More ebook options for library patrons

Enki ebooks

The latest offering on the Kansas State Library’s Digital Book eLending page is Enki, an ebook lending platform created by libraries in California and Colorado to manage ebooks purchased by participating libraries directly from authors and small publishers. Using Enki, you can checkout up to five books at a time for two weeks with the option of early return. It follows the traditional library model -- one person at a time can check out a book, and you can place a hold on books that are currently checked out.

To checkout from Enki, go to http://ksl.enkilibrary.org and log in with your Kansas Library Card. Kansas Library Cards are not the same as regular local library cards. They are free to any Kansas resident and can be obtained from any Kansas library.

Once logged in, search the website using the browser on your device. After you find something you want, click Checkout, then choose Download. It will ask you to open the book with whatever reader you have installed on your device -- Bluefire Reader or the Freading app both work well. For more detailed instructions and for instructions for different kinds of devices, go to the Enki ebooks page on the Kansas State Library website http://www.kslib.info/digitalbooks/enki.html.

Unite for Literacy - Free ebooks for kids

Douglas County Libraries, the Colorado Library Consortium, and Unite for Literacy have teamed up to provide access to free ebooks for kids. Unite for Literacy’s ebook library is designed to be read from a web browser, either on desktop computer or mobile device. They wish to take advantage of the spreading usage and availability of mobile internet access to get books into the hands of emergent readers.

These online early literacy picture books are each available with optional narration in different languages. Currently they offer over a hundred books narrated in up to 15 different languages, but their goal is to support all the languages that are spoken in U.S. homes.

These ebooks can be accessed through our library catalog (http://catalog.lmlibrary.org) by searching for “Unite for Literacy” or directly from the website at http://uniteforliteracy.com.

Tumblebooks

Another source of online read-aloud picture books is Tumblebooks, made available to all Kansas residents free of charge by the State Library of Kansas and by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services.

The Tumblebooks website includes story books, chapter books, videos, puzzles and games, and a language learning section. As stated on their website “TumbleBookLibrary is an online collection of animated, talking picture books which teach young children the joys of reading in a format they'll love.”

Tumblebooks can be accessed by any Kansas resident through the library’s website, http://lmlibrary.org, the Kansas State Library’s website, http://www.kslib.info/digitalbooks.html, or by using your Kansas Library Card.

Beginning Computer Classes

The library offers beginning computers classes every Tuesday at 11:00 a.m., downstairs in the computer lab. The classes are for both English and Spanish speakers and walk-ins are welcome. It is a basic introduction to keyboard and mouse and eventually builds up to creating email accounts and other helpful basic tutorials.

Mango Languages

Mango Connect is part of the new look of the Mango website. Kansas residents can use the website to start learning their choice of over 50 different languages free of charge. Creating a username and password is optional, but doing so will allow you to pick up where you left off between learning sessions.

The website now offers two apps -- Mango Conversations and Mango Premiere.

Mango Conversations uses real-life situations and conversations to teach a new language. Users listen to and repeat conversations, not just learning the individual words and phrases, but also learning how they're used in practical situations and conversations.

Mango Premiere uses movies to more effectively teach a new language. Users watch these feature films with or without subtitles in both their own language and the language to be learned. Mango Premiere gives the viewer the ability to break down scenes and subtitles, combining both spoken and written learning. It also brings in cultural notes and quizzes for an in-depth look at the language in the film. Premiere currently offers feature films in 7 languages.

Introducing Playaways

Playaways

The Southwest Kansas Library System (or SWKLS for short) van comes once every two months to switch out the rotating items that are temporarily on loan to our library. Included in the rotating collection are books, DVDs, audio books, and our newest addition, Playaway books.

Playaways are all-in-one digital audio books.

No CD player or mp3 player is required when checking out one of these audio books, because they are the players. Each Playaway contains one full audio book and has standard easy to use buttons. All that is required when listening to a Playaway is earphones and a AAA battery.

The SWKLS rotating van will come again this Tuesday, so we should have a new batch of Playaways available for checkout very soon.

Zinio – Online Newsstand

Our patrons now have to option of checking out magazines online from Zinio (also made available with the help of the Southwest Kansas Library System). The magazines are always available, there are no limits on checkout, and there is never a need to return any of the magazines you check out.

You can checkout magazines from the website, http://zinio.lmlibrary.org, and read them either on the computer or on your device.

