There will be no sale at Terman on this date.

The library now offers a wonderful free way to remind you of due dates and to notify you when items on hold are available.  If you provide them with your e-mail address, you'll receive courtesy notices a few days before any checked-out items are due.  Another e-mail will come if you have items overdue by ten days (ouch!).  The same service sends you a notice when an item you've requested becomes available for you to check out.  It takes but a moment to sign up for this new service, and it beats having to keep track of all your due dates.

All Palo Alto Libraries will be closed on Monday, September 1 for the Labor Day Holiday.

The Friends of the Palo Alto Library Annual Meeting will take place on the evening of October 30 at the Arts Center.  More information will be provided in upcoming newsletters.

Behind the scenes of every book sale, our accounting staff busily totals up the sales figures while we all eagerly await the news.  For July 2003, which includes special sales at Terman and the Children's Library, our book sales raised over $13,600.  This is our second best month ever (recall how happy we were to raise $11,700 in June).  Plus, the book sales raised over $120,000 in our fiscal year that ended in June 2003, despite the move to Cubberley and the closing of Terman, which continues to disrupt our operations.  Our thanks to our thousands of customers, our donors who provide us with tens of thousands of books a month, and the 104 volunteers who put in close to 12,000 hours at the book sales over this last year.

Although you may think of our book sales as the second Saturday in every month, we've held nine additional special sales at other times this past year too.  The best way to learn of these special sales is via this newsletter, as we cannot always advertise in the local papers.  If you're not receiving this free newsletter directly, e-mail us to sign up.  We follow a strict privacy policy and will not give out your e-mail address to anyone else and will use it ourselves only for this newsletter.

As you know, our Cubberley sales room is completely overflowing with books, so we've been looking for adjacent space as well.  Even before we moved into Cubberley, the city was aware that the space allocated to us was insufficient.  For the next six months, we've been granted an extra 800 square foot space at Cubberley that's a relatively short walk from our present room.  After that, we're hopeful even more space at Cubberley will become available for us.  In the meantime, we'll let you know what books you'll find in the new room in future editions of this newsletter.  Also, see today's Palo Alto Weekly article.

The Downtown Library will cease operations soon if the Palo Alto City Council decides to accept the recent proposal of the Library Advisory Commission.  We've carefully analyzed the Commission's proposal and believe that closing the Downtown Library will hurt Palo Alto and its libraries.  Despite its limited hours, the Downtown Library is very busy, with over 100,000 annual visits in each of the last two years.  The closure is not mandated by funding cuts, as the current library budget has enough money to operate the branch four days a week.  Rather, the closure seeks to add a few hours to each of three other branches, but not in a way that would offset the major impact on the Downtown community.  Indeed, since staffing at the Main Library would not be increased despite the expected influx of Downtown users, service is likely to deteriorate there as well.

The Library Advisory Commission has held no public hearings on the proposed closure, conducted no surveys, and provided no analysis of the closure's impact on the community, library use, library staffing ratios, seating, parking, and traffic. 

The Board of the Friends of the Palo Alto Library has therefore voted unanimously to oppose the closing and to work with others to keep the Downtown Library open.  Over 700 signatures have already been collected to present to the City Council.   The City Council will hold a special study session on the proposal on September 29 from 6 pm to 8 pm and we urge you to attend and learn more.  There's much more information at our web site as well.

Using funds from the Friends of the Palo Alto Library, the library now offers free online practice entrance exams that you can take from home or at a library computer.  This spectacular set of tests covers everything from 4th grade academics though graduate school admissions.  It takes just a minute to register, using a Palo Alto Library card, and then you can immediately start taking the exams.  Here's what's available:

Academic: 4th Grade, 8th Grade, Catholic High School, FCAT, NYC Specialized High School, TASP 

Advanced Placement: Biology, Calculus, English Literature and Composition, U.S. History 

Basic Skills Success: Grammar For Writing Skills, Practical Math Skills, Reading Comprehension Skills, Vocabulary And Spelling Skills 

Civil Service: Civil Service Careers, Federal Clerical, Postal Worker 

College Preparation: ACT, CUNY, SAT Practice Tests, SAT Exam Success Course Series 

Cosmetology: Cosmetology 

EMS: EMT - Basic, Paramedic 

ESL (Spanish) Skills Improvement Courses: ESL Grammar For Writing, ESL Math, ESL Reading Comprehension, ESL Vocabulary And Spelling 

Firefighter: Firefighter 

GED: GED Preparation 

Graduate School Entrance: GMAT, GRE, LSAT, MCAT 

Law Enforcement: Border Patrol, California Highway Patrol, Corrections Officer, Police Officer, Police Sergeant, Treasury Enforcement Agent 

Military: ASVAB Preparation 

Nurse Aide: Nurse Aide/Nursing Assistant 

Real Estate: Broker, Sales Agent 

Skills Improvement Courses: Grammar for Writing, Practical Math, Reading Comprehension, Vocabulary and Spelling, SAT Exam Success Course Series 

Teacher Certification: CBEST, PPST: Praxis 1 

Technical And Career College: Math, Reading, Writing 

TOEFL Exam Preparation: About the TOEFL Exam, TOEFL Exam Study Skills and Strategies, TOEFL Exam Listening Comprehension, TOEFL Exam Structure-Grammar and Style, TOEFL Exam Reading Comprehension Skills, TOEFL Exam Writing Skills 

US Citizenship: U.S. Citizenship