Information, Answers & Reviews

Scarcely a week goes by here at the library without an inquiry from someone who has self-published a book and wants us to buy it or accept it as a gift.  Not surprising in this community, which includes many writers as well as Author Solutions, one of the world’s largest self-publishing businesses, and we know that last year, 300,000 titles were published through traditional publishers and 3,000,000 – 10 times as many – were self-published in this country.  As we struggle to find ways to evaluate and select books in this new environment with ten times more choices and without reviews, we want to support local writers in finding the best outlets for their creative endeavors.

On May 6 at 7 p.m. in the library auditorium, we’ll be hosting Kevin Gray, media manager for Author Solutions, as he describes “More Options than Ever Before for Publishing Your Book.” He’ll suggest four paths now available for authors to get their books in the hands of readers and then answer questions from the audience.  We hope you’ll join us; no registration is necessary.

If you’re considering self-publishing, you might also want to check out Jane Friedman’s blog “Writing, Reading and Publishing in a Digital Age.”  Friedman has worked in publishing since the late 1990s and has in-depth knowledge of both the editorial and business sides of book and magazine publishing, as well as online media.

Ever wonder whether you are really getting the best info when you search Google? Does your teacher tell you NOT TO USE THE INTERNET when you do research? If the answer to these questions is yes, then try our E-Reference Library!

What is it?

Your library has always been the best place to find reliable, up to date information for research papers, assignments and general interest. We choose encyclopedias and reference books that we know will do the job and we make them easy to get to online. Our E-Reference Library is a great collection of reliable resources you can use from home. If you have a school assignment that requires looking up information on a topic, you should use our E-Reference Library.

How do you get to all this great stuff?

All you need is your library card! You can pick individual books to use, or you can just search across the entire collection. Each article or topical summary provides valuable information AND will give you the appropriate citation from the source. That’s important because teachers want to know what reference books you are using and the citation will show them that you used something better than Wikipedia.

But doesn’t this count as “using the Internet”?

No. The sources in the E-Reference Library are not available on the open web. These are purchased by the library for you to use. The books included in the E-Reference Library are reliable and reputable sources that have been published regularly for many years. The only difference is that you can use them online!

Steven Spielberg's Lincoln currently has more hold requests than any other title in our collection! Whether you are waiting, have seen it already, or just want something else to watch, we have some other movies featuring our 16th President that might be of interest: He is featured briefly in D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, Henry Fonda plays him as a younger man (without the beard) in John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln. Sam Waterston also portrayed him as President in an adaptation of Gore Vidal's Lincoln. If you are specifically interested in the aftermath of his assassination you could try Robert Redford's The Conspirator. And, for some time-travelling non-seriousness, there's always Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure!

Read below for some more films about other U.S. Presidents
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It’s Earth Day. Senator Gaylord Nelson was the driving force behind the first one which occurred in 1970 as a day of education about environmental issues. As I scanned the new releases in the environmental section, this book caught my eye. It was a sobering read but one that was very thought-provoking. World-renowned legal scholar, Andrew Guzman, wrote Overheated. In it, he examines the political and sociological changes from climate change that the author reports have already started to occur.  Not just flooding and mega-storms, but also droughts, food scarcity, refugees forced from their land, lack of water for agriculture, etc. In his preface, the author states that “climate change will affect nearly everyone on this planet.”

The chapter topics reveal his major concerns: one on flooding shows how some island nations will disappear, and  that at least one very populated one—Bangladesh--will suffer massive flooding that will lead to migrations of millions of refugees. The chapter entitled “A Thirsty World” depicts how the melting of glaciers will affect the water supply of many people on earth, not only in India, Pakistan, Argentina, and Chile, but also in our American West. He predicts that this will impact both our food supply and the prices of commodities.

In “Climate Wars—A Shower of Sparks” he hypothesizes how the conflict in Darfur in the 1990s may have been the first war sparked by climate change. Guzman also says that more wars will be caused by a scarcity of resources. He is very concerned about the Middle East, already one of the most arid areas in the world. Read more »