Zinio reader apps are available for the computer, PC or Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, Kindle Fire, Windows 8, Blackberry, and Nook.

There are currently over 90 magazine titles available for checkout. Here is a partial list of the most popular:

• American Craft   
• American Patchwork & Quilting
• Astronomy
• Car and Driver   
• Cosmopolitan    
• Family Circle    
• Food Network Magazine  
• Martha Stewart Living
• Newsweek 
• Reader's Digest
• Redbook
• Taste of Home  
• True West
• Us Weekly
• Woman's Day

Tax forms

The library has always been a good place to find federal and state income tax forms, but in the last few years, tax forms, like most everything else, have shifted toward being available primarily online. The library does receives federal tax forms, but not quite as many or as quickly as in the past, and we no longer receive paper Kansas income tax forms at all.

Still, our staff members are always glad to help download and print the forms that are no longer sent out to the library. Printable Kansas income tax forms are available at http://www.ksrevenue.org/ and http://www.ksrevenue.org/iiwebfile.html has options for filing Kansas income tax forms online for free. Federal income tax forms can be downloaded and printed from http://www.irs.gov/Forms-&-Pubs and http://www.irs.gov/uac/Free-File:-Do-Your-Federal-Taxes-for-Free has options for filing federal income tax forms online for free.


Database Spotlight

The new year brought changes in the GED testing procedures and LearningExpress has it covered with new test prep information, including an interactive tutorial called “Introduction to the 2014 GED® Test”, practice tests, skill builders, and ebooks.

This is all part of the High School Equivalency Center, which is one of several learning centers included in LearningExpress. The other learning centers include:

• the Adult Learning Center
• the Career Center
• the College Preparation Center 
• Recursos Para Hispanohablantes - for the Spanish speakers
• the College Center
• the School Center
• the Computer Skills Center
• the Job & Career Accelerator

LearningExpress is one of the many databases available to Kansas residents for free on the Explore Our Resources (http://www.kslib.info/librarians/eor.html) page of the Kansas State Library website.

Holiday programming at the Library

Holiday Celebrations

Christmas is only a few short days away. I hope everyone is ready, with presents wrapped and stashed away somewhere they won’t be discovered.

We’ve all been enjoying the holidays at the library. There was a Bell Ensemble from the First United Methodist Church on December 3rd who played traditional and holiday music. The Redskin Singers came together and gave us a performance on December 12th, and we had our annual gingerbread house building event on December 14th, where children were invited to the library to test their artistic skills by decorating gingerbread houses. Santa even visited us during evening story time on December 17th.

 

Noon Year Eve Party

Children of all ages are welcome to our first ever Noon Year’s Eve Party. If you can't stay up until midnight, don't worry, because all through the day on New Year's Eve it's midnight somewhere. This year we’re going to celebrate the New Year during the noon hour. On December 31st from 11:00 - 12:30, we'll be celebrating the New Year with activities, crafts, music, games, a story, and fun.

Database spotlight

Did you know that you can search the state sponsored databases from within the library catalog and use it access magazines and journals (such as Consumer Reports)?

Suppose you wanted to find a new dishwasher in time for the big holiday get together aftermath but didn’t know which to buy. You could

1. login to our library catalog (http://catalog.lmlibrary.org) using your library card number and password
2. go to advanced search
3. under "Enter Search Terms" type in a search term “consumer reports” and change the drop down from “All Headings” to “Journal Title”
4. click on “Add Another Search Term” and type in “dishwashers”
5. on the right side of the screen under “Choose Resources”, uncheck Swiftnet (searches items within the library), and check “Magazines, Journals, Newspapers & Books” (searches online databases)
6. finally click “Search” on the upper right of the screen.

The first result in the list is “Dishwashers” from the Consumer Reports Buying Guide, publication date 2014. If you click on the blue underlined title, you will see information about the consumer reports article and you can click on “PDF Full Text” to see the full article.

Free Digital Magazine Checkout and a Cornucopia of New Technology at Liberal Memorial Library

Database Spotlight

The library offers so many useful resources that some of them can be overlooked in our efforts to connect our patrons to the information that they are looking for. Some of our patrons might not be aware of the health related databases that can be reached through our website at http://www.lmlibrary.org/databases.asp or from http://www.kslib.info/librarians/eor.html. These databases are made available to all Kansas residents free of charge by the State Library of Kansas and by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services.

