Unidentified Women On Horseback In Golden Gate Park, October 29, 1934 San Francisco Public Library Historical Photograph Collection We’re all for citizenship and all—we would even consider ourselves to be citizenship geeks. We love voting (of course) and jury duty (jury opportunity, we like to call it). We love the Post Office and even the DMV (especially those the traces of the Eisenhower era that remain here and there in those temples of citizenship…......

Slide from the State of the City Address (pdf of full slideshow here) "Statistical tools and methods, like many other technologies, can be employed either for social good or for evil" (the American Statistical Association’s Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice). Unfortunately for us, we’ll never know the difference: Darryl Huff’s classic How to Lie with Statistics is, at the moment, unavailable at the San Francisco Public Library. The probability of this occurrence is… you......

Photo of Harry Potter translations at the Main Public...

Photos of the Harry Potter's Knight Bus in Civic Center...

Just in case you think baseball is the only thing going on in this city right now, it most certainly is not. The latest Harry Potter franchise will hit you soon and hard. And we thought it would be imperative to point out an alternative and Potter-related event for the kiddies -- especially for your little blessings who, say, can't catch a ball, if you know what we're saying. Anyway, check it: The purple......

Head over to Mezzanine for SF360 Film+Club, a monthly series taking films out of the theatre and putting them in the club shows a sexy, bloody, ass-kicking redux of Macbeth, directed by Geoffrey Wright. Complimentary cocktails from 7-8pm, with the film starting at 7:30pm. $8 at the door, 444 Jessie St. Drop by Books Inc in the Castro for a reading with local author Dr. William Lipsky from his book, Gay and Lesbian San Francisco.......

We've told you about Pet Noir here before, the comic anthology published by Manic D Press featuring an impressive list of local talent. If you still haven't picked up a copy get yourself down to the San Francisco Public Library tonight for a slide show and an enlightening, lively discussion about pets, comics, true crime, and much more. The event will feature many of the fine comic artists who contirbuted to the book, including, editor/artist Shannon O’Leary, John Isaacson, MariNaomi, Lark Pien, Trevor Alixopulos, Damien Jay, Peter Conrad, and Melanie Lewis. The fun goes from 6:30-7:45pm and will be held in the Latino room at the Main Library. Best of all it's free, so you can use your cash to buy a book, or dog food. Main Library is at 100 Larkin Street (@ Grove, Lower Level) 415-557-4400 ...

A few years back, it seemed like everyone we knew was vacationing in Thailand. To keep ahead of the curve in fashionable Southeast Asian travel destinations, we're heading over to the Main San Francisco Public Library (100 Larkin @ Grove) to see Wendy Yanagihara, author of “Lonely Planet’s Guide to Vietnam,” talk about her travels in said country and learn all about the off-the-beaten-path gems so we can nod sagely and make intelligent comments......

Maybe it's just us, but when we start hearing big numbers (for example, the national debt, the number of people who died during the influenza pandemic of 1918, or our student loan debt), our eyes glaze over. So, when we hear statistics like "400 volunteers, 7,000 boxes of books, 300 tables and 200,000 books in over 50 categories", we might ordinarily have to reach for the NoDoz, but, wait: we're hearing these numbers from some......

Oh, wow, this sounds so cool! Tonight, at 6 p.m., ITVS Community Cinema, KQED, and the San Francisco Public Library are presenting a screening of The World According to Sesame Street. The World According to Sesame Street is a feature-length documentary, in cooperation with "Sesame Street," that explores the drama and complexities behind producing international versions of the world’s most-watched children’s television program. Get to the Main Library's (100 Larkin Street in Civic Center) Koret......

Hey, did anyone go to the poets Eleven event at the new Mission Bay branch of the San Francisco Public Library? We love that we have a reason to hit the library besides picking up (or returning) our online reserves. SFist Jer decided to try out Runner's World magazine, thinking it would motivate him to run. While it was somewhat interesting to read a specialty exercise magazine, he's still more or less been stuck......

We're having one of those weeks where we're completely unsatisfied with every book we pick up, even those from authors we ordinarily like. The new Fay Weldon just made us glad that we're a) childless and b) not British, and the Jonathan Ames we just picked up from the SFPL is leaving us cold. He just seems so anxious about everything, and he always has an erection. In recent (that is, the last two or......

While the San Francisco Public Library site is up, their search is not! Far be it from us to criticize anyone for the occasional technical bobble. Get well soon, SFPL search! SFist Rita just finished Fantasyland by Sam Walker, a book about how the author (a sportswriter for the Wall Street Journal) did in the most competitive fantasy baseball league in the country, in 2004. It's pretty hilarious even (or especially) if you don't know......

Outbound -- next train, N Wednesday, now approaching. Tonight: The San Francisco Public Library has invited Caldecott-winning book illustrator Tomie DePaola for the 10th annual Effie Lee Morris Lecture. Effie Lee Morris was the coordinator of children's literature at the SFPL from 1963-77 and was a pioneer in spearheading the development of children's library resources. The lecture is free and starts at 6:30 p.m. in the Koret Auditorium of the Main Library. Thursday: Come see......

