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The Mechanics’ Institute now offers free access to 19 popular magazines in digital format through a partnership with Record Books Digital and Zinio Digital Magazines.

These eMagazines can be read on an iPhone, iPad, or Android device using the free Zinio app.  They can also be read on a computer using any up-to-date internet browser like Internet Explorer 9, Google Chrome, or Mozilla Firefox.

The titles are always available, have no checkout limit, and you can keep them for as long as you like with no fines.

The San Francisco Opera has announced their 2012-2013 season. For those wanting to gain some familiarity with the operas, here are list of our resources that will help you get better acquainted with next season's selections.

Rigoletto
Verdi
"One of opera's most vivid and compelling characters, a vengeful court jester, desperately tries to protect his daughter from disaster in this heart-wrenching tragedy." -SF Opera's website
CD - Pavarotti

In recognition of National Poetry Month in April, a few staff and members met during lunch mid-month to play some the surrealist poetry-related party games Exquisite Cadaver and Opposites. Here are the results:

Exquisite Cadaver

Poem 1
The disturbed tree obiliterated her frantic spittoon,
A vicious elephant responded to our brilliant studio,
Many a cruel pantechnicon shimmered proud of the extraordinary children.
--Mary Andrea Peters

It's Saturday and 75-degrees in San Francisco.

Being at work and only able to admire the sunlight from afar, Donna and I decided to whip together a display highlighting urban/indoor gardening, recipes for those fresh veggies, and general information on the slow food movement. The display will be on the third floor all month for those with Spring in mind, but here are a few of the titles. You can also view a list of all the materials online.

Urban Gardening

Available in [Print] from the Library

The Library's online catalog (search.milibrary.org) will be down for a few hours on Sunday morning, February 26, to undergo server maintenance. During this time you will be unable to search for materials or log in to your library account to view your items out, renew items, or manage holds. Access to eBook checkout and download will also be unavailable.

Everything should be back up and running in the afternoon. Thank you for your patience.

Daybreak (741.5 R163)
Brian Ralph

A good read for fans of the zombie genre, Daybreak is a first-person graphic novel seen through the eyes of a silent observer tackling the day-to-day task of surviving in a post-apocalyptic land filled with zombies and other threats.

At the end of the year there are always numerous Best Books of _____ lists that show up. Recently, the SF Chronicle compiled what they deem the best 100 books of 2011, but if you're like me and a 100 books seems rather daunting, the New York Times gives you the best 10 books of the year.

The library will be closed for two three-day weekends for the upcoming holidays:

• Saturday, December 24 - Monday, December 26
• Saturday, December 31 - Monday, January 2

Regular hours resume on the Tuesdays following the above weekends.

The building will be closed on:

• Saturday, December 24 - Sunday, December 25
• Sunday, January 1

A two-hour Cal Train ride yesterday made it easy for me wrap up reading a second National Book Award fiction finalist selection, The Sojourn by Andrew Krivak (available in Print and eBook). While not at poetically beautiful as fellow finalist The Buddha in the Attic, this book left me with much to mull over.