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Thorndike Press Staff Recommendation

Posted on October 26, 2015

Thorndike Press wouldn’t be the leading Large Print publisher if it weren’t for our staff. We are passionate about what we do — which is providing the best overall experience we can for our customers and readers. Additionally, at Thorndike Press we put the “V” in voracious when it comes to reading and loving books!

AuthorspicSecret Sisters by Jayne Ann Krentz is the story of two childhood friends, Madeline and Daphne, who experienced a terrifying attack and have done their best to move on with their lives. Madeline runs a chain of luxury hotels and Daphne is a designer. But the secret that they share reunites them as adults and they journey back to a small island off the coast of Seattle, the site of their childhood trauma. Using Nancy Pearl’s Readers Advisory methodology, let me tell you about the doorways that I found most appealing. I was drawn to the character of Madeline, a successful career woman who struggles with intimacy and lost track of her childhood friend.

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Missing Ancestors? Check the Feeder States!

Genealogy Connect

Posted on October 26, 2015
By Jena Crable

Here’s a familiar genealogical conundrum: A researcher has traced his/her ancestors from present-day California back to the Dust Bowl-era in Nebraska, into Missouri just as it was achieving statehood, and finally to Indiana in the 1830s. At that point, the trail has grown cold even though legend has it that the family patriarch was a Pennsylvania patriot during the Revolution. So, how does the genealogist pick up the scent of the missing ancestor at this point?

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“Book” Branded: Build on Your Strengths

Sacramento Public Library Director Shares Thoughts on Branding

By Rivkah K. Sass, Director, Sacramento Public Libraryssas

Randomly select 20 strangers and ask them what they think about their local public library. You’re likely to get 20 different answers, and most of them are probably not what you want to hear. As we think about who we are, what we do and, more importantly, what our brand is, chances are that our customers think we’re about books while we try to convince them that we’re so much more. After all, many of us loan games, do prom dress drives, teach punk-rock aerobics, partner with microbreweries (Edgar Allan Porter, anyone?), and offer 3D printing services. We push the envelope of what we loan and how we program for one reason and one reason only: to get people in the door so that they can discover what we really have to offer — ideas, inspiration, and access.

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Content Updates for Gale’s In Context (week ending 10/16/2015)

Posted on October 15, 2015

New content has been added and existing content updated in a number of Gale’s In Context products.

Global Issues In Context

  • A new portal page has been added featuring the South Sudan Civil War.
  • Over 25 portal pages have been updated including Dementia, Gun Control, Nobel Prize, Obama Administration: Foreign Policy, Political Corruption, Russia-Ukraine Conflict, Same-sex Marriage, and Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

Read moreContent Updates for Gale’s In Context (week ending 10/16/2015)

The Future is Now in Biography in Context

By Traci J. Cothran

“Roads?  Where we’re going we don’t need roads!” – Doc Brown

It’s hard to believe the first Back to the Future movie – starring Michael J. Fox – was released thirty years ago – 30 YEARS AGO!  It may also surprise you to note that the “future” date visited via the time-traveling DeLorean in the movie is October 21, 2015 … which puts us officially in The Future.

Our editors on Biography in Context uncovered this fast fact recently, and currently feature Michael J. Fox (a.k.a. Marty McFly or Calvin) on the home page. We recently launched a new hotspotter feature in Biography in Context  allowing users to hover on the pulsing circles on the picture to explore more facts about the subject (in this case, Parkinson’s Disease).

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National Parks “Every Kid in a Park” Initiative Underway

Posted on October 14, 2015

By Jan Snyder

“Because no matter who you are, no matter where you live, our parks, our monuments, our lands, our waters – these places are your birthright as Americans.”
– President Barack Obama

This year begins a new exciting adventure for 4th grade students across the nation, along with their families.  Through the Every Kid in a Park initiative, each student/family is eligible for a free parks pass that will allow them to enter, without cost, any national park, monument, reserve, lands or waters until August 31, 2016.  (It does not cover additional fees such as camping, boats, or tours.) No matter where you live in the U.S. you are less than two hours from any of the 2,000 included sites!

Learn how the program works, get a pass, plan a trip, find teacher activities to support the initiative, and get tips for parents or guardians. Many school districts are creating wonderful teacher resources to support the initiative as well.  Our neighboring school district, Portland Public Schools, has published a supporting website with teaching materials to support the Every Kid in a Park program.

Oregon City school libraries’ staff plans to be involved with this project all year.  We will be printing individual passes for all 4th grade students in our district (each has a unique code.). As our elementary students visit the library weekly, one library class a month will be used at the 4th grade level to focus on a different national park.  We have a variety of resources at our fingertips to help with this process:

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Fall into Literary Genre Fiction

By Holly Hibner and Mary Kelly

Literary fiction “tends to focus on complex issues and the beauty of the writing itself,” according to the Writer’s Relief Staff at the Huffington Post (1). This is a great definition, and makes a distinction between literary fiction and mainstream or “popular” fiction, which is driven more by plot and characters than by insight or clever use of language.  It seems short sighted to think that literary writing falls only outside of genre fiction, though. There are plenty of literary mysteries, literary science fiction novels, and even literary graphic novels. I’d like to suggest that literary fiction can, in fact, fall into a variety of genres and still hold true to the definition above.

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Job Hunting Isn’t What it Used to Be

Note to librarians: This blog post is for you to share! If you have this title, be sure to link it to your GVRL collection. If you don’t have this title and want to learn more, access a free trial today!  

 

Resumes without special formatting… online applications… no phone calls… social media networking… computer-based screening…

If you’ve ever tried to explain the current processes for applying for a job to a grandparent (or maybe even a parent), you have a sense of how much it has changed in the last 20 years. And it continues to change. Today’s impersonal process can be confusing and off-putting to even the most determined job seekers.

Find information about careers, job hunting, and more
To support people in our community who are looking for new opportunities – whether for a job change or a new career – the library provides free access to a great resource: Life & Career Skills: Employment.

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Unrivaled Source for Note Taking

Chapter 16 in Professional Genealogy. A Manual for Researchers, Writers, Editors, Lecturers, and Librarians, edited by Elizabeth Shown Mills, covers the topic of Note-Taking.  Entitled “Transcripts and Abstracts,” and written by Mary McCampbell Bell, this chapter offers rock-solid guidance on the taking of genealogical notes. It’s sorely needed by every researcher—professional or not—because everyone takes research notes. 

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Research In Context Meets the Needs of Middle Grade Students

“Teaching middle school is an adventure not a job,” says author and educator, Angela K. Bennett. There’s no doubt grades 6 to 8 are among the most important for young teens and pre-teens to develop learning skills to launch them into high school and beyond. And until now, resources to support an integrated learning adventure have been few and far between, making teaching and supporting learning for this curious group a challenge. But the tide is turning with a new highly-visual resource featuring authoritative content that’s been designed specifically for middle school learners.

Read moreResearch In Context Meets the Needs of Middle Grade Students