The Seattle Public Library is hosting a series of firefighter story times for preschoolers at neighborhood libraries this summer. The story times will highlight fire safety, and the firefighters will even display some of their firefighting equipment and trucks.

All story times are free.

Story times closest to our neighborhood are: 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, June 19, at the Ballard Branch, 5614 22nd Ave. N.W.; and 10:30 a.m. Thursday, July 18 at the Broadview Branch, 12755 Greenwood Ave. N.

Each month, the Seattle Public Library features a “Did You Know” series to help patrons become better acquainted with all the library’s services. Here’s May’s “Did You Know – Facts about your Library”:

Learning Express Library – Practice tests in English and Spanish free online from www.spl.org

Learning Express Library has interactive test prep guides for GED, SAT, ASVAB, citizenship, and lots more. We can help!
From www.spl.org, click on “Articles and Databases,” scroll to “Jobs & Education,” click on “Learning Express Library,” start learning! Requires library cards and pin number.

Language Learning from Seattle Public Library

Learn a language quickly or in depth with help from www.spl.org. Online resources cover over 100 languages. Try Mango Languages, Transparent Languages Online, or Livemocha; even kids can learn a language with Muzzy Online.

Week of May 12th:
Need reading ideas? You can find your next favorite book through NoveList, an extensive database of fiction and non-fiction for all ages that you can access with your Seattle Public Library card. Search by favorite author or book, explore new genres, and find book group discussion guides through this amazing (and addictive) readers’ resource!

Week of May 19th:
The Seattle Public Library offers Story Times for kids and their families in 4 world languages – Mandarin, Spanish, Somali and Vietnamese – at 12 libraries throughout Seattle! You do not need to know the language to attend. Pick up a Story Time brochure at any Library or find the schedule online, and join us for fun multicultural stories and songs.

Week of May 26th:
The Seattle Public Library has not one, but two blogs! Check out Shelf Talk for fascinating and fun posts on books, music, movies & more. Includes weekly columns like Crime Thursdays and Science Fiction Fridays. Push to Talk is our teen blog, written by librarians and Seattle teens. Check out Push to Talk for local teen news and reading ideas!

Seattle Public Library is highlighting several of its programs each month, in an effort to reach more constituents. Here are their most recent suggestions:

Want your kids to play children’s games on the catalog computers?

Did you know your children can watch kid-friendly videos and read companion books?

Your children will enjoy these animated interactive books.

The library’s Dial-a-Story program provides a new short story narrated by children’s librarians each month in English, Spanish, or Chinese.

Also, you can come to the Greenwood Library, 8016 Greenwood Ave. N., for personalized tech help, including one-on-one guidance on computer basics, internet basics, email, Microsoft Word, eBooks, and more, from 1-4 p.m. next Wednesday, April 24, and every Wednesday in May. Call the Greenwood Library at 206-684-4086 to sign up for a one-hour session. Laptop and sample devices provided (or you can bring your own).

Fourth- and fifth-graders from Broadview-Thomson K-8 will compete in the city final of the Global Reading Challenge on April 2. Ten teams from around the city will gather at the Central Library to show off their knowledge gleaned from 10 books.

Broadview-Thomson’s team is called “The Bookworms.” Nearby, “The Unknowns” from Loyal Heights Elementary in Ballard are also competing.

More than 2,500 fourth- and fifth- graders from more than 40 Seattle Public Schools participated in the first round.

The 2013 Global Reading Challenge is at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 2, at the Central Library, 1000 Fourth Ave., Level 1, Microsoft Auditorium. Free ; open to the public.

Good job, readers!

Seattle Public Library is kicking off its new “Did You Know?” series with a bunch of tips for library patrons.

Need a job? Get free help from the Library.
Try our databases Career Transitions, Live Resume Help, WOIS/The Career Information System
Ask us how!

Watch your favorite documentaries free with Access Video from www.spl.org
Thousands of documentary, performance, and educational videos from PBS, BBC, History Channel, A&E, and more. Free online and available any time.

Anytime anywhere online travel guides free from www.spl.org
Leaving for Spain tomorrow? Take along Travel e-books from Rough Guides and Eyewitness Guides. Always available, no due dates. Read online or download chapters. Ask us for details.

Practice tests in English and Spanish free online from www.spl.org
Learning Express Library has interactive test prep guides for GED, SAT, ASVAB, citizenship, and lots more. We can help!

Find great business and investment advice at www.spl.org
Check the Library’s “Business, Finance & Fundraising” category for free access to Value Line, Standard and Poor’s NetAdvantage, Puget Sound Business Journal’s Book of Lists. Great links to other websites too. Ask a librarian for help.

In other Library news, SPL is celebrating National Poetry Month in April with a haiku poetry contest, open to adults, teenagers and children.

Write a haiku that celebrates the library in your life and submit the poem online beginning Monday, March 4. The contest ends at 5 p.m. Friday, March 15.

Winning entries will appear on the Library’s website beginning April 1.

Contest participants must have a library card issued by The Seattle Public Library. Entries must be the writer’s own work and may not be submitted without the poet’s knowledge or consent. No previously published works or works accepted for publication elsewhere.

By Sarah Elson, UW News Lab

Most voters’ guides simply aim to inform. But the Living Voters Guide, which was created in 2010 by the University of Washington’s Engage Project and the Seattle civic nonprofit CityClub, strives to start discussions between voters to help them make sense of the major initiatives on the ballot. This year they’ve added librarian fact-checkers to make the crowd-sourced voters guide more trustworthy.

