"Catching Fire" Catches Interest

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Readers who were riveted by The Hunger Games and left yearning for more will not be disappointed in this exciting sequel by Suzanne Collins. Six months after Katniss and Peeta return from the Hunger Games as victors, they find themselves trapped by the menacing President Snow in a story of deceit. As the Capitol prepares for a grand wedding between Katniss and Peeta, Katniss finds herself struggling with hard decisions. Should her devotion be towards Peeta or her life-time, dear friend, Gale? Should she lead a rebellion against the Capitol, or would that be putting her mother, sister and the residents of District 12 in terrible danger? Catching Fire has plenty of twists and excitement to keep readers turning the pages and longing for the next sequel.

Google Books adds Features to Library

In Google Books, you can now create bookshelves similar to personal online libraries such as Shelfari, GoodReads and LibraryThing.

"You can create a personalized library on Google Books which allows you to organize, review, rate, and search a customized selection of books. These collections live online, and are accessible anywhere you can log in to your Google account. Bookshelves that are set to 'public' (with the icon showing two people) are publicly visible to friends who know the URL of your collection, so once you've built a collection, you can share it with them by sending them a link to your library in Google Books."

What's the next step for GoogleBooks? How about creating code to embed these bookshelves on our blogs and websites?

Sad Day for Pennsylvania Libraries

It was announced this week that EBSCO host will no longer be available through POWER Library. Because of drastic cuts in the budget by PA Department of Education, this comprehensive database consisting of articles and multimedia sources will no longer be available as of February 1, 2010. At this point, it remains to be seen what databases will replace the offerings of EBSCO, but certainly it will not be nearly the extent of what POWER Library has offered in the past.
Thankfully, our students and staff have access to a number of databases to which our library subscribes. Please visit our Database website for links to each one, as well as a Google Custom Search for several online newspaper and periodical sites.

Tips for Google Reader

I just saw these tips for keyboard shortcuts in Google Reader and thought they were worth sharing:

Use j/k to navigate through a feed's items, t to tag an item, / (slash) to search, or press ? to get the list of all the keyboard shortcuts Reader supports.Press Escape to make the shortcut list disappear.

BlogThis Toool

What is BlogThis! ? "BlogThis! is an easy way to make a blog post without visiting blogger.com. Once you add the BlogThis! link to your browser's toolbar, blogging will be a snap. Or rather, a click. Clicking BlogThis! creates a mini-interface to Blogger prepopulated with a link to the web page you are visiting, as well as any text you have highlighted on that page. Add additional text if you wish and then publish or post from within BlogThis!"

And yes - I used BlogThis to create this post!

Discovering eBooks for my iPod Touch

This weekend I discovered that there are many FREE ebooks available for my iTouch through iPhone apps. Previously, I had not really been very interested in exploring ebooks for my small iTouch screen since I imagined that the print would be too difficult for me to read, much like the text when browsing through websites. However, not only was I surprised by how clear the print is, but I was pleased to see that the Kindle app offers quite a few titles for free. As might be expected, many free titles are classics such as Pride and Prejudice and Dracula, but I was pleased to find quite a few new releases such as Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson (which was my first pick!). I also learned from a Tweet from @DoremiGirl that Stanza and Classics are two other great apps for ebooks and also offer many free titles.

The text preferences within these ebook apps can be adjusted to make your reading more clear and legible. Not only can you choose different font sizes, but you can choose between a day-time or night-time screen (as pictured) and there are various features for bookmarking, adding notes, or searching within a book.

While I'm not anywhere ready to purchase an ebook reader for myself for a couple of hundred dollars, I certainly am pleased to find I now have a couple of ebook options for my iTouch, and that many of the titles are free, or at a very low cost!

Book Review: Liar

Though Micah is a self-proclaimed liar, she begins the book with a promise: "I will tell you my story and I will tell it straight. No lies, no omissions. That's my promise. This time I truly mean it." Or does she? Throughout the novel, readers are taken on such a roller-coaster of self-admitted lies that nothing can be believed or taken for granted. Was she born a girl, a boy...or something completely different? What kind of relationship did she really have with Zach, a fellow high school student who was murdered? What does she know about the murder...was she involved? The ambiguous ending will leave readers intrigued with an urge to discuss the novel with others.

Larbalestier, Justine. Liar. New York: Bloomsbury, 2009. 978-1-59990-305-7. 376p.