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Homeless for Christmas
The Homeless Access to Recovery through Treatment (HART) Act (H.R. 4129) seeks to strengthen and expand substance abuse and mental health services to persons experiencing homelessness.
Among surveyed homeless people, 39 percent have some form of mental health problem, and SAMHSA estimates that between 20 percent and 25 percent meet criteria for serious mental illness. In addition, 38 percent of surveyed homeless people have an alcohol problem, and 26 percent report problems with other drugs. Untreated addictions and mental illnesses present serious barriers to employment and permanent housing, perpetuating an ever-worsening cycle of poor physical health, hospitalization, social dysfunction, incarceration, poverty, and homelessness. These are tragic outcomes for homeless persons and their families; burdens on healthcare, social service, and corrections systems; and costs to taxpayers as quoted on nationalhomeless.org/advocacy.
San Jose Public Library:
Treatment Information:
Additional Information:
Web 2.0
Do you know what is Web 2.0? A Web 2.0 site may allow users to interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where people are limited to the passive viewing of content. Examples of Web 2.0 include social networking sites, blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, hosted services, web applications, mashups and folksonomies as quoted on wikipedia.org.
Examples:
- Google Docs - Real-time online collaboration
- Wikispaces.com - Create our own private wiki
- Pbworks.com - Collaborative learning for schools
- Ning.com - Create your own social network
- Classroom 2.0 - Online community for teachers
- ThinkQuest - Global learning platform
- Yugma.com - Desktop sharing & collaboration
- SMART Board Revolution - Whiteboard file-sharing
- Creative Commons.com - Share & remix media-legally
- Edmodo.com - Social platform for students and teachers
Additional Information:
Global Jobs
Are you struggling with finding the local jobs? Open your eyes wide, and why don’t you look for the global jobs or the nationwide jobs? Have a big dream to work in the United Nations or in the Federal Government.
San Jose Public Library Collections:
- United Nations: Books
- United Nations: Digital Resources
- United Nations: E-Books
- Government Publications
Additional Information:
Affordable Learning Solution Campaign
Have you ever heard about Affordable Learning Solution Campaign?
The Affordable Learning Solutions Campaign promotes low-cost, high-quality alternatives to expensive textbooks as quoted on library.sjsu.edu/als.
Examples: Open Courseware Consortium, Open Academics, Open Educational Resources Center for California, Inkling, BookBoon, College Open Textbooks by Subject
San Jose Public Library has free classes and free study materials for learning languages.
Learning English Language
Free Museum and Art
Do you have no plan to do with your kids during the holidays?
Go to the museum with our free tickets from Discover & Go.
San Jose Public Library Collections
Art in San Jose Public Library
Additional Information
Domestic Violence
What is domestic violence?
Domestic violence incidences at their core are about one individual’s desire to have absolute power and control over another person. When a perpetrator begins to feel that power eroding, they will do whatever they can to regain power, including killing the people they seek to control. In the end, the perpetrator ensures that the victim cannot leave and start a new life. Children, other family members, neighbors, co-workers, and innocent bystanders are all put at risk if they are near when the violence erupts. Domestic violence affects every aspect of our community. It is not just a problem for those in a particular economic class, age group, ethnicity, religious group, or of a particular sexual orientation. (Santa Clara County Domestic Violence Council 2011)
Risk factors:
- Separation or talk of ending the relationship.
- Extreme jealousy and/or possessiveness.
- Controlling behaviors, including social isolation, financial dependency (limiting access to money and information about finances), threats involving taking away children, threats regarding deportation, and extensive monitoring of daily activities.
- Prior reported and unreported acts of domestic violence.
- Stalking behavior.
- Threats of suicide and/or homicide.
- Kidnapping or falsely imprisoning someone.
- The lack of any, or very few, friends outside the relationship.
- Untreated and inadequately treated mental health conditions, including issues stemming from early childhood trauma and depression.
- Previous use of weapons or threat of using weapons.
- Access to firearms- sometimes legally obtained especially once a person has been served a protective order and has not relinquished their firearms.
- Prior strangulation and choking.
- A need to “co-opt” a partner’s friends to monitor a person’s activities.
- Mental health issues. Aging may exasperate mental illnesses making a person more dangerous.
- An over important sense of self and a lack of empathy for anyone else, including children, possibly increasing the risk to family members and friends.
What can be done?
- Listen without judging. Don’t rush into providing solutions.
- Make surethe victim knows she/he is not alone.
- Let the victim know you support and care about her/him and that the violence is not the victim’s fault.
- Tell the victim help is available. It is free and confidential.
- Tell the victim you are worried about her/his safety and the safety of the victim’s children.
- Tell the victim that you are there for her/him and that she/he deserves better than this.
- Call 911.
- Contact a victim advocacy agency and inquire on ways to help a victim.
- Ask victims if they are fearful of the perpetrator and why. Let them know that you are there for them.