“The guide is kind of what people thought about these ballot measures,” explained Travis Kriplean, the developer of the Living Voters Guide. “The ballot measures are often controversial and also a bit hard to understand, so it seemed like a good way to get people to talk about them, because there are surprisingly few places for that to happen.”

The website summarizes each of the eight statewide initiatives and lists pros and cons from other users on either side, so voters can create their own list in the middle compiled of the factors that are most important to them.

Anyone can post on the guide as long as they have an account on the site. Kriplean estimated that about one out of every three people who visit the site actually contribute to it.

Kriplean said the guide’s strength is in showing what people are thinking about across the political spectrum. However, it doesn’t have a strong informational base, so it’s hard for users to discern which points are true.

To make the guide more trustworthy, he’s enlisted the help of Seattle Public Library librarians to fact-check claims that other users want verified. The librarians spend a maximum of two hours researching the claim and then write a report about whether the claim appears to be accurate. The report is posted within 48 hours.

“Our approach is not to say, ‘This person is right or wrong,’ or ‘This is true or false,’ but to say if it’s an accurate statement,” said Chance Hunt, Seattle library partnerships and government relations director. “We then provide citations and additional information for people (who) want to do their own level of comparison with the information that’s available.”

So far the librarians have responded to 27 fact-checking requests and are currently working on five more.
Hunt said they have been asked about a variety of different claims. One of the first requests they received was to check a claim about same-sex marriage.

“We had a comment about whether same-sex couples see better results in their children,” Hunt said. “Are their children more successful, happier, healthier, that kind of thing. And we were asked to double-check it, so our library staff did the research and then presented a response to that question.”

One of the most recent requests they received was to check a claim that “37 percent of students attending charter schools receive a worse educational outcome.”

“We were asked to check where the 37 percent came from,” Hunt said. “So we did some research and were able to find a study that found (the claim) to be accurate. But that was only one study, so we provided access to other studies showing contradictory or different results from a similar kind of study.”

Librarian Bo Kinney said there are some claims they aren’t able to check. The librarians aren’t qualified to conduct legal research and they can’t evaluate opinion-based or hypothetical claims.

“We’re not the final word on what is the truth,” Kinney said. “We expect that users might add additional information beyond what we were able to find. But we think that our efforts will help support informed discussion of political issues.”

(Sarah Elson is a student in the University of Washington Department of Communication News Laboratory.)

Phinney Ridge resident A-P Hurd will discuss her new book,“The Carbon Efficient City,” at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 30, at the Central Library downtown. Admission is free.

Hurd co-wrote the book with her father, Al Hurd. A-P Hurd is a real estate developer and a professor at the University of Washington’s College of Built Environments.

“The Carbon Efficient City” features Hurd’s vision of a path through neighborhoods, new and upgraded buildings, bicycle networks and transit systems that might produce carbon efficient cities. The book describes an economic and regulatory environment in which the DNA of sustainable buildings and cities can be successfully expressed.

The Seattle Public Library is having special story times for preschoolers and their caregivers during October for Fire Prevention Month. Firefighters will read books on fire safety and show off their equipment and fire trucks.

Greenwood Library’s story time is at 10:30 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 26.

Seattle Public Library is hosting another series of free computer classes at neighborhood branches. Classes are free and registration is not required (unless noted). (If you’re reading PhinneyWood, you probably don’t need a beginning computer course, but you might pass along this information to someone who needs it.)

Here’s what’s on the calendar for the Greenwood Library, 8016 Greenwood Ave. N.

• Computer Basics 1 – Learn how to use a computer keyboard and mouse; 4-5:30 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 18.
• Computer Basics 2 – Learn how to use basic features of the Windows software operating system; 4-5:30 p.m. p.m. to 5:30 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 25.
• Email Basics – Get a free email account and learn how to use it, including how to send email, send attachments and use the address book; 12-1:30 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 4.
• Internet Basics 1 – Learn about Web browsers and how to navigate a Web page; 2-3:30 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 7.
• Internet Basics 2 – Learn how to use search engines, evaluate websites, and print from the Web; 2-3:30 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 14.
• Library Catalog Basics – Learn how to search the Library’s catalog to find DVDs, CDs, books and other materials, and how to reserve and renew items; 2-3:30 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 28.
• Microsoft Word 2010 – Learn how to create, edit, format, open, save and print documents using Microsoft Word 2010; 12-1:30 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 11.
• Facebook – Learn more about how to use the Facebook to connect with friends, family and your community; 12-1:30 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 18.

Remember that all branches of the Seattle Public Library, including the Greenwood Library at 8016 Greenwood Ave. N., will be closed on Thursday, Sept. 27, for an all-staff meeting.

Now that school is back in session, it’s a good time for a reminder that the Seattle Public Library has free homework help for students of all ages.

The library has volunteer-led homework centers, and free online tutoring for grade school to college-level subjects from 1-10 p.m. seven days a week (in English and Spanish). You just need a current Seattle library card and pin number.

Check out the Homework Help website for more info, and homework help center locations.

The Seattle Public Library is hosting an October workshop series called Urban Self-Reliance at several branches, including Greenwood, at 8016 Greenwood Ave. N. Topics include how to live a more sustainable life by growing and preserving your own food, composting, using a bike as transportation, and more.

All workshops are free and registration is not required, except where noted. Check out the full list of workshops at all branches.

The Greenwood class is called “Reuse It!” – “Learn some creative ways to reuse or repurpose commonly tossed items keeping materials that still have value out of the landfill. Presented in partnership with CleanScapes as part of the Neighborhood Waste Reduction Rewards program.” It’s from 6-7:30 p.m. on Wed., Oct. 17.