EBSCO Consumer Health Complete

Consumer Health Complete is a browsable medical database including drug information, topic fact sheets, news, magazines, medical dictionaries, and encyclopedias. It is a thorough and user-friendly resource, providing information covering all areas of health and wellness from mainstream medicine to holistic and integrated medicine.

EBSCO MEDLINE

MEDLINE was created by the National Library of Medicine and offers information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, and much more. It uses MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) indexing to search citations from over 5,400 current biomedical journals.

EBSCO Alternative Health Watch

If you’re interested in strictly alternative health information, then the EBSCO Alternative Health Watch might be more what you’re looking for. This database focuses on perspectives of complementary, holistic and integrated approaches to health care and wellness. It offers full text articles for more than 180 journals and reports. There are also hundreds of pamphlets, booklets, special reports, original research and book excerpts. Alt HealthWatch provides in-depth coverage across the full spectrum of subject areas covered by complementary and alternative medicine.

If your interests are of a more scholarly nature you could use either EBSCO Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition or ProQuest Nursing & Allied Health Source


EBSCO Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition

This database provides nearly 550 scholarly full text journals focusing on many medical disciplines. Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition also features the Lexi-PAL Drug Guide, which covers 1,300 generic drug patient education sheets with more than 4,700 brand names.

ProQuest Nursing & Allied Health Source

This database offers reliable, comprehensive coverage of the fields of nursing and allied health including journals, video, dissertations, reference books and more.


EBSCO MedicLatina

For our Spanish speaking patrons there is also the Medica Latina, a unique collection of medical research and investigatory journals from renowned Latin American and Spanish publishers. This Spanish language database contains full text for 130 peer-reviewed medical journals in native Spanish.


New Equipment

The library was able to take advantage of a grant from the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) to purchase several new items for our patrons.

• An additional children’s computer - Having another children’s computer will please the little ones and shorten the afternoon waiting list.
• A new document scanner for the patrons – We have a new sheet fed document scanner, located downstairs in the computer lab, that patrons can use to scan their pictures or documents directly to usb, to email, or to one of the library’s computers.
• We have also upgraded our free WiFi access to make it more reliable and easier to use.
• We will soon add a Nexus 7 tablet to our small collection of eReaders and devices available for demonstration purposes. If you’re not sure if an eReader or full fledged tablet is right for you, you can come in to the library and try out some of the different devices.

Zinio – Online Newsstand

The library’s subscription to Zinio officially began October 31st. Our patrons now have access to full color, interactive digital magazines that they can download and read on their mobile devices, home computers, or one of the library’s computers. There are no waiting lists and no need to return any magazine issue that has been checked out. Magazine issues that have been downloaded to a patron’s device remain there until deleted.


Creating an account is a two part process. You have to create a library zinio account to check out and a personal zinio reading account to download and read your magazine.

Part 1: Create a library account to check out magazines:

1. Go to: http://zinio.lmlibrary.org. Browse the collection and click on a magazine to check out.
2. Click on Create New Account in the upper right hand corner to create a new account.
3. It will ask for your library card number. Liberal Memorial Library patrons will need to enter the code lici + their library card number. The number will look something like this: lici123456. Click Submit.
4.  After your library card is verified, it ask for your name, your email address, and to create a password. The email address and password will be what you use to login.
5. Once your account is created click on Check Out and then the Complete Checkout button.
6. Your magazine is now checked out and available to read on your Zinio.com account

Part 2: Create a free Zinio.com account to start reading.

1. After checking out your magazine, a Zinio.com window will open and prompt you to create a Zinio account or log in.
2. Create a new Zinio account by entering your name, email address, and a password. The email address will need to be the same as the one you created in Step 1.
3. Be sure to uncheck the Send me email about updates option if you don't want to receive emails from Zinio.
4. Click Register.
5. Your personal reading account is now activated and your magazine is available in the Your Library tab on Zinio.com.

Daylight Savings Time Ends

And just in case you haven’t already heard it a hundred times before, Daylight Savings Time ends today so remember to set your clocks back.

Healthcare.gov Marketplace

On Thursday we had our last watch party for the Healthcare.gov Marketplace, which was a demonstration of website itself. But don’t worry if you missed the series of webinars about the Healthcare.gov Marketplace and the Affordable Care Act. All of the sessions are archived at http://www.kslib.info/calendar/archives.html along with slides from the presentations. For more information about libraries and the Affordable Care Act, including helpful links to various government agencies, visit www.kslib.info/aca.

