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?
- 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?
- 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.
- 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
Tuesday, October 1, 2024
Upcoming Programs in the Environmental Center
Speaker: Alejandro Lazo of CalMatters
Tuesday, 10/29/2024
5:30 - 6:30
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
Wednesday, 10/30/2024
6:00 - 7:00
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
Monday, September 30, 2024
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.