"w00t" - It's the Word of the Year, 2007!

Merriam-Webster OnLine has announced the results of its contest for Word of the Year, and the prize goes to a word so new that it is not yet in the print version Merriam-Webster dictionary. The word, w00t, also spelled w00t!, is a gamer's exclamation of victory or happiness, but it is being used increasingly in instant messages, emails, and even conversationally. Are you familiar with several other new words in their top ten list, including blamestorm and sardoodledom? Rest assured that old favorites, especially for the SAT crowd, like conundrum and quixotic are among the top ten winners, too. To read more about this, click on the title of this posting above.

Born on This Day - John Kennedy Toole

Author of the hilarious and award-winning book, A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole was born on this day in 1937. A native of New Orleans, (Ken) Toole crafted a delightful, maddeningly funny storyline which sets the plot of this book careening around his hometown. Filled with richly described oddball characters , the story orbits around one of the oddest main characters of them all - Ignatius J. Reilly. You must read the book to believe him, and if you do, you will be rewarded with one of the funniest stories ever written. What makes this achievement poignant, however, is that A Confederacy of Dunces was published and then awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction posthumously. Ken Toole commited suicide in 1969 believing his manuscript would never be picked up by a publisher. Look for a copy of this book in our fiction wing. It's a marvel.

Winter's Icy Brushstrokes

Like Utagawa Hiroshige's woodblock,

"Clear weather after snow at Kameyama," beauty reigns after a snowfall; however, the storms have been coming rather regularly of late, haven't they?

Although we may occasionally need to close the library for inclement weather, you can always reach us the next day for your renewal or reserve needs. An even better option for you is the "Your Account" feature of our library Web site which allows you to manage the items you have out or to initiate a reserve request.

Simply click on the link below which will take you to our home page. Under the green welcome banner is the Your Account button. Clicking on this will allow you to enter your barcode number and your password, which (unless you have changed it) is the last four digits of your home telephone number. From here you may see what you have out, when it is due, how many renewals you have taken, among other options. It's just like online shopping...something we've been doing a lot lately!

http://www.bernardsvillelibrary.org/