- Determine if there are deadly weapons in the home and contact local law enforcement or advocacy agencies about the threat of the use of these weapons.
- Assist victims in calling a domestic violence shelter to create a safety plan, obtain a restraining order, or seek domestic violence counseling. This is especially important if the victim wishes to end the relationship
- Protect children. Do not be afraid to tell victims and perpetrators that domestic violence is harming their children. When necessary, contact the Child Abuse Hotline at the Department of Children and Family Services.
- Take all threats seriously even if the victim says that the perpetrator is just “blowing off steam.”
- Learn about domestic violence and share the information with others.
Statistics:
Resources:
DVDs provide:
Impact of Domestic Violence on Children
Housing [English] [Spanish] [Vietnamese]
Domestic Violence in LGBTQ Communities
Library Materials:
Food and Travel: South Korea
Have you ever tasted “Kimchi, a traditional fermented Korean dish made of vegetables with a variety of seasonings? It is Korea's national dish, and there are hundreds of varieties made with a main vegetable ingredient such as napa cabbage, radish, scallion, or cucumber. Kimchi is also a main ingredient for many Korean dishes such as kimchi stew (김치찌개; kimchi jjigae), kimchi soup (김칫국; kimchiguk), and kimchi fried rice (김치볶음밥; kimchi bokkeumbap) as quoted on wikipedia.org.
You can find more information about Korean food and cook books in San Jose Public Library Collections.
If you have a chance to visit to Korea, stay not only in Seoul, but also in Jeju island (an island off the southern coast of South Korea, the island contains the natural World Heritage Site Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes, called as "Island of the Gods” or "the Hawaii of Korea") and Gyeongju (a coastal city in the far southeastern corner of North Gyeongsang province in South Korea, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Silla (57 BC – 935 AD), called as "the museum without walls.")
Among such historical treasures, Seokguram grotto, Bulguksa temple, Gyeongju Historic Areas and Yangdong Folk Village are designated as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO) as quoted on wikipedia.org.
You can check more information about South Korea Travel Guidebooks in San Jose Public Library Collections.
Additional information for Jeju Island and Gyeongju:
Food and Travel: France
In this holiday season, do you want to travel to France? You may want to walk to "champs-elysees" street, take pictures with Eiffel tower, and eat the French baguettes in Paris during this winter? There's a lot of good information to prepare for your trip to France. If you have no time and no money to go to France, do not worry about it. When you cook the gourmet French food at home, you can feel as if you are in France.
Bon appetit et Bon voyage!
San Jose Public Library Collections:
You are always welcome to leave your comments after reading these books through "Reader Ratings and Reviews" or "Community Discussion Review" in our Library Catalog.
Winter Solstice and Holidays
The day is short, and the sun is low in December. December 21, 2012 is the winter solstice, which will be the shortest day of the year for us in the northern hemisphere. It customarily marks the beginning of winter in our culture.
As posted in a Stardate blog, "the word 'solstice' means 'Sun stands still'." "It indicates that the Sun rises and sets at the same points on the horizon for a few days." After the solstice, daylight last a little longer and the sun climbs a bit higher day by day until the summer solstice. At this time of the year, many of us look forward to the passing of winter solstice and the arrivals of the longer days afterwards. It is kind of incongruent to call of the longer, brighter days ahead as "winter."
For calibrating calendars and seasons,naturalist Michael Ellis feels "we've got it wrong and the Druids had it right." In a KQED blog, he says, "I much prefer the way the Druids kept track of seasons. They used cross quarter days to mark the change in seasons; days that are halfway between the four astronomical events that we use to define the seasons…Now the day halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice is a cross quarter day. That day for the Druids was the beginning of their winter, New Years Day." And that day is our Halloween. He continues, "the winter solstice is midwinter, not the beginning of winter."
By his reckoning, the next cross quarter day halfway between the winter solstice and spring equinox, celebrated as The Groundhog Day, was the first day of spring for the Druids and "May Day was the beginning of the Druid summer." The summer solstice (June 21 in 2013) will be Midsummer Day. And "the cross quarter day between the summer solstice and the fall equinox is the one holiday we do not acknowledge in our culture." (That was Lammas, "the day to bake the first loaf of bread from the first harvest of grain" for Druids.)
Happy Holidays!
Basic Korean Conversation Club
"Gangnam Style" (K-pop single by South Korean musician Psy) has become an "international sensation" today.
There are a fairly large amount people who want to learn Korean language and Korean culture because of K-Pop, K-Drama, or Korean Wave.
Learn practical Korean Conversation such as greetings, numbers, and food. Chat topics may include K-Pop, K-Drama, and K-Culture.
6 week session
Thursdays 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
January 17, 24, 31
February 7, 14, 21
Study Room 390, 3rd Floor
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library
150 E. San Fernando St., San Jose
(408)808-2183/2331
Free Admission/ No Sign-up
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