Interlibrary Loan

You might have noticed that our Interlibrary Loan procedures have changed a bit in the last couple of weeks. Instead of requesting loans from other libraries online through our library catalog, now patrons go to a separate catalog at http://ill.lmlibrary.org or http://illverso.lmlibrary.org depending on preference.

The switch over isn’t quite complete yet, but soon we hope our patrons will be able to login to this new catalog using their Liberal Memorial Library card number and password. For the time being however, patrons can browse and place Interlibrary loan requests but cannot login or track them and will just have to fill in their information (name, library card number, and phone number) again with each request. For the older interface, http://illverso.lmlibrary.org, if a patron just hits enter at the login screen without typing in anything, they can browse and place Interlibrary loans.

As always, patrons can still log in to our own library catalog, http://catalog.lmlibrary.org, using their library card number and password. Once logged in, they can use it to search for and place holds on library items, renew their checked out items, search the databases, including magazine, health, and encyclopedia databases, check the status of their account, and update their contact information. The same library card number and password can be used to access the library’s patron computers and to use the Self-Check station.

Database Spotlight

There are quite a few useful and informative databases included in the statewide collection, (http://www.kslib.info/librarians/eor.html), made available to all Kansas residents free of charge by the State Library of Kansas and by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services. One of most useful is the Auto Repair Reference Center.

The Auto Repair Reference Center (ARRC) is a collection of automobile repair reference information that contains repair and maintenance information on most major manufacturers of domestic and imported vehicles.

You can select your model of car by simply filling in the year, make, and model drop-downs.

You’ll then find step-by-step, repair-oriented information for all areas of your vehicle, technical service bulletins and recall information on your vehicle, electrical wiring diagrams, and a full list of specifications for your vehicle. You’ll be able to determine the time it takes to do a repair and estimate the cost of the repair, and for the advanced DIYer, there is diagnostic troubleshooting based on symptoms and ODBII codes.

Database Spotlight

Today we’ll go over two of the many online resources (http://www.kslib.info/librarians/eor.html) made available to all Kansas residents free of charge by the State Library of Kansas and by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Mango Languages

Have you ever wanted to learn another language but haven’t had the opportunity, time, or money to do so? Now you access Mango Languages, using either your browser or the app available for your phone or other device. Mango is an online language learning program that offers sixty-one foreign language courses for English speakers and courses to learn English from seventeen different languages. On the lighter side, there is even a course in learning to speak like a pirate.

Most of the courses offer a choice of either basic lessons to teach simple, practical skills for common, polite conversation situations in only a few short hours, or complete lessons, which teach in-depth and comprehensive language and grammar skills. You can create a username and password to be able to keep track of your progress or just click on start learning to browse through the available courses.

LearningExpress

LearningExpress offers practice tests, courses, and eBooks which are arranged by categories or Learning Centers geared toward certain age groups or interests:

• Elementary School
• Middle School
• High School
• College Preparation
• College Students
• Popular Software Tutorials
• GED Preparation
• Workplace Skills
• Occupation Practice Tests
• Skill Building for Adults
• U.S. Citizenship
• Recursos para Hispanohablantes
• Computer & Internet Basics

Using the Learning Centers, a person can find help with Math, Reading Comprehension, Social Studies, Writing, Logic and Reasoning, Science, Statistics, Trigonometry, Vocabulary and Spelling, Writing and Grammar, as well as preparation for many standardized tests. Are you studying to get your CDL or studying to take the Electrician's License Test? There’s help for that too in the Occupation Practice Tests learning center.

The Job & Career Accelerator is also available through LearningExpress. It offers help with searching for a job, writing a resume, writing a cover letter, learning basic computer skills, learning a computer program, filling out a job application, and exploring careers.

Both of these databases can be accessed by visiting the library’s website, lmlibrary.org, or by going to http://www.kslib.info/librarians/eor.html. If these links don’t work for any reason, you can also access the databases using your Kansas Library Card, which is free to any Kansas resident and can be obtained from any library in Kansas.

3M Cloud eBook news and updates

• The 3M Cloud app is now available for Kindle Fire through SlideME.org

If you have a Kindle Fire and wish to check out library eBooks from 3M Cloud, it has now gotten much simpler. Before the app was only available through Google play (which Kindle Fires can’t use). Now it is available through SlideME.org as well.

