Staff recommended reading: Indian Givers: how the Indians of the Americas transformed the world

Here the Western Hemisphere natives, usually treated as a footnote to world history, take center stage as anthropologist Jack Weatherford draws connections showing how nation-making and -breaking shifts in worldwide patterns of wealth, power, trade, population, health, and thought resulted from the gifts or theft of American indigenous knowledge, resources, and labor. Minerals; foods; medicines; technologies of agriculture, architecture, and transportation; templates of democracy and revolution – the fruits of contact, to non-Indians, were further-reaching than most people imagine, making the injustices of cultural and physical genocide perpetrated on the givers that much more heinous. Having done his spadework in the myriad relevant geographic and academic areas, Weatherford lays these effects out, from the obvious to the highly extrapolative, engaging our sympathy, gratitude, indignation, and awe with a network of revelatory anecdotes, facts, and causalities.

See if Mission Branch's copy of Indian Givers is available.

Judy

Jewelry-Making with Chelsee Robinson!

In this fun, free, hands-on workshop, local designer and entrepreneur Chelsee Robinson will guide you in creating your own beautiful bracelet, necklace, or earrings. Come for the fun, leave with a skill! Materials provided. Ages 12-18.
Monday, March 21st
4:30-6p

                         For more information or to register contact
                         Nicole at (415)355-5738 or ntermini@sfpl.org.

Question of the week: "Do you have tax forms?"

Every year around tax time, we get lots of questions about filing income taxes, most of which are in regards to whether we have the forms and instruction booklets for people to take home with them. The quick answer to this is, yes, here at the Mission Branch we do have some of the forms. However, our stockpile is dwindling.

Now here is the long answer: Every year we request the federal 1040, 1040A, and 1040EZ forms and instruction booklets from the IRS, and the state 540 EZ and 540 2EZ booklets (which contain the forms) from the California Franchise Tax Board. As mentioned, we currently still have most of the forms and booklets, but they're going fast. Once they're gone we always keep some reference copies which you can use to make your own copies. (We do have a copy machine here at the branch).

Additionally, you can download all the federal forms and instructions from the IRS Web site and state forms and instructions from the California Franchise Tax Board Web site. Here are some direct links to those Web pages...

Federal Income Tax forms and instructions:
IRS home page
IRS forms and publications
Have IRS forms and publications sent to you

State Income Tax forms and instructions:
California Franchise Tax Board (CFTB) home page
CFTB forms and publications
Have CFTB forms sent to you

For more tax information, please have a look at the Web page set up by the staff at SFPL's Government Information Center. Here you will find information about where to pick up free tax booklets, where to file your returns and where you can get free help preparing your income tax returns. Our reference librarians can also help find the answers to some of those questions and help you locate the nearest post office.

Don't forget: Federal and state forms are no longer mailed to most residents --- except by request. And remember, this year Tax Day is April 17, 2011!