Library Buzz: Staying Alive?

(Originally published in the Andover American 10/3/13. "Library Buzz" is written by Toria Hamilton.)

Man, zombies are everywhere lately!

Not literally, of course. I mean, zombies are all over books and other popular media. Obviously, if zombies were really everywhere, I’d be far too busy to write newspaper articles.

Let me start again.

This month, I have some fabulous recommendations featuring our friends the undead. Check them out!

I know what you’re thinking: zombies aren’t real. Well, tell that to Frank Swain, author of the nonfiction book, “How to Make a Zombie: The Real Life (and Death) Science of Reanimation and Mind Control”. Documenting horrific true stories of so-called “voodoo zombies”, dead animals brought back to life in shady labs, and Manchurian Candidate-style mind control, this book is both creepy and engrossingly cool.

Too much for you? We have a similar, shorter book in the children’s nonfiction section. The newly released “Zombie Makers: True Stories of Nature’s Undead” by Rebecca L. Johnson has everything you didn’t want to know about the parasitic fungi and bacteria that take over insect and animal host bodies through freaky mind control, with full color photographs for those with strong stomachs.

For fiction, try “My Life as a White Trash Zombie” by Diana Rowland. Angel Crawford wakes up in the ER after an alleged drug overdose that should have killed her. Or did it? Soon, she’s craving brains and solving murders at her new job with the county morgue. It’s a dark-humored urban fantasy that will appeal to fans of Charlaine Harris’ “Sookie Stackhouse” series.

In our New Books section, Michael Logan’s “Apocalypse Cow”, inaugural winner of the Terry Pratchett Prize, pits three unlikely heroes against a zombie horde—that is, herd—of bloodthirsty, flesh-eating cattle after a bioweapon experiment goes terribly awry in this debut novel that is just as surreal as it sounds, part “Shaun of the Dead”, part “Outbreak”.

Get the kids involved with adorable picture books like Kristyn Crow’s “Zombelina” (about a zombie who joins a dance academy for real girls where she’s so good, it’s scary), or “Zombie in Love” by Kelly Dipucchio (in which Mortimer the zombie can’t find a girl despite working out, dance lessons, and online dating), both starring lovable zombies who are neither terrifying nor gory.

Don’t forget to pick up some zombie movies like “Warm Bodies” or the new “World War Z”, or “The Walking Dead” TV series from our DVD section.

Until next month, keep shambling along out there, and tell the zombies they can’t have your brains: you’re still using them!

Explore Audiobooks

Many patrons tell us they're not interested in audiobooks because they'd rather read. That's understandable, but if you've never tried audiobooks, you're missing out. We have audio versions of many best-selling authors, including new releases and popular series, some of which are read by celebrity narrators.

Audiobooks are a great way to make your commute more productive by taking care of those books you've been meaning to read but haven't got around to yet. One of our librarians whose commute is only ten minutes each morning and afternoon still manages to listen to a new book each month. Between your commute, errands around town, and trips to the grocery store, you probably spend more time in your car than you think.

Keep the family entertained on your next road trip with an audiobook from our children's library or from the young adult section, or ask a librarian which books from our adult collection might be appropriate for your family's tastes. Whether your trip is five, ten, or twenty hours long, our librarians can help you find one or more audiobooks to last the whole time.

Audiobooks are also a great way to multitask. Listen to a story while you cook dinner, clean house, garden, or do craft hobbies. Another librarian here listened to Game of Thrones and all of its sequels - almost 200 hours of content - while creating art in her basement studio.

Want to take your book to the gym with you? Check out one of the digital audiobooks available on Sunflower eLibrary and download it to your smart phone or other mobile listening device.

Kids who have trouble reading on their own can benefit from listening to the audiobook while following along with the print version. Our young adult librarian, Tori, or children's librarian, Cathy, can help you find the right book for your child's reading level and offer advice on improving reading ability.

If you're reading for reading's sake, by all means, hold out for the print version, but if you're in it for the story and the entertainment value of a good book, consider a title from our audiobook collection. You won't be disappointed.

Hayley's Children's Book Reviews

The sheriff and his deputy are on an important mission to bring a box of donuts home safely without any of them disappearing.  Can they do it?  Read The Case Of The Missing Donut by Allison McGhee and see why everyone in town seems to think that possibly there might be a donut missing.  Are they right or were the sheriff and his deputy successful on their mission?

First Jamie feels really good, a purple kind of mood.  When his brothers treat him bad, his mood turns gray.  Then Jamie eases into a gentle kind of green mood.  Throughout the day Jamie goes through lots of different kinds of moods. My Cold Plum Lemon Pie Bluesy Mood by Tameka Fryer Brown teaches kids about different kinds of moods and how to describe how they feel in a whole new way.

