Bereavement Support Group At The Essex Library

Grieving is tough –  but you don’t have to go it alone. The Essex Library is hosting a Bereavement Support Group, with leadership provided by Middlesex Hospital Hospice volunteer Reverent John Talbott, a retired Episcopal priest who has run similar groups around the Shoreline area for the past eight years. The group will meet on the first and third Tuesdays of each month at 2 p.m., and is free and open to all. If you’re struggling with loss – of a spouse, a parent or other family member, or a close friend –  please consider coming to a meeting; sometimes just having a place to share our feelings makes them easier to bear.  No advance registration is necessary, and drop-ins are welcome.

Meet Your Candidates At The Great Debates

In an effort to help voters get to know the candidates for the upcoming elections, The Essex Library is hosting two debates that will be held at the Valley Regional High School Auditorium. The first debate, Wednesday, October 17th at 7 p.m., will feature the candidates for State Senator in the 33rd District; Art Linares (R), Jim Crawford (D), and Melissa Schlag (Green).  The second debate, slated for Tuesday, October 23rd at 7 p.m., will feature the candidates for the State House Representative for the 36th district, incumbent Phillip Miller (D) and Vin Pacileo (R).  Both of the debates will be moderated by Essex Library Director Richard Conroy.

Voters are urged to send their questions for the candidates to the Essex Library, either via email at staff@essexlib.org, via US mail to the attention of Richard Conroy, Director, Essex Library, 33 West Avenue, Essex 06426, or in person at the Essex Library. Questions for the candidates will be vetted to insure that they are submitted by residents of the districts involved, and all questions must include the questioner’s name, address and contact phone number, for verification. Don’t miss this opportunity to see your candidates answer the questions that matter to you and your town.  The debates are free and open to anyone who would like to attend.

A Grave Affair: Historic Graveyard Walk At River View Cemetery

Saturday, October 20th at 4 p.m.

What mysteries lurk in the old graveyard? What messages are hidden in its ancient tombstones? Join us for a walking tour of River View Cemetery with members of the Essex Historical Society . The walk will begin at the Essex Library, and families with children older than four are welcome to leave them for the duration of the walk at the Library, where we’ll show the holiday favorite It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! Spooky good fun for adults, and a not-so-spooky good time at the Library for the little ones. Registration is requested for this program, please.

Computers…And How To Use Them, At The Library

Learning how to use, or better use, computers can make life a whole lot easier and better. Watch the video below to see how libraries are making a difference in their communities with free computer instruction.

At the Essex Library, you can reserve time for a FREE one-on-one, how-to lesson on basic computer skills, creating an e-mail account, searching and placing holds on the LION catalog, downloading books using our OverDrive service, searching and placing holds on reQuest-the state catalog and conducting research on iCONN-the online databases provided by the state. To Book-A-Librarian please call the Library (860-767-1560).

This fall we’ll be offering programs in the Library for job seekers that include building interview skills, resume help and more. Until then, make use of our online JobNow service: Live, anytime, anywhere job assistance, including up-to-date nation-wide and local job search engines, professional resume critique and proven interview techniques. Experience personalized career center seamlessly integrated with advanced virtual technology to help job seekers of diverse backgrounds and needs.

It’s Summer Reading Time

Summer is the perfect time to settle down with a good book or 10. Check out the Summer Reading Flow Chart from Teach.com’s site below. If you don’t see anything that you’d like to read, come to the Library and we’ll make some reading suggestions for you that you’re sure to enjoy. Just ask us for a good book. And don’t forget to pick up one of our Adult Summer Reading program booklets to make your reading pay off with great prizes from local businesses.

Via Teach.com and USC Rossier Online

Experience Foreign Countries Without Leaving Essex

You’ve heard of them because of the Academy Awards: “Nominated for Best Foreign Film …” Or you read about small independent movies that were the hit of the Sundance or Toronto Film Festivals. But where can you get these movies? Every day at the  Essex Library.

Currently, there are more than 60 international films available for patrons to borrow. Our collection for the next three months includes movies such as:

• “The Year Of The Yao” – before there was Lin mania there was Yao Ming, a Chinese basketball player who traveled from Shanghai to Houston to become a sports superstar.
• “Immigration Tango” – a romantic comedy about Russian and Colombian immigrants who plan to swap partners with some American friends.
• “The Girl Who Played With Fire” – the Swedish version of the hit series, soon to be followed by an American version of the same.
• “Somers Town” – A Polish teenager and a runaway from Nottingham strike up a friendship over a hot summer in London.

Owned by the Connecticut Library Consortium, these films rotate between the participating lending libraries every 3 months. A Connecticut library card is all it takes to have a front-row seat.

Thanks to Librarian Marge Ruschau for help with this article.

Kindle EBooks Now Available Through Overdrive

Essex Library patrons–as part of the LION Library system’s Overdrive service, may now download eBooks to their Kindles. The announcement last spring that Kindle compatibility would take place sometime in 2011, followed by the hint this summer that this would happen in September, has proved to be true.

We have put together a few screenshots to walk you through the process. As always, if you have questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at the Library.

Overdrive has kept the download process simple: browse the catalog for a book*,

click “Add to Cart” for your selection

then click “Proceed to Checkout”.

After clicking “Confirm Check Out”,


select “Get for Kindle”.

This will redirect you to the Amazon website where you will see the “Get Library Book” button along with a window to select which Kindle device or app you will use for the download.

Next, after dutifully browsing Amazon’s commercial offerings, click “Download Now”.

You can download the book directly using a WI-FI signal depending on your device/app or connect your Kindle to your computer using a USB cable. If using the latter, when prompted, use the “Save As” option and click OK.

