E-Resources, or Where Have All the Databases Gone?

Looking for peer-reviewed, full-text articles from the world's leading journals and reference sources?  We've got them. Detailed instructions on care, troubleshooting and repair information for cars, listed by year, make and model?  That too. Scholarly, government and general-interest titles on global warming, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, and more? Ditto.  Thousands of legal forms, including legal reference books provided through Nolo, the nation's oldest and most-respected provider of legal information for consumers and small businesses? Yes, yes, & yes!  All this & more is available to you 24/7 via our website, with your valid library card & 4 digit PIN.

I get questions all the time to lead me to suggest our copious eResources & LibGuides. Many people don't know we have them. Other people remember finding them from a link called 'Databases' and wonder where they've gone. Well, as we expanded beyond collections of magazine and journal articles (stored in databases) to live one-on-one tutoring, language learning systems, practice exams for things like the GRE and LSAT, and streaming classical music...well, the term databases didn't fit anymore. After trying out a few other terms (including, we're afraid, online electronic resources - what a mouthful) we decided eResources was the best option, to match our other online collections: eBooks and eAudiobooks.

Once you are at the library website (you can find the URL on your card!), you want to look down the sidebar on the left for Research Assistance, which is followed by the "eResources" link.  It'll look like this:

If you click on "eResources", you'll come to this page:

The eResources page is kind of one-stop shopping.  It explains that generally, what we call eResources are collections and services paid for by the library and only available over the Internet. Examples include databases full of magazine articles, one-on-one live homework help, study guides and practice tests, dictionaries, business and financial information, and much more. All the eResources are split into handy, browsable categories.

Maybe you already know what you want, for example to access Morningstar® Investment Research Center or Newsbank, but just need to find the link.  You probably just need  to consult the A to Z eResource List, which you can find at the top of the Featured Guides list.  This guide contains a full list of our subscription eResources organized by name. Here's a sampling of what that guide looks like:

I hope this addresses questions you might have had regarding our eResources.  I encourage you to stop by the library website & explore!

Teen Read Week 2011

Are you a young adult? Or someone who enjoys young adult literature? If so, help us celebrate Teen Read Week 2011. This year's theme is Picture It @ your library®, which encourages teens to read graphic novels and other illustrated materials, seek out creative books, or imagine the world through literature, just for the fun of it. Teen Read Week runs from October 16 - 22.

You can celebrate Teen Read Week in a number of ways, including:

• Reading one of the Teen Top Teen nominations for 2011.
• Reading a graphic novel or comic (part of this year's focus!).
• Participating in one of ABC libraries' Teen Read Week programs (see below).
• Competing in YALSA's Teen Read Week photo contest.

Several library branches are celebrating Teen Read Week by offering programs just for teens. Sign yourself or your teen up for one! Click the links for more information on any of these programs.

• Photo Scavenger Hunt @ Cherry Hills (virtual) - deadline Monday, October 10 with slideshow at the October TAB meeting - Friday, October 21st
• Stenciling @ East Mountain - Saturday, October 15th
• Wii Gaming @ East Mountain - Wednesday, October 19th
• Kanji Japanese Calligraphy @ East Mountain - Saturday, October 22
• Horror Movie Screening @ Lomas Tramway - Friday, October 21

Nadja by André Breton

It's not often I read a book that I feel like I could read all over again immediately after, but Nadja is one of the few. Billed as a "Surrealist romance", this 1928 French novel, at first reading very light in tone, seems like one that would benefit from rereading.

This "book which defined [the Surrealist Movement's] attitude towards everyday life" is written as a first-person account of a novel affair between the unnamed narrator & the madcap Nadja, a girl he meets on the street (not until page 63 of this 163 page book). But there are also references to fellow surrealists Tzara & Éluard, to the painter Chirico, & to Rimbaud, among others; the first sections of the book are more about the narrator's worldview than anything else.  Early on, Breton's protagonist declares, "Do not expect me to provide an exact account of what I have been permitted to experience in this domain."

Nadja chose her own name "because in Russian it's the beginning of the word hope, & because it's only the beginning".  Her relationship with the narrator seems to exist on a different plane; he is married, she sees other people, but it doesn't seem to matter.  They see each other frequently to talk, far-reaching conversations that range from the narrator's power over Nadja to "who she might have been, in Marie-Antoinette's circle".  People are drawn to Nadja; in a restaurant, a waiter fascinated by her breaks 11 plates in the course of serving their meal. The narrator even says "I have taken Nadja, from the first day to the last, for a free genius, something like one of those spirits of the air which certain magical practices momentarily permit us to entertain but which we can never overcome".

Nadja has many delightful turns of phrase: "Perhaps life needs to be deciphered like a cryptogram"; "The event from which each of us is entitled to expect the revelation of his own life's meaning-that event which I may not yet have found, but on whose path I seek myself-is not earned by work"; "Life is other than what one writes"; "Time is a tease-because everything has to happen in its own time"; & my favorite, "How does it happen that thrown together, once & for all, so far from earth, in those brief intervals which our marvelous stupor grants us, we have been able to exchange a few incredibly concordant views above the smoking debris of old ideas & sempiternal life?"