Oh, how we love the San Francisco Public Library. The online reserve system, the many convenient branches, and how cool is the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection (thanks for the tip, Dad!)? You can look at their collection online, or view it in person at the Main Library's San Francisco History Center. We love our library! Know what SFist Eve doesn't love? Maureen Dowd's Are Men Necessary. SFist Rita lent Eve her copy, gleefully exclaiming......

It's cold out, and all we want to do is snuggle under a blanket and read. On our coffee table right now: a big cup of coffee, some magazines, and several books we reserved online from the San Francisco Public Library. That's where we'll remain until the pressures of holiday shoppping get us off the couch and into one of our fine independent bookstores. SFist Cedric recently read What's the Matter with Kansas by......

This is usually the part where we remind you of how insanely easy it is to reserve books online from the SFPL, or to buy them from one of our fine local independent bookstores. But today peanut butter and chocolate come together at the Friends of the SF Public Library's 41st Annual Big Book Sale, which begins tomorrow and runs until October 2 at the Festival Pavilion in Fort Mason Center. All books have......

Our good friend Christine has something to say to y'all -- so we turn the floor over to her. SFist staff picks can be found after the jump. Our SFPL branches undergoing or slated to undergo renovations need help---here is what all us libarary reservists (and users) should do: 1. Friends in the Neighborhoods: The Neighborhood Library Campaign, from the Friends of the Library website: "A library renaissance is slowly taking place across San......

So often, when folks ask us what we're reading, we want to respond "The Internet". Seriously, we read online all damn day, it's amazing we are able to squeeze in words on paper, too! We can marry our love of the internet and books with the San Francisco Public Library's online reserve system, but it's also nice to get out there int he mix and thumb through the offerings at one of our fine......

Walking to the train to work this morning, we were thinking about winning the lottery (when we do, Rain, we've got you covered). While a lottery win would definitely mean both no work and far less public transportation, we still think we'd reserve books from the San Francisco Public Library. Sure, we love our local independent bookstores, but unless we're after books that library doesn't have (like Rain and Jackson's selections this week), many......

As regular readers of this column know, this is the little intro section where we talk about using the San Francisco Public Library's online reserve system, but our dear Friend of SFist Christine gave us an important message to pass on to all of you. Our regular book discussion can be found upon expansion, but for now please give all your attention to Christine, and follow her bidding: Due to your numerous mentions of......

Well, it seems that the laptop-carrying set at San Francisco's Academy of Art University are stuck for quick, handy wireless internet access. Around three weeks ago during the school's spring break, some h4XX0r managed to compromise network security. There aren't many details, as nothing has been made public yet -- we've heard that it was specifically an attack on the library servers, or that it may have been a WORM that happened upon the......

SFist Rain makes a good point today when she reminds us that our friends at the San Francisco Public Library have more to offer us than just the printed word. You can also check out or reserve CDs, DVDs, audiobooks, and VHS tapes (for the unfrozen cavemen lawyers among us) for those times when reading isn't your first choice. Needless to say, you can also find these types of items at our fine local......

SFist is all about the free, which is why we love to reserve books at the San Francisco Public library. We're even scouting out the City for free copies of this book, so much are we fans of the free. However, if we can't find one of the copies stashed around EssEff, we'll pick up a copy at one of our fine local independent bookstores. SFist Rain reports: "Thanks to my birthday I got an......

SFist can take or leave most of the email we receive, but we never fail to get a little thrill when we get that email from the San Francisco Public Library letting us know that our online reserve is in. We're not quite as thrilled when we get that note about how irresponsibly high our fines have gotten, as that keeps us from blowing our extra dough at one of our fine local independent bookstores....

When SFist hears that Beastie Boys song, we automatically think about checking out reserved books from the San Francisco Public Library. We wish there were a song that reminded us of our great local independent bookstores, if you can think of one, tell us about it in the comments! SFist Alex has been reading Lessons In Virtual Tour Photography by Chris Bachelder. Its a wonderful and bizarre e-book from McSweeney's about The Secret of All......

SFist has been so busy listening that we have barely found time to read. But remember, nothing is a better accompaniment to your favorite Quannum tracks than a book reserved from the San Francisco Public Library. And a close second would be those books purchased from our local independent bookstores. SFist Emily needed a break from studying this week. Luckily one of her roommates had the vaccous antidote for her over worked brain: He's Just......

Every visit to the library is like your favorite secular or religious holiday when you reserve books in advance from the San Francisco Public Library. Or, if you want to hand on to your books, how about purchasing them from one of our local bookstores? SFist Mary-Lynn is reading The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition by James Howard Kunstler. She's only on chapter 2 where he is slagging something fierce on Atlanta,......

When we're not poring over voter information to make sure we're the best informed voter we can be, we're hanging out at our local bookstores. And if the other guy wins (you know who we're talking about) we'll be reserving books from the San Francisco Public Library so we can mentally escape from it all. (That is, if he doesn't just get rid of all the libraries! Darn that other guy!) SFist Jon just......

SFist can't get enough of our local bookstores. When we've blown all our money on beer, we've also been known to reserve books from the San Francisco Public Library. That's how much we love that reading thing. Sfist Emily has been burning the midnight oil with The Social Contruction of Reality: a reatise in the sociology of knowledge by Berger and Luckmann (and a book so esoteric that even the venerable SFPL doesn't have it......