To install the app, turn on the ability to "Download apps from external/unknown sources" under "Settings", go to SlideMe.org in your web browser on your Kindle Fire, search for "3M Cloud Library" and install the app.

• The 3M Cloud app now works with VoiceOver.

The Apple mobile app now is fully functional with VoiceOver, which means that visually impaired patrons have access to the 3M Cloud eBooks library on their iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. For more information see visit the http://www.kslib.info/digitalbooks/3m/3mnews.html

• Digital Book Request Form If there is an audiobook or eBook that you wish was in our digital library collection, you can fill out a Digital Book Request Form on the Kansas EZ Library website (http://www.kslib.info/digitalbooks.html). You’ll be notified if the book is available for purchase, but please realize that some publishers are unwilling to allow their digital books to be purchased by libraries.

Audiobooks and eBooks for Dad

Celebrate Father’s day by getting Dad set up to check out free audiobooks and eBooks from the library.

Kansas EZ Library (http://www.kslib.info/digitalbooks.html) is a service of the Kansas State Library and other contributing Kansas Libraries. Any resident of Kansas can use the service to checkout audiobooks and eBooks online.

Registration requires a Kansas Library Card (http://www.kslc.org). If you don’t already have a Kansas Library Card, (not the same as a regular local library card) you can get one at any Kansas public or school library.

Because June is national audiobook month, now is the perfect time to talk about the audiobook side of Kansas EZ Library. With tablets, dedicated eReaders, and all things eBook on the rise, but you might be surprised to know that the audiobook side of Kansas EZ Library is actually still more popular.

The well-established audiobooks platform called One Click Digital has more Kansas users, more daily circulations (more than 10,000 checkouts in May alone), and more new books available for checkout than the eBook platforms.

Newly added audiobooks that might appeal to Dad include:

"Inferno" by Dan Brown - From the Book Description -  In the heart of Italy, Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon is drawn into a harrowing world centered on one of history's most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces--Dante's "Inferno"--as he battles a chilling adversary and grapples with an ingenious riddle.

"A serpent's tooth" by Craig Johnson  - From the Book Description - When a lost Mormon child wanders into Absaroka County, the intrepid Wyoming sheriff teams up with feisty deputy Victoria Moretti and longtime friend Henry Standing Bear on a high plains scavenger hunt that leads them to a violent interstate polygamy group.

"Shattered trident" by Larry Bond - From the Book Description - While trailing a Chinese nuclear attack sub, Jerry Mitchell, the captain of USS North Dakota, is shocked to see the Chinese boat torpedo a Vietnamese merchant ship.

This blatant act of aggression is the opening gambit in a war that has blindsided the U.S. and quickly embroiled all nations in the western Pacific. These nations, bound together in the newly formed Littoral Alliance, have begun a covert submarine campaign aimed at crippling China's economy before China can set in motion its own plot to dominate the region...

"A delicate truth" by John Le Carré - From the Book Description -  A counter-terrorist operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted on the British crown colony of Gibraltar. Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, a private defense contractor who is also his bosom friend, and a shady American CIA operative of the evangelical far-right. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister’s personal private secretary, Toby Bell, is not cleared for it...

"Zero Hour" by Clive Cussler and Graham Brown - From the Book Description - It is called zero point energy, and it really exists--a state of energy contained in all matter everywhere, and thus all but unlimited. Nobody has ever found a way to tap into it, however--until one scientist discovers a way. Or at least he thinks he has. The problem is, his machines also cause great earthquakes, even fissures in tectonic plates. One machine is buried deep underground; the other is submerged in a vast ocean trench. If Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala and the rest of the NUMA team aren't able to find and destroy them, and soon, the world will be on the threshold of a new era of earth tremors and unchecked volcanism.

Of course, you don't have to go online to check out audiobooks. You can also come into the library and check out some of the following new books on CD:

• The tooth tattoo by Peter Lovesey
• Screwed by Eoin Colfer.
• The golden egg by Donna Leon
• The redeemer by Jo Nesbo and Don Bartlett
• A chain of thunder: a novel of the siege of Vicksburg by Jeff Shaara
• 12th of Never by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

Whether you prefer MP3 or CD, why not listen to a good book this month.