Papa has invented many things but never once has anything Papa invented worked perfectly.  All he needs is a fantastic idea.  Then one day while fishing on Lake Michigan Papa’s daughter, Virena, asks him if he has ever wondered what it’s like to be a fish.  Now Papa has his fantastic idea!  Papa gets to work and builds a kind of mechanical fish he calls the Whitefish.  Read Papa’s Mechanical Fish by Candace Fleming and find out if Papa finally has the perfect invention.  (This story is loosely based on the life of Lodner Phillips, the creator of one of the first modern day submarines.)

Genre Spotlight: Horror

This month, we decided to focus on a genre that doesn't get a lot of love: Horror. Checkout Horns by Joe Hill, soon to be a movie starring Daniel Radcliffe, or Stephen King's new Doctor Sleep. Titles by Clive Barker, Dean Koontz, and John Saul, as well as other books by Stephen King, are on display all month. Come let us creep you out, and we mean that in the nicest way.

Bad guys have all the fun, especially when they're also adorable. Can you name all of these villains?

These heroes specialize in demons, vampires, ghosts, and monsters. Let us know who your favorite is by voting at the front desk. Voting ends October 31.

Donating Books to the Library

People often ask if we take book donations at the Andover Public Library. Indeed, we do! Here is everything you need to know about donating books.

• The library accepts any fiction or nonfiction book in good condition except for encyclopedias and outdated text books. 
• The library accepts other items as well: DVDs, VHS tapes, audiobooks on CD or cassette, cake pans, and puzzles (provided all the pieces are present). 
• Magazine donations are not accepted; however, magazines that are no more than one year old can be placed on our magazine exchange rack in the lobby. Patrons can exchange up to ten at one time.
• Book donations are accepted year-round. Books to be donated must be brought inside the library during library hours. 
• Individual books that are placed in our curb-side Book Return are always assumed to be lost, rather than donated. These books are placed in our lost and found for thirty days. Please do not place books that you truly wish to donate in the curb-side Book Return as this makes more work for the library staff.
• Boxes of books left outside the library are immediately recycled. Please do not leave books outside the library.
• The library can provide carts and dollies if your boxes are heavy but we do not have staff available to help you unload your items.
• Donated books are often used to replace worn copies or missing titles on library shelves. This is most common with new books, popular authors in hardcover, and children's books. The library cannot guarantee that any donated book will be added to the collection or made available for circulation in the library.
• The majority of books donated to the library are not put on library shelves for circulation. They instead go toward the Friends of the Library used book sale. The sale takes place twice a year and is open to the public. Money raised by the Friends of the Library is used to sponsor programs and events in the library throughout the year.
• Patrons can request a tax receipt for their donated books. The receipt will not list a monetary value for the donation but will instead say something like "Three boxes of books, donated." Patrons also have the option of counting the books before they are donated and getting a more specific receipt (i.e. "20 hardcovers and 10 paperbacks, donated"); simply give the number to the librarian writing your receipt. 

We at the Andover Public Library believe that our library is one of the finest libraries out there, but it is only through the generosity of our patrons and our community that we are able to thrive and grow. We thank you for your donations.

Past Events: Pinkalicious Party

This spring, the fabulous Friends of the Library ladies, along with skilled party planning Friends member Karen Osborne, hosted a Pinkalicious Tea Party here at the library. Mothers and daughters (and a few grandmothers) attended the event together in their very pinkest finery and their finest pinkery. Everyone had a great time! 

Here some of the girls are gathered for a spirited reading of Victoria Kann's Pinkalicious.

Here you can see some of the girls sporting their lovely pink outfits.

Even some of the food was pink.

The Friends go all-out for these themed parties.

Library Buzz: Get Your Money's Worth

(Originally published in the Andover American 7/4/13. "Library Buzz" is written by Toria Hamilton.)

I know it’s normally a taboo subject, but today I’d like to talk about money. In the past twelve months, I’ve saved over $1900 without changing my lifestyle and you can too.

Here’s the short version: libraries save money.

Here’s the long version:

America’s free public libraries aren’t really free: you pay for them with your taxes. Specifically, less than one percent of your tax dollars goes towards the public library system. Here at the Andover Public Library, we use that money to purchase books, movies, and audiobooks, and to provide services like public access computers and children’s story times, to name only a few.

Since you’ve already paid for these “free” services, if you haven’t used your library lately you’re not getting your money’s worth.

