More Memo Fun

How would any organization run efficiently without the time-honored memo? Here at the library, each department has a memo clipboard and the staff table is littered with memos. Today's memo concerns the main printer which the public computers print to. The big printer had a hissy fit over the weekend and we apologize to any patrons who did not get their printouts on Sunday. On Monday morning, the printer spat out all those homework assignments and other things you needed so badly the day before. Again, we apologize. This called for a memo. Sometime printers just like to hoard printouts, only to regurgitate them later en masse. Sometimes printers like to chew up paper and get all jammed up. Sometimes printers only print in black and white, or, as with ours a few months ago,  print everything with a jaunty slash of pink ink. We cured the printer of the pink problem. It doesn't jam if we only feed it the exact kind of paper it likes. But sometimes, it still hoards. We could read it Marie Kondo's 'The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up,' but you know, printer storytime would only mean we had let the printer win by driving us totally into fantasy land. Printers can do that. Remember the scene from the movie 'Office Space' where the cubicle dwellers take the bad printer outside and beat it to death? Watch that scene on You tube here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjsSr3z5nVk

The library staff did not smash the printer to smithereens with a baseball bat. We wrote a memo. By the way, not so long ago there were no printers in libraries, only clay tablets and little reeds to make wedge-shaped marks. It's true, you needed a strong arm and a sturdy book bag to take home your borrowed clay tablets, but they never jammed up :-)

For more thoughts on memos from our blogger, go to Memo Memes: Passive Agressive Memos at the library

Top 5 Reasons to Listen to Audiobooks

Audiobook advantages: The 5 top reasons to 'read' audiobooks

Audiobook Advantage #1: Your house will be very clean!

I recently started “reading” books on my daily commute and discovered a few advantages to listening to a book compared to reading words on a page.  I was a little reluctant to listen to someone else do the reading (I rather like the voices in my head,) but two people convinced me to give it a try; plus I was curious as to how a narrator manages the voices of more than one character. The first person told me that she downloads audiobooks to her smartphone and listens while she cleans her house. As a result, her house is very clean because she does not want to stop listening to the book she just downloaded.   

Audiobook Advantage #2: Shorter holds lists.You will probably have more chances to get your hands on the title you want to read if you are willing to listen to it. The second audiobook fan who got me started down the audio road recommended a book she had just read and the only copy available at the time was on CD. 

Audiobook Advantage #3: Follow the Reader. Right now I’m listening to the recently released In the Unlikely Event, an adult novel by Elizabeth, New Jersey native, Judy Blume. The story begins in Elizabeth, NJ in the early 1950s when airline travel was new. Judy Blume was a young girl living in Elizabeth when a series of airline accidents resulted in the shutdown of Newark Airport. She uses these actual events to tell the fictional stories of three generations of people who were brought together by the tragedies. The reader, Kathleen McInerney, convincingly uses different voices for each character and reads at just the right pace and with the right sense of drama. This brings me to Audiobook Advantage #3: If you like a particular book and want a similar experience, you can either look for more titles by that author or you can see what else the reader has narrated.  Simply search for the reader’s name the same way you would search for an author’s name. I found two more adult novels by Judy Blume to add to my reading list and two more books narrated by Kathleen McInerney that I’m adding to my reading list.

Then there is Audiobook Advantage #4: You can read 2 books at once. I listen to one book during my daily commute and read another at home on the sofa.

Audiobook Advantage # 5: the Voices in Your Head versus the Voices on the Audio.
The people who listened to the Harry Potter books, instead of reading the words on printed pages, raved about the man who read the books. Jim Dale, the reader/performer created 134 different character voices for the Harry Potter series. That was a record until Roy Dotrice started narrating the Game of Thrones series using 224 different voices. 

If you want to read In the Unlikely Event, you can place a hold on the book or the audiobook. As of 1:00 p.m. June 15, if you place a request for the book, you will be number 12 on the waiting list. Applying Audiobook Advantage #2, if you place a request for the audiobook you will be number 4 in  line.

As for me, I’m still trying to decide if I want to apply Audiobook Advantage #1. Do I have to clean while listening at home or can I just listen on the sofa? Audiobook Guilt #1: You don't have to jog or clean while you listen, but you can and it makes the job much more fun.

Take a look at our 'All Things E' page to find sources for borrowing ebooks and e-audiobooks for free.

-Melanie Edwards

What if Book Reviews Were Written Like Text Messages? BR=TM

A while ago I wrote a blog post in which I wondered...What if Book Reviews Were Written Like Wine Reviews?


Recent 'Incoming' text messages which I have had to decode by 'Googling' the acronyms sent to me by younger, hipper people (ahem, my kids) got me to thinking about...

