Library Card Sign-up Month

by Pam Everhardt Bloom Rowan Public Library

Libraries are all about choice – your choices. Your library card is an important commodity and it’s free. It’s so important that the American Library Association designates September as Library Card Sign-up Month. When’s the last time you used your card at the library? If it’s been a while you might even ask why you would want to visit an institution originating in the 3^rd century BCE? A public service announcement celebrating this special month sums up several  reasons to use your library card with this observation: “Today’s libraries are more about doing than borrowing – more about connecting than simply plugging in. Whether you want to get involved in your community, find a job, start a business, or simply get ahead, your library card is the key to opportunity. Libraries are transforming.” Transforming; what an interesting concept to contemplate.  Each week this column is dedicated to keeping the public informed about library activities, current selections and other interesting tidbits of information. If you’re a regular reader you’ve learned that your library card offers far more than just checking out a book. This week the staff at Rowan Public Library would like to challenge you to help transform our community by encouraging others to join the library and get their free card. If you’re overdue for a visit, September is a perfect month for reacquainting yourself with your public library.

Explore the library with a sense of adventure. Always run in for the latest bestseller? Take a stroll to the other end of the library and check out one of the ever changing displays. Enjoy story time with the kids? Spread the joy and bring the grandparents and the rest of the family for an evening of family programs. Do you sequester yourself in the History Room with hours of research? Stop by the Friends’ Book Sale on the second floor for a look. Ask a reference librarian about NC Live or chat with staff about the joys of a pin number plus library card and the multitude of online opportunities it presents. If you’re a fiction reader, venture into the non-fiction stacks for a new narrative non-fiction book or a compelling memoir.  Check out a book on CD or take the plunge and learn how to download all the possibilities from NC Digital. With on-line availability, your library is ALWAYS open. Novelist Saul Bellows, winner of both the Pulitzer and Nobel awards, said it well, “People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned.”

So lose yourself within these doors. Travel to a branch you’ve never visited – join a book club at South, stop in at East for a visit with a local artist or enjoy Headquarter’s  Fall Concert Series. They’re all free and so is the wealth of information your library card unlocks.  In this month of Library Card Sign-up, the American Library Association describes a library card as the most essential school supply of all. E.B. White, beloved author of the classic Charlotte’s Web, wrote, “A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people - people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book." White wrote this excerpt in a letter to the children of Troy, Michigan on the opening of their new public library in 1971. So grab your child, a friend, your neighbor and make September your month for a library card.

P.S. I can’t end this article without a book plug. Frederick Backman’s “My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry” is absolutely amazing. Visit your library and find out why. Get ready for the transformation.

NC LIVE Resources

by Edward Hirst Rowan Public Library

ReferenceUSA

Do you need to look up a phone number or address?  ReferenceUSA should be your first stop. This has always been a very popular resource which returned to NC LIVE this year.  ReferenceUSA provides access to 24 million US businesses and 235 million US residents. Some popular uses of ReferenceUSA are market research, job searching, and corporate information.

AccessScience

Are you a student who needs to do scientific research? AccessScience should be included as a resource you turn to. This online resource includes quality, well researched reference material including videos and animations. The database provides users with access to 8,500 articles, 17,000 downloadable images, and 3000 biographies of leading scientific figures. There is also an interactive citation generator as well as links to citable primary sources.

SIRS WebSelect!

 Is a new resource recently added to the NC LIVE lineup. SIRS WebSelect! provides access to quality, prescreened  Internet resources from around the world. SIRS monitors each site to ensure access and quality information remains available.

ProQuest Research Library
Research Library is another new to NC LIVE resource that provides access to many relevant subjects and topics for both business and scholarly research.  This resource includes thousands of full-text articles from a wide variety of journals, professional and trade publications, and general interest magazines.

OneClick digital
 OneClick digital is a popular resource that NC LIVE has provided to users for a number years.  OneClick digital provides access to downloadable audio books on a variety of subjects, including the latest fiction and nonfiction releases, biographies, classic literature, and much more.

What on Earth am I Going to do With This Pile of Zucchini?

