Sorry We’re Closed (But Not Really)

April Everett Rowan Public Library

This has been one of the harshest winters we have experienced in the Southeast in recent years.  Crippling ice storms, record cold temperatures, and heavy snow fall has certainly interrupted our daily routines.  But rather than being a glass-half-empty person, I’m going to challenge you to make the most of these winter blues.

As I write this column, the library is actually closed due to inclement weather--but that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying all that the library has to offer.  If you have an internet connection, you have access to ebooks, eaudiobooks, evideos, downloadable music, digital magazines, articles, online classes, and so much more.

The library subscribes to NCLive, which offers free access to thousands of audiobooks, ebooks, and videos for streaming.  There are also hundreds of thousands of articles you can read or do text-to-audio and listen instead.  Since NCLive tends to be heavy on the non-fiction, those in need of an escape may be more interested in NCDigital Library, which offers thousands of popular materials in the form of downloadable books, audiobooks, music, and videos.  There’s even a collection of Disney read-along ebooks that are always available and offer interactive fun for children learning to read.

If magazines are more your style, the library recently obtained a subscription to Zinio, the world’s largest electronic newsstand.  With a collection of more than 50 magazines including Do it Yourself, Good Housekeeping, Interweave Knits, Popular Photography, and Oprah Magazine, you’re sure to find a magazine to inspire creativity.

Need something to listen to while you’re cleaning the house or shoveling snow on the sidewalk?  Check out OneClick Digital, which offers you free access to downloadable audiobooks on a variety of topics, including language learning, history, biography, classic literature, and more.  These audiobooks are compatible with most iPods and WMA compatible MP3 players.

If you are looking for more of a challenge, browse our Learn4Life course catalog, which boasts more than 300 instructor-led online courses covering anything from digital photography to beginning guitar; software help to medical transcription.  Click on a course to look at the syllabus, read more about the instructor, find out course requirements, and read student reviews.  Each course lasts six weeks and is available to you free of charge with your library card.  The next session of courses begins February 19^th.

Don’t have an internet connection?  We’ve still got snow day fun covered!  Right now the library is sponsoring several contests as part of our 411 Community Read this year.  Grab your camera and snap a few photos to submit for the Photography Contest, open to students and adults (submissions accepted March 9 – April 9).  Or, put together a “shelf room” that mimics one of the scenes from our Community Read book, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.  You can create a shelf room using household items (shoebox, glue, craft papers, etc.).  The project can be completed as individual or as a family, with cash prizes awarded to each.  For children and teens, there’s also a Hidden Picture coloring contest with cash prizes.  If you haven’t already, pick up entry forms at any library location.

While there are few things more comforting than snuggling up with a cup of hot cocoa and a good book, the library of 2014 is so much more than our brick-and-mortar walls can hold.  So when you run out of reading material and are still snowed in, remember your library card gives you access to so much more.  Visit www.rowanpubliclibrary.org to discover all the places you can go with your library card from the comfort of your own home.

Be Prepared when the Weather Turns Cold

John Tucker Rowan Public Library

                When the weather turns cold and conditions call for snow and ice, the functionality of your home heating device comes into play.  What will you do if the power goes out?  How will you heat your home?  If you do not have a good back-up plan, it might be worth your while to stop by the library investigate a few books on the subject.

                The text “Book of Successful Fireplaces” by R.J. Lytle and Marie-Jeanne Lytle explores ideas for both heat and fuel savings in different fireplace settings.  Fireplaces offer all the occupants of a room the warmth of direct radiation.  In this way the entire room could be warmed from one central fire.  Historically speaking, wood burns cleaner than coal which produces sooty conditions in the home.   The fireplace has been a central fixture in homes since the first days of human history.  This book will help provide ideas to builders and remodels of fireplace structures. 

                Another resource for home heat is called “the Book of Heat: a Four Season Guide to Wood and Coal Heating” by William Busha and Stephen Morris.  This book is a collective effort from the Vermont Castings Company in the state of Vermont.  The book tackles every matter dealing with fireplaces, woodstoves, and fireplace inserts from how to tune your chainsaw so that you can cut wood for the fireplace to making repairs on any part of the fireplace structure.  The book tells the history of fireplace structures used in America and how to care for them.  If you have an existing fireplace, this is the book that can help you to make repairs to make it usable once again.

                Another book on the subject of repairs and improvements to fireplaces is the Time Life Book: “Fireplaces and Wood Stoves.”  This text recommends that you check your home insurance policy and local building code to see if your repairs require a licensed professional.  If not, this text is a step-by-step manual for repairs.  Had I know about this book, I could have been educated to make a needed repair to my chimney and saved over a thousand dollars.  I should have known better.  So, here is hoping you won’t make my mistake.

                A final suggestion for your consideration is directed to those home owners who want to invest in earth’s free energy for heating and cooling.  A source book to consider is titled “The Smart Guide to Geothermal” by Donal Blaise Lloyd.  The book explains the premise that it is more efficient to transfer energy than it is to burn anything.  This book will require a re-do of your home heating system to accommodate a new plan for extracting heat from the ground in winter, and cooling in the summer.  Don’t take my word for it, check out this book and learn what companies and individuals in our county can assist you.

                Living in the south requires residents to have a black up plan for many weather related incidents.  Emergency heating sources is just one of these situations that each of us should be ready to deploy our plan B.  The Rowan Public Library resources can help you investigate and design your back up plan to keep warm.   Happy Reading!