Open your Kindle file on your computer and drag and drop the book into the Documents folder. It will appear on your Kindle immediately.

*It should be noted that the Overdrive service is very popular and many, if not most, of the popular titles will be checked out at any given time. Simply put the book on hold by clicking Request/Hold and you’ll be notified by email when it’s available.

Overdrive Ebook Downloads To Kindles Have Begun…Out West

Library patrons have been awaiting the ability to borrow ebooks to read on their Kindles. It was hinted earlier this summer that downloads to the Kindle would go live in September. That day is here, if you are a patron of the Seattle Public Library or the King County Library System.  These libraries have been selected for the beta testing and it seems to be going well so far. There is still no information as to when Overdrive ebooks will be available for Kindle users nationwide.

What we can tell you is that the ebooks will be available for all Kindle models as well as Kindle apps for other devices and the Kindle Cloud Reader. You’ll have to download via WI-FI or connect your Kindle to a computer with a USB cable as the 3G wireless service is not supported.  When you check out your books you’ll be redirected to the Amazon website to login to your Amazon account (or create one if you don’t have one already) and then provide your library card number. As expected, Amazon will be including some offers for you to buy books during the process. Amazon’s “Whispersync” technology will also preserve your digital notes and bookmarks in case you buy the book from Amazon later or check it out a second time. The service is only available in the U.S.

Stay tuned for updates as to when Kindle compatibility will arrive for LION library patrons.

We Told You So…Amazon & OverDrive Partner Up For Ebooks

We’ve been predicting for a while now that Amazon would eventually concede to the pressure to allow its Kindle users to download books for free from the OverDrive eBook lending services offered by public libraries…and that day has come. Last week Amazon announced that they signed an agreement with OverDrive with the service to be launched for Kindle users at an unspecified date later this year. This is great news for Kindle owners who’ve, up to now, been turned away from Libraries offering the OverDrive service.

Currently, the OverDrive eBooks can be downloaded to many devices including the Barnes & Noble Nook, Borders’ Kobo, Sony eReaders, Apple devices and many, many others. To see the complete list, click here.  Service to Kindle owners will maintain the same lending rules–lending periods and number of downloads allowed as delineated by your local Library. The Essex Library allows patrons to check out up to 4 eBooks each with a lending period of 14 days.

Here’s a statement from Amazon with details regarding the new deal:

SEATTLE—April 20, 2011—(NASDAQ: AMZN)— Amazon today announced Kindle Library Lending, a new feature launching later this year that will allow Kindle customers to borrow Kindle books from over 11,000 libraries in the United States. Kindle Library Lending will be available for all generations of Kindle devices and free Kindle reading apps.

“We’re excited that millions of Kindle customers will be able to borrow Kindle books from their local libraries,” said Jay Marine, Director, Amazon Kindle. “Customers tell us they love Kindle for its Pearl e-ink display that is easy to read even in bright sunlight, up to a month of battery life, and Whispersync technology that synchronizes notes, highlights and last page read between their Kindle and free Kindle apps.”

Customers will be able to check out a Kindle book from their local library and start reading on any Kindle device or free Kindle app for Android, iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, PC, Mac, BlackBerry, or Windows Phone. If a Kindle book is checked out again or that book is purchased from Amazon, all of a customer’s annotations and bookmarks will be preserved.

“We’re doing a little something extra here,” Marine continued. “Normally, making margin notes in library books is a big no-no. But we’re extending our Whispersync technology so that you can highlight and add margin notes to Kindle books you check out from your local library. Your notes will not show up when the next patron checks out the book. But if you check out the book again, or subsequently buy it, your notes will be there just as you left them, perfectly Whispersynced.”

Harper Collins, Overdrive In Library E-Book Mess

Once upon a time. For all us librarians wondering how the fairy tale of e-books might play out, we’re seeing it become  a horror story instead. DRM (digital rights management is the term for technologies used to restrict/limit how digital materials are accessed) is the poisoned apple being used by publishers to kill a library’s ability to make e-books available to its  patrons. Prior to February 24th, Overdrive– a national vendor of digital materials to libraries, could offer customers e-book downloads on an unlimited basis. Harper Collins has just mandated a limit of 26 check-outs of its e-books through their vendors and distributors to libraries, including Overdrive. Even more troubling, Harper Collins wants to limit which patrons a library lends its digital materials to. But that’s another blog post.

Libraries are at an important crossroads regarding access to digital materials. We want to provide the services and materials our patrons want–in the formats they want. Those of us too small, read: too poor, to contemplate an Overdrive service on our own, purchase through a consortium. In the case of the Essex Library, we purchase Overdrive services through the LION Libraries consortium. With a limit of 26 check-outs on any given e-book—and you can anticipate other publishers will be climbing onto Harper Collins’ restrictive bandwagon, LION’s 365,000 patrons will find their ability to access Overdrive’s e-books so severely diminished as to be useless. Already there are publishers, including two of the largest, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster– who don’t allow any library circulation of their e-books.

What can libraries do to keep e-book patrons happy?

Author Cory Doctorow advocates a library boycott of all DRM-protected materials. Librarians across the country are disgusted, discouraged and angry. You can follow their comments on Twitter at the #hcod hashtag. None of this can be resolved until publishers come up with a viable business model for digital books. It won’t serve them well to distance their authors from potential readers, digital or print. The publishing industry as a whole is in trouble and alienating libraries who serve millions of readers by spending billions of dollars on materials just doesn’t seem productive. A call to arms, in the guise of library consortia joining together, collaborating and using their combined buying power to persuade publishers to loosen, or just plain lose, the restrictions on digital materials has been issued by librarian Matthew D. Hamilton.

We need a happy ending here for everyone…authors, publishers, vendors and readers.  Anybody got any great ideas?