What if book reviews were written like text messages with a bit of Twitter hashtags thrown in?
Or should I say #whatif? BR=TM ROTFL because YOLO, I literally can't even um like imagine, but here goes.

In our continuing series of posts about what is new on our non-fiction shelf, LMK if u like these books:



Get What's Yours, the Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security by Laurence J Kotlikoff
(368.4 KOT) Our BR=TM: How is that even possible? Define 'yours' #getmoreSS$$

The Teenage Brain, a neuroscientist's survival guide to raising adolescents and young adults by Frances E. Jensen, MD (612.6 JEN) Our BR=TM: RUH ROH enter the teen brain AYOR The Struggle is Real! But seriously folks, if it's quiet, too quiet, check their rooms.

Biscuits, sweet and savory southern recipes for the all-American kitchen by Jackie Garvin (641.815 GAR) Our BR=TM: OM NOM NOM #nuffsaid WTF (Well that's *fantastic, right?)

 How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are, Love, Style, and Bad Habits by Anne Berest et al (305.409 BER) Our BR=TM: Ladies and Germs...I am sure the Academie Francaise is rolling in its collective grave at the very perish-the-thought of les messages SMS. Mais, non! #Jamais! #SacreBleu


I aw8t 4 u 2 reply to this post.

IMHO this post rocks!

A Day at the Reference Desk

Q: Does the library own a well-known university's alumni directory.
A: We do not own any alumni directories, but we can search the 'Reference USA' database for people in the U.S. and Canada and we can teach patrons how to access that database from their home computer or by using library computers. Go to our 'Databases and Articles' page, find 'Reference USA', type in your library barcode number when directed.

Q: Can we find an obituary in a local newspaper?
A:We will be glad to look through online databases of 'The Star Ledger' and 'The Independent Press' and other resources that we have at the library, or we can teach patrons how to access these databases so they can search them. See above for how to get to our 'Databases and Articles' webpage.

Q: Can you help me download an ebook to my device?
A:Yes, we can help you do that. The best way is to stop by with your tablet or smartphone, and be sure to have all your usernames and passwords handy. We will help you download ebooks or e-audiobooks to your iPad, Kindle, Nook or other portable electronic device. Go our our 'All Things E' webpage for a list of library ebook providers.

Q: Can you tell me the resale value of a certain car?
A:Yes, we have the so-called 'blue books' which are really orange and called the 'NADA Official Used Car Guide.'  Ask at the Reference Desk where we keep them or we can look up a car for you if you know the model and make and year.

Q:Where do wildfires occur the most, what is the cost of wildfires and who has lost the most from wildfires.
A:The National Interagency Fire Center has a page of statistics that we found helpful to answer these and other wildfire-related questions.

Q: How can I find which cookbook has the recipe I want?
A: We recommend the app 'Eat Your Books' which has indexed millions of recipes. You can even enter the ingredients you have and it will find recipes to match. You can enter the cookbooks you own and it will find the recipes in those cookbooks.

Q: If BHPL does not own the book I want, can you find it for me?
A: Yes, we can tell you which local library owns it by looking in their online catalog and/or we can request it on interlibrary loan.

Q: Do we have downloadable travel books?
A: Yes, we have some travel books available from eLibraryNJ.com and we also have a database called 'A- Z the USA' and 'A - Z World Travel' which has information for travelers.

Q: What are the latest audiobooks you have gotten at the library?
A: If you look on our Wowbrary list, you can find what audiobooks were acquired by the library in the last week and then click back week by week to see what was acquired in past weeks. You can also subscribe to wowbrary.com to get a weekly email of new library materials.

Dave Coverly cartoon http://www.speedbump.com/index.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parnassus on Wheels

"Oh, you're a librarian..," they say.
Followed inevitably by,
"You must read a lot."
Or,
"I'd like to read all day at my job..." wistfully.
"Ha ha, yes, so would I," is my not so clever rejoinder that is always ignored.
How did I get to this librarian place? It might have been in seventh grade when Mrs. Quinn, my English teacher, assigned a 1917 book by Christopher Morley, Parnassus on Wheels, which begins: 

CHAPTER ONE


I wonder if there isn't a lot of bunkum in higher education? I never
found that people who were learned in logarithms and other kinds of
poetry were any quicker in washing dishes or darning socks. I've
done a good deal of reading when I could, and I don't want to "admit
impediments" to the love of books, but I've also seen lots of good,
practical folk spoiled by too much fine print. Reading sonnets
always gives me hiccups, too.

