In the current “Hard Times,” libraries have become resource centers for finding employment, finding ways to save money and finding affordable entertainment. Avon Lake Public Library is no exception. Our Reference department has been busy teaching computer skills, helping with resumes and developing programs to prepare job seekers for success. We answer lots of questions about social services and help patrons find do-it-yourself directions for those tasks they used to hire out. The Library is busy with new patrons who tell us they used to buy books and music and go out to movies, but now they are discovering the riches of the Library for affordable entertainment as well as a source of reliable information.
Finding that our patrons are asking different kinds of questions and facing different kinds of challenges, our staff has been working to find and share new information sources to meet the new needs and interests of our patrons. To that end, we’ve created theSurviving Hard Times Guideto help our patrons find information on all kinds of things to help get us through the recession and on to brighter days.
Check the guide out to find job help, unemployment and health care information, local social service agencies, help with mortgages and utilities and programs to assist veterans and seniors. The Guide emphasizes resources to be found in Lorain County and Northeast Ohio though some are statewide or national in scope and some are available in libraries all over the country. We’ll keep adding resources as we become aware of them, whether those are online programs, books, agencies, whatever will help. As you ask us for information – at the desk, by phone (440.933.7710) or email (refdeskATavonlakeDOTlibDOTohDOTus) – we’ll continue to learn what our patrons need, search for the information and share it through the Guide. If you know of resources that you think should be included (non-commercial only, please), email us and write “Surviving Hard Times Guide” in the subject line.
We hope this Guide is a boon to the community right now and we look forward to singing together “Hard Times Come Again No More”.
I first blogged about a very odd movie that still attracts the curious.
I would like to welcome more and more ALPL staff as bloggers, joining Cindy and myself. The more perspectives the better, everyone who works here has one (as do our patrons and commenters).
Don’t forget….
You can follow our updates via RSS by clicking here when in your reader.
Do you have questions about the H1N1 flu? Here are some good sources of information:
This New York Times article has an excellent discussion of just how scared or not we need to be about this virus.
AnotherNew York Times article tells us what scientists know about how this virus became what it is and how viruses jump species. Generally interesting and also a good resource for a biology class or report.
Three websites give us continually updated public health information on the virus, complete with statistics on the number of cases and the spread of the disease:
On the international level, the World Health Organization has a website dedicated to the outbreak with daily situation updates, maps, FAQs and guidance documents.
The Centers for Disease Control have a page with guidance for individuals at greater risk and their caregivers, schools and daycares, those in the travel industry, etc.
The president dedicated last Saturday’s weekly address to the flu outbreak, giving a clear description of the flu and steps being taken to address it.
The databases provided by the libraries in Ohio include the amazingly complete Consumer Health Complete. If you have a library card with any library in the state, you can use this database, and many others, at oplin.org/databases. You will probably be prompted to enter the name of your library and your library card number before you actually make it into a database. Just choose Consumer Health Complete and do a search for H1N1. When you get your results, you may want to sort them by date so you’re looking at information about this outbreak. The document Swine Flu: a Primer is a particularly clear and brief summary in a FAQ format. It could be helpful in explaining the outbreak to middle-grade children.
While we don’t have any books on H1N1 (the publishing industry isn’t that fast, yet), we do have a number of excellent books on influenza, epidemics and viruses for both children and adults.
For children and young teens:
Deadly Invaders: Virus Outbreaks Around the World, from Marburg Fever to Avian Flu by Denise Grady, a medical reporter with the New York Times, covers the emergence of new diseases caused by new and evolving viruses. Grady explains how we in the U.S. are affected by health care realities in developing countries and how diseases travel internationally. The book includes lots of sidebars explaining key scientific and social issues.
Pandemics: Epidemics in a Shrinking World by Miriam Segall is a briefer, somewhat simpler, book covering much of the same material.
The Flu by Gretchen Hoffman, Achoo: the Most Interesting Book You’ll Ever Read About Germs by Trudee Romanek, and Bill Nye the Science Guy’s Great Big Book of Tiny Germs all offer excellent introductions to the topics of germs, influenza and the immune system. Romanek and Nye’s books both include neat experiments to increase understanding (no, not utilizing actual viruses!).
For adults:
The Great Influenza: the Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John M. Barry is part social history, part medical mystery, part biography of several gigantic figures of the early twentieth-century tackling the 1918 killer flu. Barry’s a terrific writer, able to make complex science clear and compelling and history both terrifyingly and inspiringly relevant. This one gets my personal recommendation as a great read.
Gina Kolata’s Flu: the Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It tells the story of the nearly century-long search to isolate, study and understand the virus that caused the 1918 influenza. Reviewers describe the book as thrilling and a “novel-like page turner.”
Two fictional accounts of the 1918 influenza deserve mention:
We have multiple copies of Thomas Mullen’s Last Town on Earth, a novel about a small town in Washington state trying to quarantine itself against the flu with disasterous results. This one is an excellent choice for a book discussion group with lots of material for debate, discussion and deep thought.
Dreamers of the Day by local author Mary Doria Russell begins with a fictional account of the 1918 flu in Cleveland. Russell always does a superb job of researching her novels and puts you right here ninety years ago.
As the H1N1 story unfolds, your library will keep collecting the most accurate information. As you need to know more, check back!
Each year, after careful assessment of circulation and within budget constraints, we order approximately 230 titles for Avon Lake Public Library’s magazine collection. This includes magazines of interest to children, young adults, and our adult readers.Multiple subscriptions are ordered of very popular titles such as PEOPLE and CLEVELAND MAGAZINE, so that our patrons can access the most recent issue on a timely basis.The average circulation for magazines in any given month of the year is 1,500 issues!
