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It pays to have a library card |
 Many parents will see a library card listed among their child's required back-to-school supplies this year, right alongside composition notebooks, pencils, and folders. Teachers who insist their students have their own cards realize how indispensable a tool the library can be. September being Library Card Sign-up Month, here's a reminder of what your card can get you:
Free books (including eBooks) - Sure, it's obvious, but bears mentioning since new releases are so costly - large print books even more so than regular print.
Audiobooks - Also expensive items, available free of cost at the library.
Newspapers and magazines - Thus saving you the cost of a subscription, and your selection isn't necessarily limited to paper copies....many libraries within the RCLS system (Wallkill included) offer online accessibility to magazines like Consumer Reports with a password or your library card number.
DVDs - So long, Netflix.
CDs - For when you're done with that audiobook.
Computers and WiFi - Your hot spot for both, complete with access to a color printer.
Online resources - Like the Ulster County InfoPortal, where you'll gain access to invaluable learning and research tools such as Universal Class (see below) a gigantic reference and magazine article database, and much more, for free!
Programming - Some fun, some educational, some both, for kids and adults alike.
Librarians - To help guide you, whether you're having a problem with your research paper or curious about your genealogy.
To find out exactly how much your library card is worth, try out this library value calculator. You'll be shocked at how much you're saving without even trying! |
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Coming up at the Wallkill Public Library  Next week's Make and Take Masterpiece will feature the work of Georgia O'Keeffe, considered by many to be among the greatest artists of the 20th century. Learn more about the artist and her work and then create your own masterpiece in her style! The Friday, Aug. 24th program will be offered at noon for ages 5 and up. Register today!
Also coming up: A Mo Willems Storytime will be offered at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday. On Thursday, ages 5 and up are welcome to come in and Read to Millie the tail-wagging tutor at 4 p.m. The Knit and Crochet Club meets at 6:30 p.m. that day as well. Book Talk will feature Brian Selznick's Wonderstruck at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 28. Lego Building will be offered at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 29. Also the 29th, a Drop-In Craft will be available for those who come by at 2:30 p.m. On Thursday, Aug. 30, the Knit and Crochet Club meets at 6:30 p.m. The Fiction Club meets at 6:30 p.m., as well. This month's selection is Nevada Barr's 13 1/2.
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'Bully' among new DVDs to hit shelves  The following DVDs are either newly arrived at the library or coming soon to our shelves:
Bully - Follows five kids and families over the course of a school year. Stories include two families who have lost children to suicide and a mother awaiting the fate of her 14-year-old daughter who has been incarcerated after bringing a gun on her school bus. With an intimate glimpse into homes, classrooms, cafeterias and principals' offices, the film offers insight into the often cruel world of the lives of bullied children.
The Lucky One - A Marine travels to Louisiana after serving three tours in Iraq and searches for the unknown woman he believes was his good luck charm during the war. Stars Zac Efron and Taylor Schilling. Think Like a Man - Four friends conspire to turn the tables on their women when they discover the ladies have been using Steve Harvey's relationship advice against them. Stars Chris Brown and Gabrielle Union. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen - A fisheries expert is approached by a consultant to help realize a sheik's vision of bringing the sport of fly-fishing to the desert and embarks on an upstream journey of faith and fish to prove the impossible possible.  Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt star.
Mirror, Mirror - An evil queen steals control of a kingdom and an exiled princess enlists the help of seven resourceful rebels to win back her birthright. Julia Roberts stars.
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Mourning the patron saint of sex advice
 With this week's passing of Helen Gurley Brown, who brought sex to the city long before Candace Bushnell dreamed up Carrie Bradshaw, her 32-year reign as Cosmopolitan's editor is being dusted off and brought back out into the forefront by many a respectable publication.
When Gurley Brown took the helm of Cosmo in 1965, few would have dreamed the soon-to-be sex-soaked women's magazine would be heralded decades later - by the New York Times, no less - as the magazine that "conquered the world."
However, as the Times points out in its article (published, coincidentally, a little over a week before Gurley Brown's death), Cosmo is the best-selling monthly magazine in the United States, its popularity born after Gurley Brown transformed it from just another recipe-filled Stepford magazine aimed at the housewife demographic to the groundbreaking, first-of-its kind women's manual on how to get what you want (still a husband, in many instances) and be happy doing it (even on a first date!).
A feminist icon to some, a peddler of trash to others, Gurley Brown rose out of a poverty-stricken life in the Ozarks to become a test pilot for a publication that has turned into an exemplar of the popular women's magazine. It's for that - if for no other reason - that you have to admire her.
If you admire her magazine, as well, you can pick up the latest issue here at the library. |
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Librarian award nominations now open
Up to 10 librarians from public, school, college, community college, and university libraries will win $5,000 in cash, a plaque, and a $500 travel stipend to attend the December award ceremony in New York.
Nominees must have their masters' degrees from an ALA-accredited program in library and information studies, or their masters' with a specialty in school library media from an educational unit accredited by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education.
The nominations are open through Sept. 12. |
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Now may be the time to get a Nook  Barnes and Noble has upped the ante in the tablet wars by cutting the price of its Nook tablets.
The retailer is slashing $20 off the cost of its 8 GB Nook Tablet - bringing its price from $199 to $179 (and, in doing so, making it $20 cheaper than the 6 GB Kindle Fire). The 16 GB Nook's price has also been cut by $50, to a cost of $199. The price reductions come as Microsoft prepares to launch its Windows-based tablet in October, and while rumors persist that Apple is gearing up to release its own 7-inch iPad. |
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Niceville a different type of crime novel  NicevilleBy Carsten Stroud Something is wrong in Niceville. . .
A boy literally disappears from Main Street. A security camera captures the moment of his instant, inexplicable vanishing. An audacious bank robbery goes seriously wrong: four cops are gunned down; a TV news helicopter is shot and spins crazily out of the sky, triggering a disastrous cascade of events that ricochet across twenty different lives over the course of just thirty-six hours.
Nick Kavanaugh, a cop with a dark side, investigates. Soon he and his wife, Kate, a distinguished lawyer from an old Niceville family, find themselves struggling to make sense not only of the disappearance and the robbery but also of a shadow world, where time has a different rhythm and where justice is elusive. Stroud's savage (and yet oddly likeable) characters propel his multi-layered plot into one unputdownable read. |
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Take a class from the comforts of home  Speaking of the benefits of a library card - Universal Class is a big one! With more than 500 courses from a gigantic selection of subjects to choose from, users can enroll in up to five classes at once.
Each course has an instructor available for help, questions, etc., via email. Courses are accessible 24/7, so if you feel like reading through a lesson at midnight on a Saturday, you're in luck. Though these non-credit classes are for personal enrichment, they can be excellent launching pads in your pursuit of a degree, license, or certificate, or simply great tools for personal growth. Courses include everything from Algebra and Math Studies to Basic Finance Skills to Homeschooling Strategies to Angels 101...a world of learning, at your fingertips. Universal Class is among the offerings of the Ulster County InfoPortal, which is found within the Online Research Tools tab of the library's website. All you need to access Universal Class and many of the InfoPortal's host of other invaluable tools is your library card!
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