I never expected to be an author! But I do think there are some
amusing things about the story of Andrew and myself and how books
broke up our placid life. When John Gutenberg, whose real name (so
the Professor says) was John Gooseflesh, borrowed that money to set
up his printing press he launched a lot of troubles on the world.

You can read the entire book on the Internet Archives  or The Gutenberg Project. You can even download it to a Kindle or other portable electronic device from there. The Project Gutenberg Project reviews it nicely here. So I'll just say it's the story of a woman who takes off in a mobile bookshop, an old-fashioned bookmobile/caravan to get a taste of freedom from the drudgery and responsibility of working on her farm with her rather pretentious brother, a budding author. It is written with tongue firmly in cheek in a rather old-fashioned style. I don't think I liked reading it at the age of twelve or so, but maybe it planted the seed of an idea in my mind. I still think it would be fun to drive a bookmobile around neighborhoods and a horse-driven one would be even better. If you like that idea, take a look at some of the modern incarnations of that dream.

My copy of the book looks like this

Biblioburro which you can follow on Facebook
FabLab in the Netherlands
Mobile libraries on Pinterest

More Apps for That - a blog update

About a year ago I posted about the apps I have on my smart phone in There's an App for That! 
Over a year ago, my children had encouraged me to update from an embarrassingly uncool and pre-Diluvian flip phone to a really cool smart phone from a well-known and very cool company that is known for cool computers, cool phones, cool portable electronic devices and advertisements that are so cool I don't really know what they are trying to get me to buy. (But has a very catchy tune from the 'Pixies', watch the Gigantic ad here.)
Before I go any further in my update, let me just say that this is relevant to a library blog, because libraries are now really cool too. The Berkeley Heights Public Library has a phone app, downloadable e-books, a website of course, this really cool blog (ahem) and a very strong presence on social media (ie: Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest etc)
So anyway, in the last year I have added a mini-tablet to my arsenal of techie stuff. The mini-tablet is from the same cool company referred to above. The idea is that my phone and my tablet will 'sync up' with each other, sharing content and reporting it all to the same 'cloud' where my stuff (photos etc) is stored. And my devices and my kids' devices are made by the same company so we can video talk with each other easily without having the battle of rival hardware/software occur. At least that's the idea and that is generally the case except when it's not working, but of course, one always assumes that if one was just 'cool' enough it would all work seamlessly and I would be singing 'Gigantic' and not cursing when both my personal and work to do lists appears on my phone, but not on my tablet.
Here are some of the apps I have added in the last year to my phone and tablet. I'm not saying I couldn't live without them, but they are really cool.
Merlin Bird ID - (free) a bird identifying app that allows you to look up a bird by characteristics and then gives you a best guess list and the calls of the bird plus maps of where it can be found and other information about the bird. That bird with the little beret look? It's a Black Capped Chickadee. Who knew?
BuzzFeed - (free) which is basically the biggest time-waster ever and really fun. If you have ever seen those fun quizzes being passed around on Facebook about which Jane Austen character would you be, or what country fits you best, BuzzFeed is probably the source of those little quizzes.
GasBuddy - (free) for finding the cheapest gas nearby.
United Airlines - (free) for keeping track of my flights and getting a mobile boarding pass.
For real estate searching, I have Trulia and Zillow  (free) which are useful for house-hunting or just for snooping about house values in your neighborhood.
Animoto - (free + fee version) which allows you to make free 30 second slide shows set to music. You can use photos from your phone or device, upload them to your account and make a really nice little slide show very quickly. For a fee, you will be able to make longer videos.
Overdrive Media Console - (free) allows me to borrow ebooks from eLibraryNJ through the library website. The reference librarians help patrons set this up on their devices all the time and it is hugely popular when people find out they don't have to purchase ebooks and e-audiobooks.
Zinio -(free) also available from the library website allows patrons to download magazines to their devices. I love this, the magazines look great on a tablet and they do not ever expire or come due.
I also have the apps for Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and GoodReads so I can post to my personal accounts or follow what other people are posting.

What apps do you like? Click on 'comment' below to let us know.
Here is the link to one of the library's Animoto slide shows
and below is another library Animoto video. You can embed the HTML into a blog or website. How cool is that?


Going to the Library

Learn Languages on Your Smart Phone

Berkeley Heights Public Library Book Blog: Learn Languages on Your Smart Phone:   The Berkeley Heights Public Library offers free online language tutorials from Mango Languages. Patrons with smart phones (iPhones or Android..)

Click here for the rest of the post about our Mango Language Learning online software program - available to Berkeley Heights Public Library patrons.



Original post:

http://bhplnjbookgroup.blogspot.com/2012/02/learn-languages-on-your-smart-phone.html