For example, to see how much money I saved this year, I checked my library record. While we don’t normally keep records of the items our patrons check out, patrons can request to keep such a record when they show their library card or driver’s license at the circulation desk. My record shows I’ve checked out 158 items since July 1, 2012 - 29 audiobooks, 81 books, and 48 DVDs. According to Amazon.com (and a lot of math), I’ve saved $1962 by using the library instead of buying these things.

But it’s not just about how much money I personally saved – it spreads to the entire community. How many times have you bought a book you’ve only read once or twice? I’ve seen a single $4.00 paperback circulate more than seventy times before it fell to pieces. That’s seventy people who saved $4.00, or a combined savings of $280 for a single item. When you multiply that savings by the 48,000 items we have in the library, it quickly adds up.

Your own mileage may vary. The more you use the library, the more you save. You can buy loads of children’s books that your kids will outgrow later, or you can have a rotating collection from the library that grows and matures with them. You can buy the hot new title that everyone is talking about or you can join the discussion for free by checking it out from the library.

There’s more to it, of course. It’s hard to fit all the mathematical details into a brief newspaper column, especially when there are so many variables, but I’ll say it again: libraries save money. Visit us at Andover Public Library soon to start some savings of your own.

Ebooks at the Library

As you browse through the collection of ebooks available to check out at no cost to you from Sunflower eLibrary, we at the Andover Library hope you enjoy the service. However, we are aware that the collection is limited: we are not always able to get the books people want. The following items are listed on our website but interested patrons can learn more by searching for "ebooks in libraries" online. Thanks for reading and let us know what you'd like to see in the library, both digitally and in print.

What you need to know about ebooks at the library:

1.  Not all books are available as ebooks.Maybe the author didn’t sell ebook rights. Maybe the publisher thinks no one will pay money for that title in ebook form. Maybe there are legal snafus that have not been made public. Who knows? What it all means is some books are not available digitally for anyone.

2.  Not all ebooks are available to libraries.
Even if you see the ebook on Amazon, we may not be able to buy it for the library. Some publishers do not sell ebooks to libraries. If they did, we would buy them when funds are available.

3.  Libraries pay more for ebooks.Publishers know that more people will be reading the library copy. While an individual person may pay $2.00 for a book, a library may pay $20.00 for the same title.

4.  Ebooks don’t always come out on the release date.Some publishers only sell the hardcover at first. They release the ebook when the paperback comes out.

5.  “Ebook” does not mean “Always available to everyone all the time.”As far as publishers (and therefore, libraries) are concerned, an ebook is just like a physical copy of a book. If we pay for one copy of the book, only one person can check it out at a time.

6.  The library wants to get that ebook for you.If there is a book you want to read in ebook form, please ask us to buy it. If we are not able to do so, we will let you know.

Event Report: International Talk Like a Pirate Day, 2013

For International Talk Like a Pirate Day 2013 (Thursday, September 19), we tried something we'd never tried before: a pirate photo booth. We set aside a corner with fun pirate props and let patrons take their own pictures. The booth was open all day.

We made our pirate props out of vinyl foam craft sheets for durability. We could be reusing them for years to come. 

By setting up the photo booth in this corner, it was both out of the way and accessible to everyone. 

These dashing pirates are actually three of our librarians in clever disguises.

Later that evening, we had a pirate party. Patrons who attended in costume were eligible for prizes (including pirate finger puppets, foam daggers, or the grand prize of I Spy: Treasure Hunt by Marzollo and Wick), but we also gave out pirate stickers and temporary tattoos. We served cookies from the Andover Stadium Bakery, told bad pirate jokes, had a pirate parade through the library, and watched a pirate movie. We had a wonderful time!

The pirate posse was restless as they waited for the movie to start.

Hayley's Children's Book Reviews

Have you ever felt left out by a friend?  If you have, Olive’s Perfect World A Friendship Story by Jennifer Plecas is the perfect book for you to read.  In this story, Olive and Emily are best friends and do everything together.  However, Olive starts to feel left out when Emily begins to spend a lot more time with Eva another girl in school.  Eva and Emily seem to have so much in common with each other and Olive is different in so many ways.  Olive misses her best friend.  Will she ever get her back?  Kids will enjoy reading this story that proves you can have more than one best friend.

Whenever trouble comes around, Ol’ Mama Squirrel shows her babies she knows how to protect them.  She stops dogs, cats and other animals from coming near her tree with her loud holler.  Read Ol’ Mama Squirrel by David Ezra Stein to find out what happens when the biggest threat of all comes to town and see if Ol’ Mama Squirrel ever backs down.  

Kate and Jim McMullan creators of I Stink! And I’m Dirty bring you I’m Bad!  a short story about a really big, really bad and really hungry T Rex.  Read I’m Bad! and follow this creature on a journey as he searches for food.