The novel is not such much a linear storyline as a kind of stream of consciousness; it ebbs & flows on some internal tide of its own.  Much is suggested rather than explicated.  Nadja is an interesting portrait of the time, the place, & Surrealism itself.

The novel is supplemented by 44 pictures, "various 'surreal' people, places & objects which the author visits or is haunted by", which enhance the reader's understanding of the book.

Banned Books Week!

Each year libraries, booksellers, publishers, teachers and readers across the country celebrate our freedom to read whatever we want with Banned Books Week. Now in its 29t^h year, Banned Books Week is a chance for us to reflect on how important it is to have access to a wide range of perspectives and opinions in the books we read, even if that includes things we personally don't like or agree with.

Take a look at the American Library Association's list of banned and/or challenged classics to see some of the history of book challenges in the US and elsewhere, and then check out one of the most commonly challenged books of 2010 and see what you think:

1. And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson;
2. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie;
3. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley;
4. Crank, by Ellen Hopkins;
5. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins;
6. Lush, by Natasha Friend;
7. What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones;
8. Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich;
9. Revolutionary Voices, edited by Amy Sonnie;
10. 
    Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
    
    
    For even more banned books, visit the library! Several of our branches have "Banned Book" displays to help you find something someone (but not us!) doesn't want you to read!
    
    
    
    
    
    

Why are librarians so NOSY?

You have a simple question--you just want a book about football. So why is the librarian suddenly giving you the third degree about history of sports or rules or players or if it's for yourself or a child...?

I promise, it's not because she's trying to discourage you from a football book, or has an unhealthy interest in your motives. She just wants to get you the football book you really want, and the questions she's asking are called a reference interview. First, she needs to establish whether you mean American football or soccer, which is called football in most other countries. Then, well... check out the first of four pages of subjects relating to football. Do you want to know about the history of the sport? Fans? Particular teams? Coaches? Are you looking for the life story of a favorite player? Or just any player? Is it for your own recreational reading, or is it for a school report that has certain requirements? Are you just looking for a novel that happens to be about football?

But couldn't she just direct you to the football section?

Well, sure--it's around 796.332. You're welcome to browse it. You'll miss the biographies and fiction, but if you scan the shelf long enough, you'll find a few books on the sport's history, some books on rules, maybe some information on coaching. If you're just looking for something to read, that's a pretty good tactic. If, on the other hand, you need something particular--or if what you really want is fiction about football--then it's not going to work. You'll also miss a lot of books that might be exactly what you want if they happen to not be on the shelf at your branch at the moment you're looking! The librarian may also be able to help you find articles and other kinds of information that you might find useful.

The basic reason for the reference interview is clarification--to make sure that the person helping you is on the same page you are... and for that, it's good not to make assumptions. I remember one case at a previous job where a question seemed very simple. A patron just wanted books on wheels. A little unusual, but just a question of going to simple machines. But she was very frustrated, and went elsewhere. It was very clear to the next person that she was asking about whales. Even more frustrated, she finally established that she was looking for information about wills--a situation that would have been entirely avoided by properly asking what it was she needed to know about wheels or whales (or Wales, I suppose). A few simple questions from us can avoid a lot of frustration for you.

And that's why librarians are so nosy!

Books on the Big Screen

Is the book always better than the movie?  I've seen some great adaptations & some not-so-great.  Here are some trailers for upcoming films..what do you think?

Girl Sleuths

Alan Bradley's Flavia de Luce mysteries, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie & its sequels The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag & A Red Herring Without Mustard, have been very popular mysteries.  In this series, Flavia is precocious & literate 11-year-old sleuth.  There have been many mysteries featuring girl sleuths, but most of them are found in children's or young adult fiction.  If you follow Flavia, you might also consider revisiting (or suggesting to your daughters) some of these novels of junior suspense:

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City by Kirsten Miller

Sammy Keyes & the Hotel Thief by by Wendelin Van Draanen

The Night Flyers by Elizabeth McDavid Jones

The Dark Stairs by Betsy Byars

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

Down the Rabbit Hole by Peter Abrahams

Lulu Dark Can See through Walls by Bennett Madison

Assassin by Patricia Finney

The Case of the Missing Marquess by Nancy Springer

The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman

Also, Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women who Created Her by Melanie Rehak is a very enjoyable & informative read for adults interested in learning about the backstory of the series.

Here are some links to help you rediscover those most classic of girl sleuths, Nancy Drew & Trixie Belden:

The Mysterious History of Nancy Drew

Mildred A. Wirt Benson, author of 23 of the original 30 Nancy Drew Mystery Stories

Stratemeyer Syndicate exhibit

Trixie-Belden.com

Random House's Trixie Belden page