Share Olympic Memories with Your Child

by Erika Kosin  Rowan Public Library

    Despite the controversy surrounding this years Winter Olympics, people throughout the world are ready to stay up late and watch with bated breath, hoping the athletes from their county earn gold medals.  Over these next two weeks news stations will bring us the latest on the problems and controversy, but the event broadcasts will bring the best of sportsmanship, victory and defeat into our living rooms. 

    The Winter Olympics began in 1924 as an add-on to the modern Summer Games which debuted  in 1896.  Today, the Winter Olympics will hold 98 events in 15 winter sport disciplines.  These disciplines include Speed Skating, Short Track Speed Skating, Alpine Skiing, Freestyle Skiing, Nordic Combined, Cross Country Skiing, Ski Jumping, Snowboarding, Bobsleigh, Skeleton, Biathlon, Curling, Ice Hockey, Luge and Figure Skating, which has added a new team event to its roster this year.  The games are underway and now is the perfect time to introduce your child to some interesting winter sports that they have never seen before. 

    How do you go about getting a child excited about the games, start by visiting the Rowan Public Library.  The library has books about the history of the Winter Olympics such as the Olympic Winter Games by Caroline Arnold and Inside the Olympics by Nick Hunter or there are books focusing on the science behind a sport like How Figure Skating Works by Keltie Thomas.  Information on snowboarding and its equipment can be found in the children’s non-fiction section along with many other winter sport books.  There is a graphic novel about the 1980 U.S.A. hockey team defeating the Soviet Union and going on to win the gold medal called Miracle on Ice by Joe Dunn and books about the famous snowboarder Shaun White, who plans to go for two more gold medals this year, in the children’s biography section.

    Is your child interested in records?  The book Amazing Olympic Records by Paul Hoblin would be for them.  It showcases some of the best Olympic records to date from both the Summer and Winter Games, which means, after this month, this book could be outdated.  What about those special moments in Olympic history that stay with us?  Children can explore some from years past in the book Great Moments in the Olympics by Michael Burgan.  This book contains a favorite Figure Skating moment, when Sarah Hughes skated flawlessly to come from behind and won the gold medal beating out the two favorites Irina Slutskaya and Michelle Kwan along with many other poignant events.

    By introducing children to the meaning of the Olympics and the world stage, they have the opportunity to learn about sports that are not always popular in the United States.  While most American’s don’t watch skiing or curling on TV or follow the athletes that participate in these sports, for two weeks these athletes become household names and children will remember these athletes for years to come.  Many adults remember the Jamaican Bobsleigh team from the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics who wowed the crowds and became international stars even though they never officially completed the competition.  Children today have the opportunity to experience a valuable lesion in competition and sportsmanship with the possibility of new special moments of underdogs winning gold and athletes reaching their dream of competing even if they don’t win.  Now is the time to share these memories with your children and the Rowan Public Library is a great place to start.

YA Books Hit the Big Screen

by Dara Cain Rowan Public Library

Young adult readers will have the opportunity to watch some of their favorite best-selling books come to life this year in theatres. If you haven’t gotten your hands on any of these great reads be sure to do so.  Then you can read the book and compare!  Here is a rundown of the titles.

Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead
Vampire princess Lissa and her guardian-in-training Rose are captured and forced to return to St. Vladimir’s Academy.  At the academy Lissa focuses on mastering magic while Rose works on her physical training to help protect Lissa from the deadly Strigoi, undead vampires that feed from and kill Lissa’s kind.  This the first title in a six book series.
   
Divergent by Veronica Roth
Sixteen-year-old Beatrice must choose from among five predetermined factions that will define her identity.  She chooses Dauntless, the path of courage.  Her choice exposes her to the demanding, violent initiation rites of this group, but it also threatens to expose a personal secret that could place her in mortal danger.  This is the first book in a trilogy centered around adventure, love, and loyalty.

The Fault in Our Stars – Jon Green
Sixteen-year-old Hazel has terminal cancer. While attending a support group meeting to help her deal with her illness she meets Augustus, a cancer patient in remission.  Using Augustus’s leftover make-a-wish, the two set off to meet Hazel’s favorite author and finds companionship and love along the way. 

The Giver by Lois Lowry
Jonas lives in a perfect world where there is no war, fear, or pain.  At the age of twelve he is given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve.  He is to become the receiver of memories, the one who receives from the Giver all of the true joys and pains of his society.  What will Jonas do with only the knowledge that he is given? You can also read the companion books Gathering Blue, Messenger, and Son.

If I Stay by Gayle Forman
One minute seventeen year-old Mia is happily riding in the car with her family and the next she sees herself being lifted from a twisted wreck. While in a coma she reflects on her past and decides whether she wants to fight to live. Via Mia’s thoughts and flashbacks you will explore her life, her passion for classical music, and her strong relationships with her family, friends, and boyfriend.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner
Thomas wakes up in total darkness and remembers nothing but his first name.  He is trapped in a bizarre place devoid of adults called the Glade – an enclosed structure with a jail, a graveyard, a slaughterhouse, living quarters, and gardens. Outside the Glade is the Maze, and every day some of the boys assigned as Runners venture into the labyrinth, attempting to find an exit from this unruly place. The other titles in this trilogy are The Scorch Trials and The Death Cure.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
In the ruins of North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and forces each district to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, consider it a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. This is the last book in the Hunger Games trilogy.

These titles are available at Rowan Public Library!