And the Oscar Goes to: A Book

The Academy Awards took place Sunday.  The nominees were particularly literary this year. Six of the nine best picture nominees were based on books: The Descendants, The Help, Moneyball, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Hugo and War Horse.  Hugo, the film with the most nominations (11), was based on a children’s book, Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Even comics got their due: The Adventures of Tin Tin was based on Herge’s classic graphic novels and was nominated for Best Musical Score.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 even had three nominations: for Art Direction, Make-up and Visual Effects.  Three of the five best actors nominated gave performances based on characters in a book - George Clooney for The Descendants, Brad Pitt for Moneyball and Gary Oldman for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – as did all five of the best actress nominees – Viola Davis for The Help, Glenn Close for Albert Nobbs, Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady, Michelle Williams for My Week With Marilyn and Rooney Mara for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. The Ridgefield Library has or can get all these books.  Why not experience these Oscar nominated tales in their original, print form?  You can even eat popcorn while reading them!

Contributed by Geri Diorio, Teen Services Librarian and Head of Children's Services

New Loan Period & Packaging for Series DVDs

Good news for fans of DVD series! We know that it has been frustrating to try to reserve the individual episodes of “Lost” or “Mad Men” in proper order, since our public catalog interface does not allow patrons to place a hold on a single volume of a series. From now on, all the individual DVDs in one mini-series or one season of a television show will be packaged together and lent as one item. To allow you time to view them all, we have extended the loan period on these special packages to 14 days, with one renewal if there is no waiting list (regular DVDs still circulate for 7 days). So now you can enjoy these popular items in proper sequence, without having to juggle multiple reserve requests that inevitably appear in the wrong order. Just find the item you want in the catalog and place one simple request - or ask library staff to do it for you if you prefer.

Series DVDs are shelved in a separate section (indicated as such in the catalog), which we are moving to the near end of the DVD aisle, where it will be even easier to find what you want.

Library Holiday Closings

Mark these dates on your calendar as you plan your schedule for the holidays. The Library will be closed on Thursday, December 24th and Friday, December 25th. We will, however, be open for business as usual on Saturday the 26th (9:00 AM to 5:00 PM) and Sunday the 27th (1:00 to 5:00 PM).

The next week, we will close at 3:00 PM on New Year’s Eve (Thursday) and will remain closed on January 1st. Regular hours resume on Saturday the 2nd.

Our program schedule will be lighter than usual over the holidays, but some activities will continue, including Saturday morning Drop-in Storytime on December 26th and January 2nd. And, of course, we have plenty of DVDs for family viewing, good reads to enliven vacation hours, audiobooks for long car trips, cookbooks for last-minute entertaining tips and quiet study space and online reference tools for the college student trying to keep up with class assignments over the break.

If your life gets hectic in the next few weeks, don’t forget you can reserve or renew items online or by phone. Check www.ridgefieldlibrary.org for other helpful resources you can access any time without leaving home.

New Shelving Arrangement for Movies

You may have noticed changes to the arrangement of DVDs and videos at the Ridgefield Library.

Children’s entertainment movies are all now shelved front and center near the circulation desk. While our collections are now predominantly in DVD format, we still own a sizable number of kids’ films on VHS cassette to accommodate all those households with an old VCR in the playroom.

Also in this area are television shows on DVD, filed by the name of the series. From Masterpiece Theater classics to the latest HBO hits, this is one of the most popular and fastest growing collections in the Library.

Other entertainment-style films are shelved alphabetically by title in the first aisle, near the Storytime Sculpture Room. Foreign language films, formerly shelved on separate display units, are now interfiled with other movies and may be distinguished by a red or pink spine label with the letter L.

Children’s educational films are filed by Dewey Decimal number in Children’s Services, and other documentaries and instructional videos are interfiled with books on the same topic in the adult non-fiction section.

To assist families in finding appropriate viewing material, we have put colored spine labels on all movies indicating their rating from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) or similar organization in other countries (i.e. G, PG, PG-13, etc.). Be advised that not all films have been rated, especially those created for television or produced outside of the US. These items have a blue spine label marked NR. An NR designation does not necessarily mean that the content is appropriate for all viewers, simply that no rating has been done. Parents are cautioned to review all material before screening for their children, as even a G-rated film like “Bambi” could contain situations that may be frightening or inappropriate for certain youngsters.