Christmas Wreath Winner!!!

The winner of the Friends of the Library Christmas Wreath Drawing was...

Linda Edmondson

Congratulations!! 

Inclement Weather

Please bear with us during the next few days.  Our schedule will depend on the weather.  We hope you stay warm and safe during any winter weather.  Please don't get out on icy roads unless you absolutely have to.

Also, due to the possibility of icing and extremely cold temperatures, we have decided to postpone the drawing for our wreath until Monday at 12:00.  We will announce the winner here on our blog, on Facebook, Twitter, and in the newspaper.

Happiness....

E-books Available Now!

Franklin County Library is pleased to bring you e-books!

E-books are available for checkout now!!  Come on by so we can get you set up.  Be sure to bring your device with you and we will be glad to help you.  Thousands of e-books are available.

Christmas Has Come to the Library!!

We have decorated our Christmas tree this year with books!  Appropriate, right?  We decided to go through our children's section and pull all our Christmas books.  They make wonderful ornaments, and the best part is that they can still be checked out.  If there is a book on our tree that you really want to read, just let us know.  We'll pull it off and replace it with something else.  (Except for the one at the top!  It was a little difficult to get it balanced just right up there, so we plan to just leave it for the entire season!)

Come on in and celebrate Christmas with us!



What are you thankful for?

In case you didn't know.... tomorrow is THANKSGIVING!!! 

I conducted an informal survey of our library staff, and asked what everyone was thankful for this year. 

Lisa - Family, Job, Books, Jaxx

Julie - Family, Work I Love, Home 

Chance - Job I Love, Books and Movies, Family and Friends, Disneyworld

Debbie - Being Alive, Family and Friends, Everything

So what are you thankful for?  Let us know in the comments below.
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The library will be closed Thursday - Sunday, November 28th - December 1st.

We'll see you Monday!!  Have a safe and happy holiday!

A Gift for You!!!

Franklin County Library has an early Christmas gift for you!

E-Books!!

 

 

 

Beginning December 1st. you will be able to check out books from Franklin County Library on your e-reader or other mobile device.  We will have access to thousands of books for you to choose from! 

 

You will need to come by the library and we will set up an account for you with our e-book provider.  If you have an Android or Apple based device there is an app you can download that will greatly enhance your experience with e-books.  Those using a computer or traditional e-reader will have to download software in order to use the service.  Library staff will be able to assist you with setting up your device.   

 

Providing e-books has been a goal of Franklin County Library for quite some time now, so we are VERY excited to finally be able to bring you this service. 

 

Merry Christmas!!!

 



Christmas Wreath

The Friends of the Franklin County Library are selling chances on this Christmas wreath, handmade by Library Director Lisa Lawrence, for $1.00 each.  Stop by the library and get yours today.  All proceeds go to fund library programs and events.  The drawing will be 12/7/2013 at the Christmas parade.  You do not have to be present to win.

The Friends of the Library thank you for your support!

Loaded Questions! : What are you reading?

I (Julie) am in need of something new and interesting to read.  The last several books I've picked up haven't really kept my interest.  This is a great tragedy to me, because I always want to have something to read!

Have you read anything lately that you absolutely loved?  What is your favorite book of all time?  I'm willing to try anything, old or new, in most genres.  Recommend a book to me in the comments below, and I'll read it and let you know what I think in a future post.  Thanks for your ideas!!!

Picture Source : http://www.jenniferzwick.com/work/photography/constructed-narrative/the-reader

Book Quotes

 

 

 

Source: http://weheartit.com/entry/68063994

Julie's Journal : Sausage Cheese Pinwheels

Last week, we had our Holiday Craft Show and Recipe Exchange.  As I've said before this is one of my favorite events because of all the new recipe and craft ideas we get.  This year, the recipe I brought is very simple.  Like most new things I'm trying lately, I first saw this recipe on Pinterest.

Sausage Cheese Pinwheels

3 c. flour

1 T. baking powder

1/2 t. salt

1/2 c. butter or margarine, cut into pieces

1/3 - 1/2 c. milk (I actually used more - probably closer to 3/4 c.)

1 lb. pork sausage, cooked, drained, and crumbled small

2 c. cheddar cheese, shredded

 

1. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt.  Cut in butter or margarine until crumbly.  Add milk as needed until a soft, but not sticky, dough forms.  Knead one minute.
2. Divide dough in half and roll out.  Top with a layer of sausage and a layer of cheese.  Roll up jelly roll style and slice into pieces, about an inch thick.  Place onto cookie sheet lined with foil and greased.  Repeat with second batch.
3. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 - 18 minutes, until golden brown.

Everyone agreed that these turned out well.  They were very simple to make and reheated very well.  I used homemade sausage and a Colby-Jack cheese mixture that I had on hand.  I'm sure any variation of cheese and sausage or bacon would work beautifully.  If you try them, let me know how they turn out!!

 

Source: http://stolenmomentscooking.com/sausage-cheese-pinwheels/

Mike Howard's Reflections of November 22, 1963 - Saturday, November 9th

Please join us!