                                                                                                                               
by Marissa Creamer Rowan Public Library

                If you are fortunate enough to have a summer vegetable garden , you have probably been enjoying a bounty of fresh squash, butterbeans, cucumbers, green beans, tomatoes, eggplants, and yes, zucchini. There’s nothing quite like a meal of fresh vegetables picked that very morning from your own garden. But after a while, the produce can begin to pile up and you may find yourself wondering what to do with your bumper crop. Before you resort to leaving bags of zucchini on your neighbor’s porch under the cover of night, visit Rowan Public Library for these helpful books.

                “Cooking From the Garden: Best Recipes from Kitchen Gardener” edited by Ruth Lively celebrates the season’s best with more that 200 innovative recipes. Made from the freshest produce, these tasty dishes highlight ripe, seasonal ingredients. You will find ideas for everything from appetizers and main dishes to desserts; including Eggplant “Sandwiches” on Crisp Greens with Sherry-Shallot Vinaigrette, which uses oven-roasted slices of eggplant in a twist on grilled cheese sandwiches. Or try Spicy Carrot Fritters with Fresh Salsa, Okra Tempura with Soy Dipping Sauce, Peach Crisp with Lavender, and Lemon Verbena Ice Cream.

                If you still can’t cook it all, then try preserving your bounty. The idea of canning may seem overwhelming, but you can start small with “The Complete Book of Small Batch Preserving” by Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard. This book provides over 300 recipes that yield just three or four jars of jams, conserves, pickles, relishes, mustards, marinades, salsas, desert sauces, and more.  There are also recipes for the freezer and for making low-sugar preserves. Sparkling Sweet Pepper Jelly, Summer Vegetable Ratatouille, Rosemary Wine Syrup, and Fresh Fig and Strawberry Jam  are just a few of the tasty recipes included.

                Preserving the harvest doesn’t have to stop with jams and pickles. Many fruits, vegetables, and herbs can be made into delicious beverages to drink fresh or preserve for later. “Drink the Harvest,” by Nan K. Chase and DeNeice C. Guest shows you how to turn your bounty into juices, wines, meads, teas and syrups. Make Heirloom Potato Wine, Strawberry Juice, Sensational-7 Vegetable Drink, Mixed Berry Mead, or Passionflower-Lemon Balm Wine. These delicious beverages will make wonderful gifts to share with your friends. Drink the Harvest will also teach you how to create your own beverage garden and how to harvest ingredients for maximum flavor.

                Come to Rowan Public Library to find these books and many other titles to help you make the most of your harvest.

Hands On History

by Paul Birkhead Rowan Public Library
     
    The history of the United States of America is not very long in comparison to other world nations.  However, many exciting events have occurred in that short amount of time and numerous personalities have played a role in making the history of our young nation a fascinating subject.  Several books in the Rowan Public Library’s collection feature places and artifacts that help tell America’s story.

    Here is Where: Discovering America’s Great Forgotten History is a book by Andrew Carroll that details his journey across America looking for unheralded historical sites.  What inspired Carroll to document these lost, forgotten, and neglected places?  The inspiration came from a site in New Jersey where Abraham Lincoln’s son, Robert, was saved from what could have been a fatal accident by the actor Edwin Booth.  Ironically, Edwin was the brother of President Lincoln’s assassin.  Carroll’s interest in the event led him to research where it had taken place.  He found that he had actually travelled by that particular spot in Jersey City, New Jersey numerous times without realizing it.  He then wondered how many other ‘historical’ places were forgotten and how many he could find.  Quite a few, as it turned out.

    Sometimes history lives on through artifacts that have been handed down through generations.  Shards of wood, locks of hair, and pieces of stone are not very exciting in their own right.  But with a little bit of documentation, these ordinary objects can seemingly transport you back in time.  Souvenir Nation is a wonderful book featuring photographs of and stories about various keepsakes and curios that have ended up in the collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.  Some of the cherished relics include an oak cane made from wood from Independence Hall, a framed collection of locks of hair from the first fourteen American Presidents, and a wooden chip from the building (in Salisbury, NC) where Andrew Jackson studied law.

