Staff Picks: E-books!

Most of the books I read are physical library books but the convenience of e-books keeps me reading more conveniently and widely. With e-books, I can read anywhere on anything--a desktop, laptop, e-reader, even my phone. And I can read books both old and new.

I read the following books as e-books. E-reading lets me read faster and has me reading books I wouldn't normally checkout!

A Feast For Crows (Game of Thrones # 4)

by George R. R. Martin

LIGHT READING. All of the books in the Game of Thrones series are hefty books. This book alone is 1,104 pages in mass market paperback; the trade paperback and hardback are 784 pages. That's a heavy book to carry around. I was able to download the e-book to my Nook which was much easier to tote and hold comfortably. The series reads quickly and is completely engrossing despite its long length. Start with the first book which you can check out digitally and read on any device.

Gone Girl

by Gillian Flynn

CONVENIENCE. This book is still popular even though it came out in 2012. When it still had a long waiting list last year, I just had to read it to find out what the fuss was, but I couldn't get my hands on a copy! Then I checked eMedia and found it available. I was able to read it quickly without waiting for the hardback copy to come in. It's nice to have options when you just have to read a book! The twists in this book will keep you guessing until the very end. Don't forget to check for a digital copy if the Library doesn't have a book you're waiting for.

North and South

by John Jakes

SEAMLESS READING. I've always wanted to read the beginning of John Jake's Civil War trilogy and I was surprised to find it available as an e-book. How refreshing that many oldies-but-goodies are now available digitally. Once I started reading, I was hooked. I had to have this book with me everywhere so I checked out both the physical book and e-book. I was able to read the e-book when I was out and about, and read the physical book at home which I left on the bedside table. That way, North and South was always available for me to read and I didn't have to worry about transferring it to and from my purse. I'll definitely be reading the rest of the trilogy and more by John Jakes. 

  

Bright's Passage

by Josh Ritter

EASY BROWSING. The e-Media website makes browsing easy and enjoyable. You can clearly see book covers and get a description of the book's content from the comfort of your home or any WiFi or Internet connection. You can browse and search by subject with just a click. I found this book just by looking at covers. This one drew me in so I checked out the e-book and was pleasantly surprised. This beautifully written story was sad, funny, and heroic all at once. 

Mind of My Mind (Patternist Series #2)

by Octavia Butler

BONUS MATERIAL. Octavia Butler is one of my favorite writers but that's not why I wanted to read this e-book. A "reprint" of the 1977 science-fiction, this e-book contains an illustrated biography of the author "including rare images from the author's estate." I had to check out the book and see the extra material, then I had to read the book, of course. Many e-books contain bonus material such as author interviews or reading guides which makes a digital checkout even better. 

Why not check out an e-book today? You'll be surprised by what you find!

You can access tons of e-books through our website with just your library card. CLEVNET offers e-books for every reader and device, and it is easy to use.

Reflecting on Presidents Day

Do you think about Presidents Day all that often? Or at all? To a lot of us, it basically means "Hey sweet, Abe and George got us a day off." I certainly was of that mind set. But how exactly did it come to this point?

Well, as it turns out when this holiday was created, it wasn't exactly ordained as Presidents day. Dating back as far as 1800's, the holiday was unofficially recognized as a day of observance for President George Washington. This was typically observed on his birthday of February 22, (although in actuality his birthday falls on February 11 of the old Julian calendar). Since Washington was considered to be the most important figure in American history, it became a federally recognized holiday in 1885, thus making it a day where business wasn't conducted.

In 1971, Congress decided create 3 day weekends, and an act known as the "Uniform Monday Holiday Act" was passed. Thish caused a shift of the official day of observance to make Washington's birthday to fall on the 3rd Monday in February. This ends up making the day fall between the 15th and 22nd, and thus never falling on Washington's actual birthday.