If you have noticed that one of your favorite magazines has been missing from our shelves, it might be because it is no longer being published.Since the beginning of 2009 this tough economic environment has also taken its toll on the magazine publishing business, and 14 of our 2009 subscriptions have ceased publication.These notices continue to arrive at the library regularly.
According to a recent article inThe New York Times, declining advertising revenue is one of the reasons.Publishers had been able to keep subscription prices low and even lost money doing so, assuming that the real money came from ads.Subscription revenue was gravy!Publishing prices have risen as ink, paper and shipping costs continue to escalate.
Publishers are now realizing that they must raise subscription prices if they want to continue a quality product.The cover price of PEOPLE has risen 21% in the past four years.VANITY FAIR raised its cover price from $4.50 to $4.95 with the April issue.REAL SIMPLE has raised subscription prices 17% in the last four years. How price-sensitive are the readers going to be before they quit purchasing a particular magazine and it ceases publication?
ENJOY YOUR FAVORITE MAGAZINES WITH NO
OUT-OF-POCKET COST TO YOU!
CHECK OUT AN ISSUE THE NEXT TIME YOU ARE IN THE LIBRARY!
This is one of those I wish I had written that blog post posts. Jeff Scott, director of public library in Casa Grande, Arizona wrote a great post last September entitled “10 Ways to Hack Your Local Library.” Almost all of it works just as well at Avon Lake Public Library.
Learn how to get the most out of your library by following the link above. The few differences:
#5. We don’t have any groups who get longer check-out periods, though our loan period for almost all materials is 21 days, a week longer than Casa Grande. We would be happy though for you to join the Friends of the Avon Lake Public Library. Annual dues are $10 for an individual, $15 for a family. Your dues and the fundraising activities of the Friends provide for speakers and other program costs here at the Library.
#6. We provide 512mb flash drives (with a lanyard) for $5; 1 gig drives for $10 and headphones for $1.50. These are all sold at cost for the benefit of our patrons.
#7. In addition to Jeff’s reasons for returning books on time, let me add another: the books and other items are here to be shared by the entire community. When you return an item late, chances are one of your neighbors is waiting to get ahold of it. Practice the Golden Rule; return your books on time.
#8. To protect your privacy, we don’t keep track of books or other things you’ve borrowed and returned as long as there is not an outstanding fine on the item. If you want to keep track of what you’ve read, let me suggest LibraryThing. This social networking tool is much more fun than a mere list of books. You can keep track of anything about the book you want to remember, write reviews, exchange book lists and find out what people who liked your favorite books also read and loved.
#9. Libraries in Ohio just got a new interface for our shared databases called OWL, Ohio Web Library. These databases are chock-ful of articles and reference materials that put Google to shame. And without tricky paid-for results to mislead you. If you’d like a personalized tour of what can be found in OWL or some help doing research in these amazing databases, just stop by the Reference Desk or even call us at 440.933.8128 x 248 and make an appointment with Deb or Cindy.
#10. Jeff says all of these services are free. That’s both true and untrue. These services are all provided by taxpayers and managed to provide the best possible services for everyone in the community. You’ve already paid for it, why not use it?
We’ve been hearing for years about how our book drop was an annoying incovenience for patrons.
Shortly after we built it, we had to re-route traffic in our parking lot that made it impossible to do a driver-side drop-off without chaos ensuing. It was also still desirable to be able to drop off passengers at our entrance.
How to fix? A “double loop” with one exit solves the problems. About $24,000 was used to complete the project. Some folks are still a bit confused, but we are beefing up the signage and adding more stripes and chicanes and chevrons to make it clear. Time will help as well.
Last March, Volunteer Docent Joe Mayo came out to Avon Lake to do a program on the beautiful Holden Arboretum in Kirtland, Ohio. He left Kirtland in a blizzard to come to Avon Lake where the sun was shining and we expected a good turnout for his program. But you know what they say about the best laid plans! Only a small handful of folks showed up that afternoon for his slides and stories and literature. Joe was a good sport about it, but he told me that after the trip he made through snow covered roads, I had better make a trip out to Holden myself!
Last weekend, my husband and I finally made it. We strolled through the beautiful Butterfly Garden filled with lovely flowers and a proud Mama and Papa Goose with their two goslings. We enjoyed the lush Wildflower Garden with its several different ecosystems all in different stages of bloom. We wandered down a couple forested trails labeled “rugged” but quite moderate compared to most parks and studded with benches. I wish I had taken pictures to share with you, but I was too taken with reveling in the beauty to think to record it.
Holden Arboretum would make a beautiful day trip from Avon Lake. It’s about 48 miles from the Library. Much closer than some of the usual summer destinations many of us are foregoing this year. The Arboretum is child and adult friendly with lots of learning opportunities as well as the opportunity to enjoy a beautiful day. When you go, should you run into Joe Mayo, let him know Avon Lake Public Library sent you!
Today, at ALPL, we put out our new Books on MP3-CD collection. They are on display together right now, and will be interfiled with the regular Books on CD when they get older. They are well-labelled.
What’s the big deal? MP3 vs. WAV means fewer discs, lower cost, less things to damage or lose. You can play them in any PC, any DVD player, most new vehicles’ in-dash CD players, most newer portable CD players — and from your PC you could transfer files to your portable device INCLUDING THE iPOD.
Yes, the iPOD.
So, you don’t have a portable MP3 player to enjoy downloadable material from Overdrive on? Or copy stuff from an MP3 CD to? Borrow one from us.
We have EIGHT players at the reference desk for you to check out for three weeks, with renewal if nobody is waiting. they are Creative ZEN STONE models. Each bag includes the player, a USB cable, instructions and an adapter to play through cassette decks.
Posted by cindythelibrarian 
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Posted by cindythelibrarian 
OF-POCKET COST TO YOU!
