Sue The Dinosaur

Saratoga Springs library complete and open

The Saratoga Springs Library open house for the adult section of the facility was also a celebration for kids too. Above, city royalty left to right are 2nd attendant Jazmin Montero, 1st attendant Ashley Ottersen and Miss Saratoga Springs Nicole Calder taking a stab at the "book" while 9-year-old Madison Baird helps herself to a cake pop at the event Aug. 6. Photo by Cathy Allred

SARATOGA SPRINGS -- Saratoga Springs officially celebrated the opening of its library in its entirety -- the children's section of the library has been open since March 26 -- with an open house, tours and refreshments on Saturday.

After the initial speeches and ribbon cutting, library patrons stepped into the 3,500-square-foot library and to see what a year ago had begun with $10,000 and an idea.

"I think it's awesome," said Saratoga Springs library board chairman Dan Wynkoop of the milestone occasion.

"It's something the community has needed -- building something for our children, for their education and literacy should be one of the foremost goals of any community, and as a library board we are so pleased that the community has given so much support to starting a community library," he said.

Approximately 60 to 70 people attended the celebration. Saratoga Springs Councilman Bud Poduska, Wynkoop and library director Sue Alexander were the program speakers.

The idea of a community library formalized a year ago with the city council approving a library board and providing funds to start the project.

The original design suggested renovating medical offices into a functional library with an estimated construction cost of $100,000. Scrapping those plans, the library board was able to open the library that is housed at 1307 N. Commerce Drive, for just one-fifth the cost.

Patrons have been responsive to having a library in their own town.

"We can't keep dinosaur books on the shelves," Alexander said. Not entirely accurate; three dinosaur books were on the shelf, with 67 already loaned out in circulation.

There are several rooms that make up the fledgling library, each with a security camera system -- a children's activity room, children's nonfiction and fiction areas, a study room, adult fiction, adult nonfiction, young adult fiction and a computer area. The library has just more than 10,000 items. At any one time an average of 30 percent are in circulation.

Alexander estimates that in the time it will take to certify with the state, the community will need a larger library.

Waking the T. Rex Brings Sue to Life | Dinosaur Tracking

, The short Sue biography is a combination docudrama and behind-the-scenes peek at paleontology. Visions of Sue brought back to life are interspersed with appearances by Chicago Field Museum paleontologists Lindsay Zanno, Bill Simpson and Peter Makovicky, all of whom share some insight into the science behind the impressive tyrannosaur. While Zanno explains the basics of field work, for instance, Makovicky interprets microscopic sections of Sue’s bones and points out some of the injuries that left their mark on the dinosaur’s skeleton. This combined approach—matching paleo-vignettes of Sue’s world with comments from scientists—informs as well as entertains, and I was glad to see that the film showcased some of the new techniques paleontologists are using to investigate the details of dinosaur lives. High-powered microscopes and CT scanners are allowing scientists to view fossils in ways never before possible.

As for the computer-generated dinosaurs, they trundle across the screen in the stereotyped manner of all big screen dinosaurs. In other words, they don’t act very much like real animals. Sue announces her attacks by roaring; the Triceratops by bellowing and waving their arms about. That aside, I was pleased to see that the filmmakers did not make a young version of Sue look like a miniature adult. Young Sue is long-legged, shallow-snouted, covered in a fuzzy coat of feathers and, appropriately, looks like an awkward teenager . A gaggle of feather-covered dromaeosaurs also makes a cameo in the film, and, in this respect, the movie was up-to-date. We have all seen enough naked dinosaurs .