The Michigan eLibrary will be unavailable for most of the day on Wednesday, February 27, 2008 so that a scheduled upgrade to the MeL software may be installed. Beginning at 12:01am on February 27th you will not be able to use MeL databases from home, search MeLCat or place new requests on MeLCat until the scheduled maintenance is completed.

Your online AADL account will still show due dates for items borrowed through MeLCat but renewals online may get a "server unavailable" message. Please contact us or call the AADL Renewal Line at 327-4219 for help with MeL renewals.

As you may have noticed, we've added a few new features to aadl.org today. First, we are delighted to offer Video On Demand, which provides instant access to video of past library events and other library productions, such as our Annual Report, presented in video format for the first time! You can also download high-quality or iPod versions of each video, or subscribe to a video or audio podcast through iTunes that will automatically download new video of library productions as they are added to the collection. You can find the new Video On Demand page at http://aadl.org/video, or on the events page.

We've also added links at the top of the page that allow visitors to aadl.org to have the site automatically translated into one of 6 languages: Arabic, Chinese Simplified, Japanese, Korean, Russian or Spanish. Please note that this is machine translation, which means that the quality of the translation will not be as good as if a human had translated the content. However, our polyglot patrons are encouraged to point their mouse at translations that they think could be better; a pop-up balloon with the original text and a link to suggest an improved translation will appear. You can also access the translated versions of the site directly using international language codes like so:

ar.aadl.org (Arabic)
zh-cn.aadl.org (Chinese Simplified)
ja.aadl.org (Japanese)
ko.aadl.org (Korean)
ru.aadl.org (Russian)
es.aadl.org (Spanish)

Our services brochure is also available in these 6 languages at any AADL location.

Finally, pictureAnnArbor, our collection of images contributed by patrons, also has a new feature. aadl.org users can now sign up online to get their own gallery within pictureAnnArbor, and then upload pictures to their gallery over the web. Browse pictureAnnArbor now to see what other have already contributed, and sign up today to join the project!

Thanks for using aadl.org, and please feel free to comment on this post or contact us if you have questions or feedback about these new products!

Thanks to a quick response from Comcast, email from AADL to Comcast email subscribers is again going through. However, some emails sent on 11/28 and 11/29 may have been missed and cannot be resent, so if you're a comcast subscriber, please be sure to check your myaccount page for the most up-to-date account information.

Thanks for your patience, and as always, please feel free to contactus or comment on this post if you have any questions.

eli

The Eighth Promise: An American Son's Tribute To His Toisanese Mother by William Poy Lee has been selected as the focus of the 2008 Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads. An eleven-member selection team, composed of community members, eduators, students and librarians from the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area chose The Eighth Promise (Rodale, 2007) from a group of three books, all of which centered on the theme China and America: Bridging Two Worlds.

Lee's memoir gives a rare view of the Chinese-American experience from a mother-son perspective. The story is told in two voices -- the author's and that of his mother. His moving and complex story unfolds simultaneously in his mother's war-torn childhood of China of the 1930s-40s and amidst the housing projects of San Francisco Chinatown of the 1960s-70s.

AADL is proud to present Ann Arbor Cooks, a new online database of local historical cookbooks and heirloom recipes, created in partnership with the Washtenaw County Historical Society, the Culinary Historians of Ann Arbor and Ann Arbor Hadassah. The Washtenaw County Historical Society provided the core collection of cookbooks from their archives at the Museum on Main Street and will play a continuing role in enhancing the online collection with more items from their archives. Ann Arbor Cooks also presents a complete set of digital copies of Repast, a publication of the Culinary Historians of Ann Arbor. So dig in! You can search or browse the entire collection of recipies; read the cookbooks cover to cover; or send us recipes of your own.

The Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area has a five-year history of successful community reads programs which encourage all of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti to read one book. University, Library, bookstore and community representatives from both Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti have been planning Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads 2008 for several months.