So how did it become President's day? Well despite up to 22 states recognizing Lincoln's birthday as a paid state holiday, it was never officially recognized as a federal holiday. There was a fear that it would be much too confusing to have so many holidays all fall within the same few days in the same month, as Lincoln's birthday fell on February 12th.

To address this, an early draft of the Monday Holiday Act contained a revision that would merge the two Presidents birthdays to one singular holiday, giving it the more unofficial title of "Presidents Day". While this is how many people refer to it, on a federally recognized scale it is still referred to as Washington's birthday. Although on a state level, some places recognize all 3 dates individual holidays (albeit not all paid holidays).

The marketing push for "President's Day Sales" didn't really start to kick up until as recently as the 1980's with more and more businesses starting to remain at normal hours to capitalize on the holiday. And outside of major federal services such as the US postal service, things like public transit now also maintain regular hours during this holiday.

So if you have the day off for the holiday, and want to learn more  about the folks who gave it to you, we've got a couple of suggestions that you may want to look into. For more about our founding father and some of his work you can always try:

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His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph Ellis

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.Writings: By Washington, George

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Or if you are more of fan of ol' honest Abe, we have a number of available items on him as well. Be sure to check them out as well as the many other selections you can find in the CLEVNET catalog.

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A. Lincoln by Ronald C. White, Jr.

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Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith*

(*May or may not be historically accurate)

From your friends at Kirtland Public Library: Have a great Presidents Day everyone!

Have you tried Zinio yet?

Zinio for Libraries offers full color, interactive digital magazines for your enjoyment.  You can browse through Kirtland Public LIbrary's collection of popular titles and check out the magazines you want -- with no waiting, no checkout period, and no limit to the number of magazines you can download!

You can download to your computer; PC or Mac. And, there are apps that allow  you to download to the iPhone, iPad, Android, Kindle Fire/Fire HD, Nook HD/HD+, Windows 8 and Blackberry Playbook.

To use Zinio, go to the Kirtland Public Library home page, www.kirtland.lib.oh.us and click on Digital Downloads.  Then click on Zinio.  You will have to set up two accounts; a Library Collection account to check out magazines; and a Zinio.com Reader account to read checked out magazines via streaming online with computers and/or downloaded offline via mobile apps.  You must use the same email address for both accounts. When you set up your account, have your Kirtland Public Library card handy as you will need to confirm that you are a Kirtland Library user. 

Once you have set up your accounts, you can begin browsing our collection.  We have access to nearly 100 different magazines.  You can search by genre, subject, or title.  The magazines in the Kirtland Library collection are available at no cost to you.  However, Zinio has many, many other magazines available for purchase and you may find yourself in that part of the website. If you do, look for and click on 'your library' to return to the magazines you have checked out.

It's a little confusing, but worth the effort to set up the accounts.  We have a lot of great magazines available -- now at your fingertips!  Zinio is a product of RB Digital and is made available through the CLEVNET Consortium.

Please call the Library at 440-256-7323 if you have questions about Zinio, we'll be happy to help you.

Library Lover's Month and Children's Author & Illustrator Week

February is Library Lover's Month! This month, celebrate all libraries: public, private, and school. Visit your favorite library in February! We hope it's us!

This month is a great time to come to Kirtland Public Library: it's Winter Reading! Read at least 20 minutes a day and record your times. We'll be celebrating with a Popcorn Party on Friday, February 28 at 3:30 pm. Winter Reading is for everyone who loves libraries.

Are you a Library Lover? Tell us why you love your Library in the comments! Need ideas to show your love for libraries? Here's a few: http://www.librarysupport.net/librarylovers/how.html.

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The first week of February is Children's Author & Illustrator Week. This week we celebrate 2014 Newbery Award Winner Kate DiCamillo for her latest children's novel, Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures.

Comic book-obsessed Flora saves a squirrel from a vacuum cleaner and helps him develop his super abilities in this cleverly illustrated story.

Kate DiCamillo is known for her earlier books Because of Winn-Dixie (Newbery Medal Honor Book, 2000) and The Tale of Despereaux (Newbery Award Winner, 2003).

