Posts filed under 'New Materials'
This year’s National Book Award winners were announced Wednesday night at a dinner in New York City. The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T.J. Stiles, won the $10,000 National
Book Award for Nonfiction. The fiction prize went to Irish-born writer Colum McCann for Let the Great World Spin, a novel about New York in the 1970s. Keith Waldrop’s Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy took the poetry award and the award for Young People’s Literature went to Phillip Hoose for Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, the true story of an African American teenager who challenged segregation in 1950s Alabama.
The Finalists included:
Fiction
Bonnie Jo Campbell, American Salvage (Wayne State University Press)
Daniyal Mueenuddin, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (W.W. Norton & Co.)
Jayne Anne Phillips, Lark and Termite (Alfred A. Knopf)
Marcel Theroux, Far North (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Nonfiction
David M. Carroll, Following the Water: A Hydromancer’s Notebook (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Sean B. Carroll, Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Greg Grandin, Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt)
Adrienne Mayor, The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy (Princeton University Press)
Poetry
Rae Armantrout, Versed (Wesleyan University Press)
Ann Lauterbach, Or to Begin Again (Viking Penguin)
Carl Phillips, Speak Low (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Open Interval (University of Pittsburgh Press)
Young People’s Literature
Deborah Heiligman, Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith (Henry Holt)
David Small, Stitches (W.W. Norton & Co.)
Laini Taylor, Lips Touch: Three Times (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic)
Rita Williams-Garcia, Jumped (HarperTeen/HarperCollins)
All titles are available in LINKcat.
November 19th, 2009
Molly
In the last week we’ve answered our first two reference questions via Twitter. While it might not be the fastest or most private way to contact us with a question, we’re happy to answer the questions we see via Twitter or Facebook or our other social media accounts.
Which brings us to the answer to one of those two reference questions, which is more complex than Twitter’s 140 characters allow… One of our followers, in response to a post announcing our excitement that we now offer e-book and iPod compatible audiobook downloads through the OverDrive Digital Download Center, requested that a sidebar search category be created for Mac users to find compatible downloads.
Madison Public Library is part of a statewide consortium that runs the OverDrive Digital Download Center, a collection of nearly 5,000 downloadable audiobooks, video, music and now e-books. We can’t update the sidebar options to say “Plays on Mac” but if you look at the sidebar, you can choose either “iPod-compatible Audiobooks” or “View all MP3 Audiobooks” to find titles you can use. iPod-compatible audiobooks can be transferred to an iPod or iPhone through iTunes on either a Mac or a PC. MP3 audiobooks can be played on a Mac OR transferred to iPod or iPhone. Also, if you do a title or author search, there are icons for each title showing what formats the title come in. Screenshots of menus and download steps for getting OverDrive Media Console are on our Flickr photostream.
Background info: Audiobooks comprise the largest part of the Digital Download Center collection. Most are - for various digital rights management reasons - available only as WMA (windows media audio) files for playing on a PC or WMA-compatible devices. Recently, one fourth of the WMA titles became iPod compatible when users access the files using the most recent version of the OverDrive Media Console (software required to use OverDrive). As of today, there are 4065 WMA audiobooks, 218 MP3 audiobooks, 1000 iPod compatible WMA audiobooks, 318 videos, 178 music albums, and 232 eBooks in the collection.
November 17th, 2009
Tana
It’s that time of the year when “Best of” lists abound. Here’s another one! Find new titles to read from the library or get a start on holiday shopping with the top picks for 2009 from the editors at Amazon.com:
- Let the Great World Spin: A Novel by Colum
McCann.
- Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder.
- Wolf Hall: A Novel by Hilary Mantel.
- Brooklyn: A Novel by Colm Toibin.
- Beautiful Creatures by Margaret Stohl.
- Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival by Norman Ollestad.
- The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson.
- The City & The City by China Mieville.
- Stitches: A Memoir by David Small.
- The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba.
See the Top 100 Editors’ Picks.
November 16th, 2009
Molly
November is National Adoption Month.
The library has many books that deal with a variety of aspects of adoption, from domestic to international adoptions to preparing your family and overcoming unforeseen challenges. Visit our National Adoption Month booklist for newer titles.
November 12th, 2009
Molly
Publisher’s Weekly has announced their take on the year’s best books. Find their picks at the library:
The Publisher’s Weekly article includes full reviews of each of the featured titles.
October 30th, 2009
Molly
October is a good time for exploring monsters and creepy crawlies in a safe, not-so-scary way. Find books at the library to share with your kids that won’t leave them scrambling for the night light.
Our Not So Scary Stories for Kids list features classic monster books like Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, soon to be released as a major motion picture, and the empowering The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams, a story about taking charge of your fears.
October 8th, 2009
Molly
If you have the need or desire to collect demographic data, you must try DemographicsNow Now! So easy to use–you can customize results by geography, choosing the area best suited to your needs. Established businesses, prospective entrepreneurs, business students, and anyone who needs to identify cultural patterns or sociological trends will benefit from this ultra flexible marketing tool. Listen to a 3 minute introductory webcast or be guided through more detailed search tips. Access to DemographicsNow is made possible through a Madison Community Foundation collection grant to the Central Library for small business and entrepreneurship. The database was chosen with the input of several area business and entrepreneur groups.
And there’s more! If you’d like to search both Madison Newspapers or the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, whether it’s for an article, an obituary, or just to browse a day’s events, you’ll find NewsBank to be just the ticket. NewsBank is an easy-to-use newspaper archive containing full text articles from the Wisconsin State Journal (1989- present), Capital Times (1989- present), and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (1990-present). Updated daily, entries exclude advertisements, employment ads and classifieds. You’ll find detailed searching information here. Due to licensing restrictions, both DemographicsNow and NewsBank are only available to customers who visit a Madison Public Library and remotely to Madison residents with valid library cards. We are in the process of arranging access through the library’s wireless networks for those who want to use the database in the library but on their own machines.
These are the newest additions to the library’s extensive list of databases. Searching from home has never been easier.
October 7th, 2009
terrymc
Madison Parks is offering evening hayrides in Elver, Warner and Olin Parks this October and November. Each hayride trip is one hour: 30 minute ride, 30 minute campfire and ‘smores. The wagon, pulled by a tractor, will take your group on a scenic tour of the park.
In addition to the Madison Park Hayrides, the area is full of autumn activities. The Madison area hosts a variety of apple orchards, country hayrides, colorful changing leaves, corn mazes and pumpkin patches.
For a complete listing of area autumn activities, visit our Autumn Activities program page.
September 28th, 2009
Molly
Wisconsin Barns by Nancy Schumm-Burgess is just one of the new titles added to the Local Materials Collection at the Madison Public Library. This collection showcases books published by famous Wisconsin authors and books featuring Wisconsin events and attractions.
Visit the new Local Materials booklist for a complete list of the newest titles added to this collection.
September 22nd, 2009
Molly
Sometimes the best costumes are the ones you make at home. Get a head start on creating fantastic homemade costumes - from simple to super elaborate - with the many books available from the library.
Visit our Homemade Costumes list to find books and websites that will help you create glue and go costumes, costumes for babies and even something for your dog!
September 21st, 2009
Molly
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