Dr. Dan Caldwell’s talk on origins of the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan; and Dr. Linnda Durre’s lecture on how to overcome a toxic workplace are now on the Sunroom Desk Community Calendar. These Friends of the Glendale Public Library events are free and open to the public, 3-hour parking included. Glendale Library events this past year featured famous prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, award-winning journalist Garin Hovanessian, master chef Leslie Bilderback, anti-war activist Tom Hayden, LA city council member Gil Garcetti, and others.

The Drucker Business Forum’s excellent roster of 2010-2011 speakers in finance, investment, business, and media gave attendees expert perspectives on economic challenges, trends, and developing business models and opportunities. Most of the presentations, with time for audience Q&A afterwards, took place at KPCC’s Crawford Family Forum in Pasadena.

Business Life Magazine with lead sponsor Woodbury University is planning a September women’s business conference at the Glendale Hilton, featuring free workshops on leadership development (led by Woodbury instructors), job-hunting survival skills, contracting opportunities and more.

These are (or were, if you missed them) great opportunities. Networking happens, because others interested in the subject attend and are eager to ask questions. Students and job seekers gain broader views on their field and leads to pursue in class or an interview. The only potential costs are transportation and purchasing the author’s book, both cheap compared with costs for continuing education seminars.

Setting fees to continue offering such events at libraries, bookstores, and other venues has been a big theme in opinion articles this summer (see here and here for starters); these are wake-up calls to those who take such events for granted.

I visit the Casa Verdugo branch often, and always find its tables, computers, and help desk occupied. People looking for work, children and their parents seeking homework help or information for school reports, and patrons from all walks of life who appreciate the tremendous resources the library has to offer take advantage of this branch and others all the time.

Public libraries have been a pillar of our country’s history; longer than recreation and social service programs, which used to be privately funded. Through reduced hours and threatened branch closures, citizens are losing access to free resources they seek out to help themselves.

Free: education, introductions to new fields and careers, explorations of enduring themes of human life and civilization, inspiration, assistance, entertainment, and an assured welcome to people hoping to obtain them. Our civic future will be brighter if libraries stay open to provide these benefits.

The Friends of the Glendale Public Library hold their annual meeting tonight, 6:30 p.m., Main Auditorium, Central Library, 222 E. Harvard St. (see the Calendar for details). Attend tonight’s meeting, and join the Friends in supporting library programs and services in Glendale.

Local author E.J. Stephens, a former board member of the Alex Film Society, will be at the Glendale Central Library Thursday night at 7 pm to talk about and sign copies of his book Early Warner Bros. Studios.

The book is part of Arcadia Publishing’s “Images of America” series. It contains rare photos from the 1920s to the 1950s, and covers the history of Warner brothers Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack, who rose from humble beginnings to become Hollywood moguls.

Stephens, a former WB Studios worker, newspaper columnist and film series host, volunteers as a docent for the Warner Bros. Museum. His co-author is film historian and consultant Marc Wanamaker. An extended review of Early Warner Bros. Studios is posted at Examiner.com.

This FREE event is cosponsored by The Glendale Historical Society and the Friends of the Glendale Public Library. Free 3-hour parking is available at the Maryland parking garage – validation at the Library Circulation Desk.

Glendale Historical Society Flyer.

And check out all the wonderful free events for families, children, teens, reading groups, and others here. You can support these community programs by becoming a Friend of the Glendale Public Library.

From the Glendale Library’s event webpage: “Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, historians of science, roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how ideology and corporate interests, aided by a too-compliant media, have skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era.”

This FREE event, sponsored by the Friends of the Glendale Public Library, will be held at
Glendale Central Library Children’s Room
222 E. Harvard St.
Glendale
Wednesday, November 17, 7 p.m.
(818) 548-2042
Free 3-hour parking is available at the municipal parking garage across the street (validate ticket at the circulation desk).

This FREE event is sponsored by the Friends of the Glendale Public Library and is open to the public. Free, 3-hour validated parking (stamp ticket at library circulation desk) is available at the municipal parking structure to the north of the library.

Get out of the house, discover how to improve your own health, and help support vital free community programs offered by your local library: join Christina and the Friends of the Library tomorrow night.

Bilderback volunteers with the U.S. Navy Adopt-a-Chef program, which sends civilian culinary instructors to various galleys around the world to provide hands-on training. She joined the original faculty of what is now the California School of Culinary Arts in 1995, and as Executive Chef ushered the school into partnership with Le Cordon Bleu.

Bilderback will be discussing recipes, cooking techniques, and wisdom from:
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Success as a Chef
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Comfort Food
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Sensational Salads
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Good Food From the Good Book

This is a FREE event, open to the public. Come and enjoy a very entertaining speaker, and support your Glendale library system and the Friends of the Glendale Public Library! Validation for free parking (3 hours) at the Mryland Parking garage is available at the circulation desk.

Los Angeles libraries will now all be closed on Sundays and Mondays. Jacket Copy has the Central Library’s new hours and a few quotes on what access to books meant to philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.

The cutbacks are occurring less than a year after Los Angeles completed a 10-year branch library building program, culminating in the Gold-LEED certified Silverlake Branch.

Marilyn Johnson’s LA Times commentary on impending library cuts is a wake-up call. Our municipal libraries are a free source of learning, research, information, job training, and all-around civic improvement, an “engine of democracy” which should not be dismantled or run on fumes.

Glendale is already hosting more Los Angeles residents who find their local libraries closed. Join the Friends of the Glendale Public Library, and speak up to make sure our residents and their children continue to have access to this vital civic resource for all.

First, Define the Problem – The Economist; Back to Basics on Financial Reform – Wall Street Journal; and Senate probe: Goldman planned to profit from housing bust, made billions at clients’ expense – LA Times.

Within The Economist’s link, but also in other articles over the past months, “innovation” is defended in either a neutral or positive sense with respect to financial instruments that contributed to this Great Recession. What is innovative about hedging a bet, or devising clever ways to con others into losing bets? Could Goldman Sachs and other investment houses have lost as much money, and caused as much economic pain, if they had made big bets in real innovations, such as research and technology leading to clean, cheap, renewable energy?

In the book just purchased, author Robert Heilbroner explains the observations of the great economists he profiles. Thorstein Veblen posited that exploiting breakdowns in information, and creating what sounds like bubbles, were the main ways to make profits. Veblen’s main examples were 19th century robber barons, who competed with each other to maximize profits at the expense of the public. John Maynard Keynes showed that in an economy that separates savings from investment, there is “nothing automatic” that channels savings toward productive investment. Has anything changed?

Revised several times, the author concludes in the 1980s edition I purchased with a list of basic questions economic thinkers posed about society, politics, and economics, that are unresolved to this day. Resolved in my mind, though: the Friends of the Library book sale purchase was a good investment.