David @ Online Services Archive.

The new Burien Library opened to rave reviews and great fanfare on Saturday June 13th. Not only is it an astonishingly beautiful building, not only does it bring the library into the city's public commons (the city hall is across the hall), not only does have a huge collection of materials to borrow, but there was a marching band at the opening ceremony. And a clown...

If you missed the fun, we've got photos on Flickr, video on Youtube, and an interview with one of the building's architects.

Better yet, stop on by and check it out yourself...

Full service ConsumerReports.org is now available through KCLS. Use it in our libraries or from anywhere you've got web access - all you need is your KCLS library card. 

Across King County people are feeling the economic pinch: layoffs, reduced hours, decreased benefits and mounting bills. To help our community members cope and get back on their feet, KCLS is hosting Look To Your Library..especially now : how-to demonstrations of the latest job-search and financial tools.

For an entire week, Friday May 1 - Friday May 8, 2009, most KCLS libraries will open one hour early.  During the first two open hours every day that week, librarians will demonstrate the latest job-search tools.

We'll also be blogging right here on many of the same services over the next two weeks - please come back for more...

When times get tough, look to your library for information, ideas and inspiration. Find much more at Look To Your Library......especially now!

Join us at the Covington Library on April 11th for the latest installment of TechConnect.

Are your friends on Facebook recommending good books, music and movies? 

Nick Cave is coming to the Pacific Northwest for the first time in years next week - he and the Bad Seeds will be performing at the Showbox Sodo on the 23rd and the 24th of September.   

Thank goodness for baby sitters.

The bad news is that the shows are all sold out.

The good news?  KCLS can help you feel better about missing out.  Well, a little bit better...

KCLS Music Collections

We've got an incredible collection of music for you to borrow - CDs and DVDs - go ahead and search our collections for the songs you've got stuck in your head.  

We've also got a growing collection of online music - streaming collections (African American Song, Smithsonian Global Sound, and Classical Music Library) and downloadables.

And Nick Cave?

Try this search for everything under the sun.

Or head straight to his latest (Dig Lazarus Dig!, The Abbatoir Blues Tour DVD), some of his greatest (Henry's Dream, The Lyre of Oprheus) or some of his many other endeavors (The Proposition, Lectures: The Secret Life Of The Love Song, guesting with Dan Zanes, the I'm Your Man DVD) and get these items sent to your home library for pickup.

You've seen it at the mall. You've seen it at the airport. You've seen it, I'm hoping, on the KCLS website.

Rosetta Stone online language learning lessons have been available free to anyone with a KCLS library card for nearly three years now. Our subscription, I'm sorry to add, expires at the end of this month - Rosetta has, for all intents and purposes, dropped out of the public library business.

But they aren't the only game in town - KCLS now offers free access to Mango Languages. And all you need to get started is your library card...

Mango Languages currently offers language instruction in Chinese (Mandarin), French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish and Russian with Arabic and Korean coming soon.  Mango also offers ESL language instruction to native speakers of Polish, Spanish and Portuguese (Brazilian).

Each language is divided into 100 lessons. And in those 100 lessons? Expect to encounter audio from native speakers, phonetic transcriptions, and quizzes to test your learning. 

Even better?  You'll be able to continue your language learning without interruption or start fresh in the coming school year.

Welcome to Library Talk.  It's a blog.  It's the official blog of the King County Library System.

We're very glad you made it.

Our library system is one of the best in the country because of our amazing staff.  And many of these smart folks, from all corners of King County, will be writing for Library Talk.

 

Our bloggers will recommend great books, interesting music, fabulous movies you'll want to check out.  They will highlight the amazing array of online resources available to those of you using our libraries - downloadable audio books, research databases, author interview podcasts, you name it.  Some of our bloggers will promote services to teachers, others to genealogy enthusiasts, still others to new parents.

All in all, Library Talk will be focused in 6 areas.

• Collections is for everyone - our bloggers will write about the books, movies, downloads, and anything else you find in the KCLS catalog.
• Events is for anyone interested in the big events going on in KCLS libraries.
• Online is for anyone online - our bloggers will write about research databases, ebooks, and a host of other excellent kcls.org features.
• Parents is targeted to parents and caregivers - our bloggers will write about story times, early literacy, summer reading, and much more.
• Teachers is targeted to teachers and home schooling families - our bloggers will write about teaching tools, new research databases, tips on making the most of the library and anything in between.
• Teens is, of course, for teens - our bloggers will write about Game On! tournaments, books, events, and plenty more.
• So welcome to Library Talk and, please, come again.