    The Smithsonian Institution is a collection of museums and research centers, many of which are dedicated to the preservation and study of the heritage of America.  Nicknamed “The Nation’s Attic,” the Smithsonian has over 138 million items in its holdings.  Can you imagine the task of narrowing down that collection to feature just 101 items?  That’s precisely what a team of Smithsonian curators and scholars did in order to publish the book, The Smithsonian’s History of America in 101 Objects.  While each item featured in the book is valuable on its own, together this small collection presents a priceless history lesson.

    A Grizzly in the Mail and Other Adventures in American History is another book that helps tell the story of America.  The author, Tim Grove, has worked in many of the nation’s top history museums over the past twenty years and he wrote this book to give the reader a behind-the-scenes look at their inner workings.  There are many interesting stories from Grove’s career which has taken him to such places as Williamsburg, VA and Washington, D.C.  It was during a three-year stint in St. Louis that the infamous grizzly from the book’s title appeared.  Throughout the book, the author’s predilection for history is evident and explains his success as a museum educator.

    If studying American history is your passion or you are just curious about the many interesting persons or events that have made this country what it is today, check out these and other titles at Rowan Public Library.

Chocolate Delights

by Gretchen Beilfuss Witt  Rowan Public Library

As part of the Adult Summer Reading program and on-going Book Bites, Rowan Public Library will present an evening filled with that most delectable treat – chocolate.   A little background might be in order.

Chocolate or Xocalatl began, not as the candy kiss we all know and love, but as a slightly bitter and highly spiced drink.  Toltecs and Aztecs used the dried beans, cacahuatl as currency as much as a thousand years before Spanish conquistadors encountered the native Mexicans.  “The Chocolate Bible” by Christian Teubner details the progress of chocolate from its equatorial origins to the courts of Europe and into the hands of the great chocolatiers.  The cultivation of cacao trees and the methods of production in the processing of cocoa are explored as well.  The “Bible” continues to the main event, the luscious looking recipes for chocolate indulgences – the famous Viennese Sacher Torte, mousse, candies and of course the original drink – Tejate, frothy and mixed with corn, annatto, mammee seeds, cacao blossoms, and ivory nut.  Chile peppers, cinnamon, ginger, white pepper, vanilla and other spices have also been used to flavor this unique beverage.   The savory side of chocolate is also represented in mole and noodles.

Kay Frydenborg, in her book Chocolate Sweet Science & Dark Secrets explores the many aspects of chocolate.   She looks at the science involved in producing chocolate, the chemistry, and the medicinal use of chocolate as well as the social and commercial history.  In her chapter entitled the “Dark Side of Chocolate,”  Frydenborg maintains that until very recently and even still in some places, chocolate was produced by slave labor.  The original Mesoamerican societies used their own servant classes for the production of cocoa; the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors continued the practice.  In the early 1900s, one of the leading chocolate makers of England, Cadbury faced a serious scandal and trial.  They were accused of turning a blind eye to what was, in essence, slavery in the making of cacao.  The subsequent British push for reform inflamed relations between England and Portugal, which still allowed the harsh forced labor practices. In 2001 a “Cocoa Protocol” was signed by all the big chocolate companies pledging to keep their cocoa production child labor free, but compliance has been difficult.  Fair Trade Certified programs help ensure that commodities such as coffee and chocolate are produced safely, sustainably and efficiently and without child labor. The book finishes with a timeline of interesting tidbits in chocolate history,  like the US military has issued chocolate as standard rations since the 1940s at Milton Hershey’s suggestion or a solid eating chocolate bar first appears in 1847.

 For a fascinating look at the great chocolate houses, Chocolate Wars by Deborah Cadbury should not be missed.    It examines the early rivalries of Rowntree and Cadbury and their Quaker antecedents as well as the histories of the big American chocolate companies Mars and Hershey.    For a more humorous look at our cultural obsession with chocolates, Steve Almond writes an enjoyable romp in “Candy Freak.”   Last but not least, check out a copy of the novel Chocolat “with its mix of hedonism, whimsy, and, of course, chocolate.”    As a finale, Rowan Public Library will show the film Chocolat and attendees will be invited to indulge in some chocolate creations – Tuesday, August 25^th at 6:30 at the South Rowan Regional Library.