She was recently named by the Librarian of Congress as the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature for 2014-2015.

Read Kate DiCamillo's books and find other great authors and illustrators in the Children's department.

Staff Picks: What I'm Reading Now

Need a good book to read while curling up by the fire? Here is a list of the books I have finished this month so far.

Sandrine’s Case

by Thomas H. Cook

College professor Sam Madison is on trial for his wife Sandrine’s murder. Sandrine has been recently diagnosed with ALS and her death was initially ruled a suicide, but several clues appear to implicate Sam. Is he guilty, or did Sandrine set him up? More than a courtroom drama, the book explores the relationship between a man and his wife. This book was recently named a finalist for the 2014 Edgar Award for best mystery.

The Affair

by Colette Freedman

Kathy Walker suspects her husband of eighteen years of having an affair. Having wrongly accused him 6 years earlier, she is reluctant to confront him without evidence, which she soon finds.  The story is told in three parts, from the point of view of the wife, the husband, and the mistress, which allows the reader to sympathize with each character. This is Freedman's first novel.

Fear Nothing 

by Lisa Gardner

The latest mystery in Gardner’s Detective D.D. Warren series involves a serial killer that is copying the crimes of murderer Harry Day, who has been dead for 40 years. Warren looks to Day’s daughters for help finding the killer: Adeline, a pain therapist, and Shana, a convicted murderer herself, who has been incarcerated for the past 30 years. Gardner does not hold back on graphic depictions of violence, but if you like suspense and well-developed characters, give her a try.

The Keeper of Lost Causes

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

For fans of Stieg Larsson and Jo Nesbo, The Keeper of Lost Causes is the first title in Jussi Adler-Olsen’s Department Q series.  Detective Carl Morck is the head of Department Q, which investigates cold cases. His first case involves a politician who disappeared 5 years previously and is presumed dead. Can he find her in time to save her life? Filled with likable characters and a creative plot. Adler-Olsen's books are best sellers in his native Denmark.



Let us know what you are reading now. Winter is the perfect time to catch up on the books you've been wanting to read, and we've got something for everyone here at the Library.

Transmedia: A Different Kind of Story

During my one of my final classes in my MLIS program, I was introduced to a different medium of story telling. I'm familiar with different formats of materials, such books, audiobook, graphic novels, and so forth. But for the most part, they all generally tend to keep their stories contained within the chosen format.

However, in recent months I have been introduced to something called "TransMedia" stories. Much like you would expect from the term itself, this is a brand of book that integrates various forms of media within the tale for you to get a deeper and different perspective to the story. It was a very cool and interesting sub-genre and I'd like to share a pair of examples with you: one for the younger crowd and one of the adults.

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I was first introduced into the genre by a young adult story (shocker) by Patrick Carmen called Skeleton Creek. It's premise comes from the perspective of a young man named Ryan McCray in a one horse town with a bit of interestingly spooky legend behind it. It's told from the perspective of him writing in a journal. So he's always either referring to events before or after they happen. He's currently being forbidden from seeing his best friend Sarah Fincher because their last little outing resulted him getting his leg broken.

But throughout the book, he references her website and video blog. Sarah represents the outgoing and adventurous half of their duo. She thinks the story behind the abandoned gold Dredge outside of town has more than it seems behind it. So despite the two being separated and constantly pushed to stay out of "The Dredge", She continues to explore it and reports her findings to Ryan via her website www.sarahfincher.com with the help of passwords she leaves him.

The reader, should they explore, will find that this is a legitimate website and that the passwords do in fact work. And if you enter the passwords as you find them, you are treated to what I refer to as perspective chapters where Sarah brings you the other half of the story. They are very well done and they bring in dynamic that makes the story that much more creepy than if you had just read the book alone. I have provided an example below of one of the first few vlogs you get in the story. I found myself getting easily engrossed in this one and ended up flying through it in a few hours.

