In reply to Kathleen Peterson, et al.:

  Van Ness & Geary is near the Civic Center in San Francisco (including
the public library and the Opera house).  There is good local
transportation, but I would probably take taxis if you want to go to
Chinatown, Golden Gate Park, Fisherman's Warf, Pier 39 (shops & numerous
restaurants), Japantown, North Beach (Italian), etc.  There are thousands
of restaurants in San Francisco and there are some good ones near your
hotel but none come to mind off the top of my head (other than the Hard
Rock Cafe - where you can also get t-shirts and sweatshirts for you kids).

  I would NOT recommend walking around alone at night in ANY large city.

  The public transportation can take you pretty much anywhere in San
Francisco but you might have to wait a while for some buses (Muni).  BART
is the underground train system which can also you take you across the
Bay to Oakland, Berkeley and other East Bay cities.  You might be
interested in visiting U.C. Berkeley's libraries while you are here -
within walking distance from the Berkeley BART station.  Berkeley has
excellent restaurants as well.

  If you will be staying on Sunday, I highly recommend going to Chinatown
for Dim Sum.  That's a kind of Chinese brunch with many types of small
dishes.  Probably the best Chinese food outside of Hong Kong. (To avoid
long waits, I would try to get to a restaurant on Sunday BEFORE 10am).

  Downtown S.F. recently opened Planet Hollywood, San Francisco, if you
are into that scene.  Right next to it is Virgin Records, which claims to
be the largest record store in the world.  (it also sells books, computer
software and some other things I am not sure about).

  If you are renting a car, the wine country (Napa, Sonoma Counties) are
just an hour or two's drive North of S.F. - a nice drive over the Golden
Gate Bridge.  Great for wine tasting and tours of the wineries.

-- Mitch

  _^_                                                 _^_
( ___ )-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-( ___ )
 |   |                                               |   |
 |   |     Mitch Turitz, Serials Librarian           |   |
 |   |     San Francisco State University Library    |   |
 |   |     Internet: turitz@sfsu.edu                 |   |
 |   |                                               |   |
( ___ )-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-==-( ___ )
   V                                                   V

  "Outsourcing is a desperate remedy for management failure,
    not the criticism of catalogers." -- Michael Gorman,
       "Crisis in Subject Cataloging and Retrieval"
          June 25, 1995, ALA Conference, Chicago