 

Tech Tips and Tricks : iPad

1. Create folders

iOS now supports folders. To create a folder all you need to do is tap and hold on an app until they all start to jiggle, then drag the app over another icon and release.  Your iPad will create a folder with both the apps in. The folder will be named according to the category of the apps it contains, but you can rename it as you like.

2. Access all running apps

Double-clicking the Home button shows you all the apps that are running on your iPad in a bar along the bottom of the screen. To switch to a running app just tap on it here in this bar. Just swipe the screen downwards to remove this bar.

3. Orientation Lock or Mute?

The internet got mightily upset when Orientation Lock was replaced with Mute on the iPad during the last iOS update. Apple listened, and now you can head to Settings > General to choose between Lock Rotation and Mute.

4. Control iPad notifications

By going to Settings > Notifications, you can decide which apps can pop up alerts, which have notifications at the top of the screen, and which appear in Notification Center. This means you can make sure that noisy apps don't clog things up for you, and you notice the important things.

5. Quick volume mute

When the iPad first launched, there was no dedicated mute button anywhere on the device. However, with iOS 4.3 Apple has given you the choice of using the lock switch to mute the sound or lock the iPad's orientation. Either way, a good tip for quickly muting your iPad is to press and hold the Volume-down button.

6. Use an Apple keyboard

Any Apple Wireless Keyboard will work with the iPad. In fact, your iPad will work with any Bluetooth keyboard. Some iPad cases have a keyboard built in.

7. Take an iPad screenshot

You can take a screenshot on your iPad by pressing Home and then the Sleep/Wake button. The screen will flash and you'll hear a click, indicating that a photo has been taken. Your screen shots are saved automatically in your Photos gallery. Here, you can view or email them as you see fit.

8. Avoid underpowered USB docks

The iPad does not charge when you connect it to some USB docks or even certain ports on some notebooks. Instead, plug in to a high power USB port (check your computer's specs, or use a powered USB dock). On some PCs, USB ports on the front of the computer are lower power, so you will need to plug into one on the back.

9. Restrict your Spotlight searches

Swipe left on the Home screen to reveal the Spotlight search. By default it searches everything including songs in your iPod, podcasts, apps and events. To restrict the areas it searches, since you may not want all these categories included, look in Settings > General > Spotlight Search.

10. Share from Pages

Transferring Pages documents from your iPad by syncing with iTunes on your Mac or PC is a real hassle. It's much quicker to use the Share menu to email the finished document to wherever you need it to be. Also, you can email it as a Word or PDF document if you like.

11. Turn iPad caps lock on

To type a capital letter on the onscreen keyboard you first tap the left or right shift key, then the letter.  Save time typing in caps by turning the caps lock on. To do this, double tap on either shift key.

12. Copy and paste

You can quickly copy and paste text by tapping and holding down, and then choosing Select to select the exact portion of text you'd like the copy. Next tap Copy, then go to a different app, and tap and hold down again, then tap Paste from the menu that appears. Top tip: To select an entire paragraph of text you need to tap four times.

13. Replace a word

When you hold down on a word to copy it, choose Select, then you will see a new option: Replace. Tap this and, you can see suggestions for alternative words that have similar spellings. It's a good way of quickly correcting typos.

14. Hidden apostrophe key on the keyboard and Quick Quotes

This is a great tip for any app, such as Notes, Pages or Mail, that you type into using the iPad's virtual keyboard. Rather than having to go to the second screen of the keyboard every time you want to type an apostrophe (which is a real pain) just tap and hold on the ! key and a hidden apostrophe option will appear - then just slide your finger up to access it.  You don't have to move the iPad's second keyboard screen to enter a quotation mark either. Simply tap and hold over the ? key and a quotation symbol appears, which you can select by moving your finger upwards.

15. Display PDFs

There are two ways to display PDFs on your iPad: you can either email them to your iPad, in which case you get an Open in iBooks button appear, or you can sync PDFs from your Mac or PC via the Books tab in iTunes.  To do this just drag and drop the PDF into iTunes, then when you sync your iPad click on the Books tab and select the PDFs you'd like to sync. In iBooks you click on PDFs in your library to see the PDFs you have ready to display.

16. Camera focus and meter

In the Camera app, tap on your subject to both focus on and meter the light properly.

17. Quicker websites

Save time typing web addresses in Safari by using the iPad's ".com" key when typing in a URL. A little-known timesaver is that if you hold down the .com key you get access to a menu that offers a .co.uk and other options too.

18. Quick Safari scroll

You can jump up to the top of any web site - indeed any list - by tapping on the top of the title window. It's much faster than scrolling by hand.

19. Find text on a page

You can search for a particular word on an open page in Safari. Type your word into the Google search box. You'll see a list of suggestions appear, and near the bottom you'll see "On This Page", showing how many times that word appears on the page. Tap the Find option to go to the first instance of the word.

20. iPad is flat and won't charge

If your iPad battery is completely flat then it can take a while for the red battery symbol to appear when you plug it in to charge, indicating that it is charging. Don't panic, just leave it plugged in and wait - the charging symbol will appear eventually.

Source:  http://www.techradar.com/us/news/mobile-computing/tablets/50-really-useful-ipad-tips-and-tricks-688556

Tom's Two Cents: The Signature of All Things

 

Elizabeth Gilbert's novel, the first to follow her phenomenally successful memoir "Eat, Pray, Love," is, with the exception of Part Four, as different from that work as one can imagine, so fans of EPL, be forewarned!  Except for Part Four (which I will eventually deal with) don't expect many similarities.  The heroine of "Signature" is a brilliant but unattractive female botanist (yes, I said botanist!) who was born at the turn of the 19th (yes, I said 19th!) century and lives into her nineties, writing a thesis on the evolution of mosses (yes, I said mosses!) that almost precedes but certainly correlates with the publication of Darwin's "Origin of Species."  In its broadest sense this is a work that celebrates the intellect, particularly the female intellect, which was pretty much kept under wraps in the field of science, until Madame Curie won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1901.

 Well, you may be saying, then what is this?  I would say, with a certain amount of hesitation, that, except for Part Four (yes, I WILL get to it shortly!) this is not a mainstream novel, that it even has certain literary and historical (definitely) aspirations, that for the most part it is extremely well researched and well written.  That said, it is still a bit of a puzzle to me because by the end of Part Three and certainly in Part Four it becomes another novel, one about a woman's desperate love of something, i.e. someONE, other than knowledge.  And as such it virtually falls into the category of a "love/romance unfulfilled" romance novel.  It's almost as if Elizabeth Gilbert's publisher, the highly respected Viking, said to her: "Elizabeth, this is a great story, but you've got to sex it up."  And so, without much rhyme or reason, she did!

Now a few specifics about the novel itself:  This is not a plot or event driven work. It relies primarily on its characters (some are terrifically delineated, others not) and its ideas, of which there are so many to chew on that the work in its total sense is not easily digestible.  For a non-scientist like myself, there is also so much scientific detail that at times I was exhausted, yet never compelled to stop reading.  This is without question a tribute to the skills of the author, who creates a totally unforgettable character in her heroine, Alma, and an equally unforgettable one in Roger, the dog. (I am reminded of what Turgenev said about Tolstoy, that he could get into the mind of a horse!)  Alma, her mother Beatrix, her rascally but shrewd father, the wonderful maid Hanneke (not since Margaret Mitchell's Mammy have I encountered such a fine characterization), all these are superbly drawn.  But at intervals there are characters so perplexing, i. e. Prudence, Ambrose, the Tahitian Adonis/Jesus, called Tomorrow Morning (yes, that is his name not translated but borrowed from Tahitian sound) that they seem more symbolic than real.

As to Part IV, the next to last of five major sections of this book, I would say that though Gilbert is too fine an author to deliberately appeal to prurient interests, that is precisely what she manages to do for those whose interest may be prurient.  Also, since the title of this section is "The Consequences of Missions," one cannot help but wonder about the possible implicit criticism of 19th century missionaries in the South Seas.  Regardless of that, this part (and only this part) reads like a leftover section of EPL, except for its being 150 years earlier, and could almost have been omitted without any deliberate injury to the story.  Alma's trip to primitive Tahiti adds very little to her overall journey into the world of mosses (the cave of brilliant mosses that she finds there could surely have been transferred elsewhere!) and it certainly does not resolve the questions revolving around her strange relationship with her husband Ambrose, who at times believes himself to be an angel or an emissary to angels.  Plausible?  Not here-- this is a book about a scientist, who despite temptations, never wavers from her belief in factual reality.

The book is beautifully presented with botanical endpapers and lovely drawings in black and white between the individual parts.  It is dedicated to Elizabeth Gilbert's grandmother, who may well have been the model for its heroine, Alma Whittaker.  If so, she must have been quite a woman indeed!

November : Upcoming Events

Well Halloween is over.  We gave out candy to tons of kids last night.  Chance counted over 2000 people, kids and adults, who passed by the library!

Now it's time to look to November and, beyond that, Christmas!!  Hard to believe isn't it?

The library is hosting two events in November.

The first is a Holiday Craft Show and Recipe Exchange.  We bring any crafts that we have made to show off and bring dishes along with copies of the recipes for a potluck supper.  It's a lot of fun!  We normally get lots of new ideas for gifts and food.  Come to the library Tuesday, November 5th at 5:30 p.m. and join in the fun.

Second, in recognition of the fiftieth anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, the Friends of the Franklin County Library will present "Mike Howard's Reflections of November 22, 1963".  Mr. Howard is a Native Texan and retired Secret Service agent.  He was assigned to protect Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Ford and their families.  He will speak on the history of the Secret Service, provide insight on four presidential assassinations and will discuss the Kennedy assassination.  We are pleased to offer this program Saturday November 9th at 6:30 p.m. at the Mt. Vernon Music Hall.