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The other story is one that I really enjoyed was murder mystery by J.C. Hutchins called Personal Effects: Dark Art. It tells the story of a young hotshot therapist who has been tasked in investigating and rehabilitating a serial murder suspect called Martin Grace. Grace is suffering from a rare  form of  psychosomatic blindness because he is able to foresee how each of the murder victims would perish and inform them of such prior to it happening. He also bears a warning of a mysterious figure known only as the "Dark Man" who in some way seems to be tied to these murders and is an entity that Grace intensely fears.

Zach is an art therapist, and through various interview and unconventional art sessions he intends to root through the buried past of Grace to find the cause of his blindness and hopefully cure it to make him well enough to stand trial. But Grace is a very cerebral opponent and has no intention of making things easy, which sends Zack to look through Grace's personal effects to try to unlock the mystery behind him. Be warned though, this is a pretty gruesome journey, and it's definitely not for everybody.

As the title leads on, this book comes with a series of various personal effects (bottom of link for examples) tucked neatly away in the cover of the book such as collection of papers, cards, forms, and pictures "recovered" from Martin Graces things. If you pay close enough attention to the items, you will find clues within them that give the reader a step ahead of Zach in the story. All of the phone numbers reach actual voice mails, where if you can discovers the codes you can listen to the messages left to them. The businesses have websites to give you better context about the locations, and so on.

The problem with this form of book however, is that sometimes the interactive elements are forgotten or not kept up with. There is an interesting side story with this book where one of the side characters somewhat took a life of its own to promote the book, and it ended up becoming more a real entity than the book itself. Unfortunately it caused a bit of a schism, and many of the associated websites were shut down. It's a shame, and forced me to use the Internet wayback machine to see the sites, but it was a fascinating story nonetheless.

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While not exactly a new or emerging genre of fiction, it is still relatively uncommon style in the mass market. But there are a various number of examples scattered throughout the CLEVNET catalog for both teens and adults. It is a very interesting concept and gives a new spin on reading and definitely worth looking into at least once. Here's hoping more authors explore this means of storytelling.

What, Me Organized?



Yikes!

One would think that as a librarian I might have great organizational skills.  One would be wrong.  Oh sure, I know the Dewey Decimal System inside out and backwards.  But have you seen my office?  It's a mess!  Often you cannot see the top of my desk, and I have a big desk!  And don't even get me started on the counters and cupboards!

So for 2014 I will be reorganizing and decluttering and generally trying to straighten up my office.  But where to start?  Luckily, I work in a library...so I went to the shelves and found several books that may be of help.  Here are some that I found:

What's A Dis-Organized Person To Do? by Stacy Platt.  Professional organizer Platt provides 317 great ideas, projects and tips to help you unclutter your overstuffed life.  There are projects for every room in the house.

Organizing from the Inside Out: The Foolproof System for Organizing Your Home, Your Office, and Your Life by Julie Morgenstern.  Morgenstern has a three-step process to start organizing:  analyze, strategize and attack.  She offers lots of great ideas for home and office.

Sink Reflections by Marla Cilley (The Fly Lady).  Do you suffer from C.H.A.O.S (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome)?  The Fly Lady actually makes organizing and cleaning fun.  She starts with baby steps to decluttering and keeps the amount of time spent on chores limited.  The Fly Lady helps establish routines that make it easy to keep ahead of the clutter.  Some of my favorite Fly Lady things are the 27 Fling Boogie and the Hot Spot Fire Drill.  When you do the 27 Fling Boogie set your timer for 15 minutes, grab a box and run through the house collecting things to give away.   When the time goes off , you are done for the day.  A Hot Spot is a place in your home or office that collects stuff -- and if left unattended it will spread like a wild fire.  When you do a  Hot Spot Fire Drill, you spend 5 minutes putting away all the things that have accumulated there.

I found the books and tools I'll be using to get organized this year!  If you need some tips and ideas, stop in the Library, we have lots of books on keeping track of your stuff and I know just where to find them!!