By Carrie Stefanski
Meet Sara. She’s a mom with three young children and has parents who are getting up there in age. She wants the best for her family, and that includes good health. She needs reliable, up-to-date resources that to turn to, whether seeking new yoga poses for herself, healthy cooking for her family or researching specific health concerns such as heart disease.
Yes, we have been absolutely overwhelmed by the level of enthusiasm with which our open casting call was met. Thank you for choosing to share your passions and your smiling faces with us as part of this contest. We love hearing about how you are using your skills to change your communities—keep up the great work!
Now, it is with great excitement that we announce our casting picks. They are:
Meet Connie, a spunky 72-year-old grandma who just received her first computer. Her grandkids want her online, so online she must go! “I don’t know what took me so long and I want to learn everything I can,” she says, “but I guess I’m a little hesitant because I don’t know quite where to start.” We couldn’t think of a better way than an eBook like Laptops For Seniors For Dummies, 3rd Edition. Connie can read and follow activities on her screen at the same time, it’s a perfect match.
Read moreYou have to start somewhere, help out your beginners!
Lovers of literature, rejoice! In its continuing quest to be the most current, comprehensive, and reliable online literature source, Literature Resource Center has bulked up its content with over 800 new biographies, critical essays, reviews, and other offerings.
Want to learn more? Check out the full list of new content below, or visit the LRC’s official online catalog page.
Read moreLiterature Resource Center Grows by Over 800 New Content Pieces
By Melissa Rayner
Oxford University Press has been one of the biggest names in academic publishing almost since the industry’s inception. The first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, and although the formal press had not yet been born, Oxford University involved itself with several printers over the century that followed. Now, the press publishes over 6,000 titles and sells more than 110 million units each year. It has offices in 50 countries and is the largest university press in the world.
By Michelle Eickmeyer
Discovery is one of the most discussed and sought after experiences among librarians, students and faculty in academic libraries. They may call those experiences different things, but discovery is the thread running through the needs of these groups. Librarians want all materials to be called upon — find-able by any user at the moment of need. Students often encounter the library’s holdings with a vague understanding of either what they are looking for, or how to find it. Or both. Or neither. Faculty look to support the scholarship of their students and, often, their own research needs as well.
Read moreGale’s InterLink Brings Better Discovery to Academic Libraries
And librarians around the globe rejoice!
On April 30, 2014, Gale launched InterLink, a new, free service available to libraries which own any of the periodical resources of InfoTrac and any eBook on the GVRL platform. But “service” is such a limiting word. Feature, enhancement. tool — they all fall short. InterLink is so much more than a bell or a whistle. With InterLink, research, search, and discovery have changed. And it’s amazing!
Read moreInterLink Enables Discovery Within Library Holdings
By Jennifer Albers-Smith
I’m not sure how many of you watch Dancing with the Stars, but I’m hooked this season. There are some pretty incredible people participating. I tuned in in the beginning to watch Olympic gold medalist ice dancers Charlie White and Meryl Davis (and THEY ARE FANTASTIC), but now I’m addicted to watching Amy Purdy, the Paralympic snowboarder, who has two prosthetic legs—talk about a real-life hero and an inspiration. And, boy, can she dance! I would be impressed even if she didn’t have two prosthetic legs, but the fact that she does and still dances so gracefully and skillfully brings me to tears on a weekly basis.
What she has accomplished has really made me want to learn more about prosthetics and advances in building prosthetics that allow people to move how she has been able to move on the dance floor.
By Rachel G. Payne
Yes, I freely admit it, I think too much like a librarian. Often this is an asset, but when I first started adding STEM into my storytime programs, this became a problem. I kept looking for books to read to kids in the non-fiction section. My go-to favorites were Red-Eyed Tree Frog by Joy Cowley, illustrated by Nic Bishop, and Actual Size by Steve Jenkins, both solidly in the 500s. While I love these books, I was thinking too small. It took Lynn Cole, a science educator from the Queens Library Children’s Discovery Center, to shift my thinking during her staff training on science activities for preschoolers at the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL). She opened my mind to another way of thinking about the books I was already sharing by reminding us we could find science and math concepts in the picture book section as much as anywhere.
By Robert Lisiecki
May the fourth be with you. Wait, I thought it was, “may the force be with you.” You know a film made a monumental impact on society when people assign a date in the calendar year to geek out. Let’s get geeky, Star Wars friends.
I’m admittedly not a self-proclaimed Star Wars nerd, but I’ve had a few light saber fights in my day, and I was Jar Jar Binks one year for Halloween; so, that counts for something… right?
It’s fascinating to think about the impactful nature of Star Wars, and how it still remains a force today (they just released the cast for the new movie!). Not only was it a monumental cinematic success, but it also impacted Hollywood, pop culture, and merchandising.