Recommended link: choosing a wireless provider.

Here is a good consumer information page on wireless phones: http://tinyurl.com/yk9vl2. This site contains many objective, useful articles on various technology issues. Check it out!

A CalTrans highway closure is planned.

Beginning late Friday night Jan 12, and continuing through early Monday morning, Jan 15, Caltrans will be alternately closing the connecting ramps from both north- and southbound I-280 to southbound Route 87 to complete a critical roadway paving stage of the Route 87 HOV (South) project.

The library catalog will be down on January 9, 2007.

The library catalog will be down for a scheduled upgraded the morning of Tuesday, January 9, 2007 from 7:00 - 11:00 AM. This also includes My Account features - such as renewing items, placing hold requests, and paying fines online. Please make sure to log in over the weekend to take care of any account-related tasks.

Christmas trees will be collected until Februrary 2 for recycling.

San José expects to collect up to 200,000 trees!

Upcoming program at King Library: all about cleaning products.

There will be a free program of environmental education on cleaning products at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library on Saturday, January 27, 1:30 pm. Jessie Denver, the scientist at the Environmental Service Dept. specializes in the water quality of the S.F. Bay. Her previous presentation at King received excellent responses from the audience so this is an encore presentation.

Best Free Reference Web Sites 2006 from RUSA Machine-Assisted Reference Section (MARS).

The Machine-Assisted Reference Section (MARS) of RUSA has published its 8th annual list of Best Free Reference Sites. You can view the list here.

FYI: some network problems at our branch...

We're having some network problems; our systems will be intermittently on and off today. Vineland Branch is our closest branch and their systems are all up and running.

Happy New Year!

Have a safe and happy New Year! VTA will offer free rides all evening on New Year's Eve this year as in previous years. Other agencies will also offer similar free service throughout the Bay Area; be safe!

"You'll feel fine at the Library!" Enjoy this music interlude...

Sick of holiday tunes? Check out the Library Song! Link: http://www.cheekybeef.co.uk/library.html.

Holiday library closures...

All San Jose Public Library branches and King will be closed from December 24 through December 26. We will also be closed on December 31 for New Year's Eve, and on January 1 and 2. See http://www.sjlibrary.org/about/locations/holidays.htm for details. Happy Holidays!

Spare the Air!

The air quality tonight is forecast to be unhealthy. The Bay Area Air District is asking residents to refrain from burning wood in their fireplaces and woodstoves, and to drive less. To see the current air quality forecast, visit www.sparetheair.org.

Online document storage solutions.

As you know, you can't save anything to our library computers; you have to bring a USB flash drive or a disk. However, various online services do allow you to save documents to their servers and access it any time from any Internet-enabled computer; the librarians have tested and selected these particular services for you. See the list of services at http://www.sjlibrary.org/research/web/iguide_subjectList.htm?t=134&catID=1125.

All you have to do is select and copy your document, minimize Word, open a browser and navigate to one of these sites, register (which is usually fast and simple) and log in to it, paste your document on this site and save it there!

Search patents easily with Google Patent Search.

Google has a new Patent Search service. If you choose the Advanced Search option, you can search by inventor name, assignee name, international classification, and more.

Expect Link+ delays.

Between December 22nd and January 2nd many Link+ libraries will be closed for the holidays. Expect delays in the delivery of Link+ material, particularly if you are requesting from a Link+ academic library.

Special hours tomorrow at all Branches.

We will be open at 1 PM tomorrow. This affects all branches.

SJPL's Digital Library offers music downloads now.

We now offer music downloads via the OverDrive service. We have also updated the Overdrive site to be more user-friendly. Please check it out at http://ebooks.sjlibrary.org.

Spare the Air!

For the third night in a row, it's Spare the Air Tonight in the Bay Area. To see the current air quality forecast, visit sparetheair.org. You can help reduce winter air pollution if you do NOT burn wood tonight, and retrofit your fireplace to burn natural gas, a cleaner alternative to wood burning.

Almaden's Homework Center is now open!

Did you know? We have a Homework Center at Almaden Branch, every Monday through Thursday from 3:30 PM to 5:30 PM. Two professional tutors are ready to help students K through 12 on any homework topic!

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a new version of the naturalization test on Thursday. You can view sample questions here in PDF format.

It's World AIDS Day today.

Learn more here: Project Red ... Yahoo News on AIDS ...