If you were out and about this weekend you might have wondered, as I did, about all the butterflies in the air. Were they Monarchs? Too small. Were they Oak Moths? Too colorful. A closer look through binoculars revealed a compact orange and black butterfly with white dots on the upper wing tips and double rows of black dots below. While we don’t have a lepidopterist on staff, a quick trip to the non-fiction stacks provided me with the answer. According to Bob Stewart’s Common Butterflies of California, these small black and orange butterflies are Painted Ladies - the most common butterfly in the world. In Butterflies through binoculars: the West, Jeffrey Glassberg explains that Painted Ladies “stream out of northern Mexico during March and April in often impressive swarms to repopulate the West.” Impressive indeed! For more information about the world around you, visit the Library.

Flickr photo credit: Painted Lady 2 by Marko_K

If you stop by the Library on Thursday, March 19, you'll discover the doors closed and the building dark.   No, we're not feeling the impacts of budget cuts already

Today is a day for all staff to learn more good ways of providing excellent service to all our customers.  As more people visit the Library, and demand for our resources increases, we want to be sure we are still practicing the Library IDEA - welcoming, delighting, inspiring and educating ALL.

We do hate to to close the Library - whether for training, building work or even a holiday - because we know our customers depend on our services, every day.  And we especially hate to close today, when the Monterey County Weekly readers have voted us the "Best County Library" for 2009.  Thank you - we are honored!

We'll hope to see you on Friday, when we re-open at 10 a.m. and welcome an average of 1,100 people through our doors. Or maybe on the weekend, as you're stopping by the special Friends of the Library used book sale on the way back from "Cutting Day" at the Friends Plaza, or in-between errands when you're in downtown Monterey.

Stop by and see what we've learned. Tomorrow!

We just learned that our blog software has been asking for an email address and password before readers could submit comments. It's fixed now. Please comment away! You may want to join the discussion about The Paper Bag Princess, two posts below.

This Sunday, March 8th, visitors to our Library will have a chance to see the future...or at least the really-really-extremely-up-to-date present. We are hosting a technology petting zoo for all of our visitors who haven't yet tried Facebook, digital videography, Playaways, and many other technologies that are designed to make life easier and more enjoyable.

The truth is, people visit our Library everyday and use these technologies. Other people take one look and start sweating just at the idea of trying to decipher how to turn on one of these strange things. On Sunday we're bringing those two groups together, and you get to reap the benefits. One lucky visitor will take home a brand-new Flip Video Camera. So join us as we make technology fun again!

The Paper Bag Princess has become a classic after almost 30 years of success with parents who want a feisty princess to show to their daughters. It has now been translated into more than a dozen languages and has been turned into a toy, a play and a puppet show.. Yet it was not the first strong girl fairy tale, and certainly there have been many more since its publication. I can tell you about other great titles from old tales to new. In fact, though it is hard to dislike her gumption, I’ve never really liked this princess very much. What do you think? And what do boys think of this story? Are there grownups now who remember this story from childhood? How does it live in your memory? Read or reread this book online in through Tumblebooks on the Library’s Kids Page. Then join our online book discussion.  Share your memories, opinions, feelings  or other book suggestions by commenting here.