In 2008, the program will encourage readers of all ages to explore the theme China and America: Bridging Two Worlds. A screening committee, which met throughout the summer, chose three titles for this year’s consideration:

Ha Jin, The Bridegroom: Stories. New York: Pantheon Books, 2000.

William Poy Lee, The Eighth Promise: An American Son's Tribute to His Toisanese Mother. Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale, c2007.

Anchee Min, Red Azalea. New York: Pantheon Books, 1994.

More information about these titles may be found on the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads website at aareads.org – and there is an opportunity for individuals to blog their comments for each title on that site. In late October, a selection committee will choose one of these titles to be the focus of the Read.

The Downtown Library and all Library Branches will be closed on Monday, September 3 for Labor Day. Regular Library hours will resume on Tuesday, September 4.

Power has been restored, and Malletts Creek Branch is again open for business until 9 PM Wednesday. Regular hours will resume on Thursday. Thanks for your patience!

Last evening around 9:00 PM someone released a chemical agent inside a restroom at the Westgate Branch and at the nearby Kroger store. The buildings were evacuated and closed. While there are suspects, no one has been apprehended. Several people were transported to UM Hospital, treated and released.

The library has been cleared to open by health department and law enforcement officials, and will be open at Noon today, Thursday, July 26.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Josie

Wednesday July 25, 2007: 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm -- Downtown Library Multi-Purpose Room

All are invited to an opening reception for the Downtown Library 50th Anniversary Exhibit. The reception will honor past and current staff, Boards of Directors, Friends of the AADL and the public for their support during the half-century of the Downtown Library's existence. Enjoy light refreshments and the music of classical guitarist Matthew Ardizzone as you view this historical exhibit, on display in the lower level display cases from July 18 - August 30. Celebrate our history!

Using archival photographs, Library memorabilia and historical text, this exhibit, created by AADL staff, highlights the changes the Downtown Library has undergone during its half-century history. Milestones are displayed decade by decade in this special exhibit, from the construction of the Downtown location, through two major building renovations, the introduction of personal computers and the Internet, to the current branch expansion program.

Due to today's closure of the Downtown Library, the event featuring the film "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple" has been cancelled. The event will be rescheduled at a later date.

The Downtown library will re-open today, Wednesday, June 7 at 1:00 PM. All programs and events scheduled for this afternoon and evening will occur as planned.

Holds ready for pickup on Tuesday and Wednesday will be extended until Friday, June 8 and Saturday, June 9.

Fines will not accrue on items returned in dropboxes Downtown while the Library was closed.

This closure was a significant inconvenience for many, and we do apologize.

We are very happy to be able to open the doors today!

Josie

Hear a podcast and see photos of the March 7 clearing of the ash trees from the construction site of the new branch library at Traverwood Drive and Huron Parkway on The Environment Report of the Great Lakes Radio Consortium on National Public Radio.

On Wed., March 7, Rex and Andy, two beautiful, black draft horses, pulled dead ash logs from the construction site of the new branch. The event was covered by Lester Graham, producer of The Environment Report. The purpose of the horses' work was threefold: they had much less of an impact on the forest floor than machinery; the wood Rex and Andy hauled will be used as building material and support beams in the new branch library; and the visible support beams will serve as a valuable environmental lesson of the devastation of the emerald ash borer. Nice work, boys!

The ADDY Awards are the world's largest and arguably toughest advertising competition, with over 60,000 entries nationally each year. The Library is proud to announce that the AADL youth events brochure Jump has received two ADDY Awards for event schedules, bookmarks, and illustrations in the categories of Advertising for the Arts & Sciences Campaign and Elements of Advertising (Illustration).

Designed by graphic designer Heidi Sheffield, Jump is a favorite publication around the Library for parents, kids and staff! Heidi also won Best of Show for the 2006 Ann Arbor Book Festival advertising campaign. Congratulations, Heidi!