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Fresh City Life debuts its new monthly series: ArtSkool. This arts exploration is designed to introduce participants to the fundamentals of visual and performing arts, while at the same time building a bridge between students and Denver’s vibrant arts community. ArtSkool “students” will build an appreciation for an art form with which they previously had little or no experience. As with all of our events and workshops, Fresh City Life will partner with talented individuals and organizations to bring exciting programs within reach of our community.

Denverites maybe never had it so good. Fresh City Life is offering up new and retooled events for you this year. In successive posts, I'll let you in on some of the cool stuff that is booked and some of the things that are in the works -- but not fully-baked (just yet).

Children's Book Week is May 2-8 and celebrates books for young people of all ages. While the Children's Book Week website has all kinds of good stuff on it, like a bookmark by Jeff Kinney (!), my favorite part is voting for the best books. The Children's Choice Book Awards honor books for Kindergarten - High School. If you haven't read some of these yet, you can pick up copies of all of the nominees from the various branches of the Denver Public Library. If your branch doesn't have one you want to read, just place a hold.

Learn about healthy lifestyle changes that you can make on Monday, March 21 at 6:00 p.m. at the Schlessman Family Branch with Certified Personal Trainer and Licensed Sport Nutritionist Melissa Anderson. She'll help you get your groove on!

It's quick and easy to text a call number to your mobile phone. Simply find the library item in the online catalog, click on the availability button, and you will see a cell phone icon next to the call number. Click on the icon, type in your 10 digit phone number, select a carrier, and send! (charges from your carrier may apply)

For all you library geeks who are wondering what’s been going on behind the scenes during the past month? Libraries send the majority of their orders directly to library vendors via EDI (electronic data interchange). Our integrated library system (Polaris) has to talk to a number of different vendor databases. On the vendor end the data we transmit tells them how many copies we want, which branches they will go to and how the item should be processed and cataloged.

Want to get back into the groove of placing holds and checking your library account online? Learn about all the new features of Polaris, the Denver Public Library's new system at one of these classes:

Monday, March 7 at 6:00 p.m. at the Ross-Broadway Branch Library

PLEASE NOTE: If your request is for an item coming out in February 2011 or later, we suggest waiting and checking the catalog periodically. The Library is busy processing orders for thousands of recently-released and forthcoming titles, so many of your requests may already be in our "to order" queue. Holding off on submitting purchase requests for a few weeks will help to maximize your 30 request per year limit.

Here are a few tips to get you started:

Each class in this series will build on the skills covered in the previous classes so attendance at all five is strongly recommended. Class 5 will be an open lab to come in and work on the website you have developed and get additional assistance for any areas you found tricky during the class. Participants must have an email address and at least intermediate level typing and mouse skills. Over the course of all 5 classes, you will cover: