Get Ready, Get Set…GO! Overdrive Updates

The new OverDrive is a completely refreshed website and app experience that makes your digital library faster and easier to use than ever before.

You’ll know that you’re using the new OverDrive if titles in your library’s digital collection look like this:

Titles have banners that say available, wait list, or coming soon, and the media type is clearly spelled out for each title.

What’s changed?

The new OverDrive is a faster, easier digital library experience. Enhancements include:

Better browsing

Easier borrowing

Other improved features

Continue ReadingGet Ready, Get Set…GO! Overdrive Updates

Stranger Things with Poster to Download

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Novelist just posted some info on how to search for books for fans of Netflix’s hit series Stranger Things. It’s a science fiction-horror series that pays homage to 1980s pop culture.  Here’s more info about the show from IMDb.

Here’s a poster with readalikes that you can download for fans of Stranger Things

In the Novelist database (you can link to Novelist through this link to the county database page, or through the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh website), use limiters in the search box.  The limiters are appeal terms (AP) and genre terms (GN).  So in the Novelist search box, here are 4 sample searches:

  • AP Creepy AND AP Nostalgic
  • AP Nostalgic AND GN Horror
  • GN Fantasy AND GN Horror
  • GN Coming-of-age stories AND GN Horror

Using Novelist to search for these read-alikes, here’s a recommended list for adults who like Stranger Things:

 jacketamnke0d1 The Girl with All the Gifts  by M. R. Carey
If Eleven (“Elle”) is your favorite Stranger Things character, then this is the book for you! Melanie can’t remember life before the base. Sheltered there from zombie-like “hungries” that have ravaged England for decades, Melanie spends her days confined in a cell. Then the base is attacked, and Melanie escapes. Melanie is about to show everyone just how gifted she really is.
 

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Neverland  by Douglas Clegg
Beau and his family spend summers at his grandmother’s rambling Victorian home on Gull Island.  This year Beau’s older cousin Sumter decides to show him the secrets of “Neverland,” a tumble-down shack at the far edge of the island. In it, a crate houses someone (or something) calling itself “Lucy.” Mesmerizing and terrifying at once, Neverland brilliantly captures the conflicted desires of a child on the cusp of growing up.
 

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Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Part quest, part coming-of-age novel, and part love story, this spectacular genre blend is a must-read for fans of the show Stranger Things and 80’s pop-culture buffs. In a grim, dystopian near-future world, high schooler Wade Watts spends his days jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, on any of ten thousand planets.  You’ll be charmed by the adventures of this book’s resourceful, diverse, and determined young protagonists.
 

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The Boy Who Drew Monsters by Keith Donohue
Emotionally scarred by a near-drowning experience, young Jack Keenan spends all his time indoors, fanatically preoccupied with drawing strange things. The Boy Who Drew Monsters offers a compelling coming-of-age tale with a straight-up horror twist. Like Stranger Things, it illuminates the complexities of boyhood friendships as well as adult relationships.
 

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My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix
As girls, Abby and Gretchen bond over their shared love of E.T., roller-skating parties, and scratch-and-sniff stickers. One night’s lame experimentation with LSD changes Gretchen. Darker than the film Heathers — but no less a testament to the power of friendship than Stranger Things My Best Friend’s Exorcism dishes up 80’s nostalgia with supernatural creepiness to spare.
 

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It by Stephen King
Stranger Things pays homage to Stephen King’s 1980’s horror heyday in various ways, notably the distinctive lettering that announces each episode’s title in the opening credits — a nod to the original 1986 It cover. Stephen King’s It introduced readers to the world’s creepiest clown: Pennywise.  Much darker than Stranger Things, this modern horror gem is well worth a read (or re-read) for any fan of the show.
 

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Disappearance at Devil’s Rock by Paul Tremblay
13-year-old Tommy sneaks out with friends one night, to visit a site that local legends claim is cursed. Tommy disappears. His grief-stricken mother Elizabeth can barely hold it together. Like Stranger Things‘ character Joyce Byers, Elizabeth is a believably flawed but sympathetic single mom willing to face unholy powers to learn her missing son’s fate.
 

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American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett
Wink, New Mexico, lies under a perfect pink moon, a perfect little town not found on any map. Its perfect, pretty houses conceal the strangest things — as ex-cop Mona Bright discovers, when she inherits a home in Wink from her long-dead mother. This cool, claustrophobic horror story will is a good fit for fans of Stranger Things.

This has content written by Novelist specialist Kimberly Burton, a member of the Novelist Book Squad.

Posted by:

Ann Andrews
Cooper-Siegel Community Library

 

 

 

Continue ReadingStranger Things with Poster to Download

Tackling the Issues

It’s a presidential election year, which means hot topic political issues are being discussed and debated.  Not just by the candidates but also our library users young and old.

This might be a good opportunity to tell people about Opposing Viewpoints in Context to get up to speed on both sides of the important issues.  Opposing Viewpoints presents viewpoints from all sides of issues like: minimum wage, national security, global warming, racism, and many more.

They make the information easy to find by organizing it by topic and featuring timely, well written viewpoints, biographies, and statistics.

Have an informed opinion and go beyond commenting on a candidate’s hair and outfit!

Dustin Shilling, Sewickley

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Continue ReadingTackling the Issues

Zinio For Kids

I recently had a patron come in and ask for the children’s magazine Cricket. We do not carry that at our library, but I was able to point her in the right direction. But that got me thinking about children’s magazines and my collection. Upon doing a little research on the databases, I found that Zinio has a section on their site for kid’s magazines – including Cricket and their other publications for the different ages.

This is not something I had thought about and it’s not a database that I was marketing to the younger patrons. But I am now!

 

Here is the flyer that I created to hang in our children’s section. Please feel free to use it as an example for your own library. If you would like the file to edit – please email me at bollandg@einetwork.net.

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So next time you have young patrons looking for magazines – send them over to Zinio!

 

Gabi

Robinson Library

Continue ReadingZinio For Kids