The new Director of Sonoma County’s Libraries wants to improve  channels of communication with staff and patrons, while expanding the system’s digital services.

Librarians are virtually always avid readers themselves, and Lear is no exception. So we asked what he was currently reading.

Lear, 46, is also married to a librarian, and the couple has a young son.

  Public Schools Week, a public display of local student’s projects and activities, gets underway tomorrow. Today, we get a preview.

The kick-off for Public Schools Week will be held from 4-5:30 Fridayt afternoon at Coddingtown Mall. See below for a full schedule of events—which continue through next Tuesday.

Friday, May 9 

Opening Ceremony 4:00Mark West Strings 4:20Willowside Band 4:40Willowside Chorus 5:00 Monday, May 12 Wright Charter School Mental Math Wizards 1:00Wright Charter School Chess Champions 3:00 Tuesday, May 13Rincon Valley Band 1:30Mark West MS Guitars 2:00Sonoma valley/El Verano Orchestra 4:00Kenwood Band 4:30Roseland Chorus 5:00Roseland Drama 5:30

  ALSO: From retirement obligations to paying off bond measures, a new report says California is on the hook for $340 billion. The state has yet to set aside money for most of that.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Today's reporting by Ben Adler.

  Horror movies and popular musicals notwithstanding, carnivorous plants do not eat people, nor do they grow to tower over us. Without that far-fetched scare factor, they are strangely beautiful…and decidedly weird.

  Peter D’Amato was just a boy when he first sent for a mail-order Venus Flytrap. It didn’t last long, but his interest in these strange plants did, especially after he was introduced to some that were growing in the wild not far from his home.

D’Amato’s California Carnivores nursery propagates and breeds many of the plants they display and sell, such as sundews and pitcher plants. They need to be kept wet, he explains, but they don’t need to be fed. Aside from the loss of habitat that threatens them, carnivorous plants are naturally long-lived.

Many of D'Amato's specimens are currently on display in San Francisco, at the exhibit called Chomp 2 at the Conservatory of Flowers. It continues though mid-October.