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JULY 29, 2010
Welcome!
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Music on the Library Lawn: Our summer series of live concerts on the Edgartown Library lawn has gotten off to a great start. The series continues this Tuesday, August 3, with a 6:30 p.m. performance by popular singer and songwriter Joe Keenan. |
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Book Discussion Group Meets Tuesday, August 3In the Washington Post, reviewer Jonathan Yardley speaks of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, Never Let Me Go, as "quite wonderful . . . the best Ishiguro has written since the sublime The Remains of the Day." Kirkus Reviews calls it "disturbingly eloquent . . . a masterpiece of craftsmanship that offers an unparalleled emotional experience." Of course, your mileage may vary. That's why you are invited to join our library's book discussion group at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, August 3, for a conversation about Never Let Me Go. Copies of the book are available for our patrons at the library desk. |
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Peter Rabbit Visits the Children's RoomWe'll have a special guest in the Children's Room on Saturday, July 31 -- it's Peter Rabbit, from the famous stories of Beatrix Potter. Peter's making three visits, actually, at 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m., because the space downstairs is limited. You'll need to make reservations for this event: Please call us at 508-627-4221 or visit the library desk. |
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A Gathering of FriendsThe Friends of the Edgartown Library will hold an open meeting at 9 a.m., here at the library, on Monday, August 9. (The building is closed that day -- please use the side entrance, with the handicap access ramp.) We like to think that all the library's patrons are friends, but this is a bit more structured. If you'd like to learn about an organization whose mission is supporting the Edgartown Library and its work on behalf of the community, we hope you'll attend. |
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Labor Day Date Is Set Frankly, We Love the Library, a celebration organized by the Edgartown Library Foundation, was such a success last year that it is being held again this Labor Day -- Monday, Sept. 6, at the Katama Airport. |
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Go Green -- And Track Your Summer Reading OnlineSince "Go Green" is the official theme for summer reading programs across the state, we thought this would be a good time to connect you with a nifty new online service being offered by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners. If you visit the Online Reading Page of the Edgartown Library, you can create your own account for free, and keep track of the books you read this summer. You can share reviews and read the reviews of others, and at the end of the season you can even print out a list of your reading -- that is, if you want to depart from the paperless approach of this new system. |
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A Summer of Starfish and Snakes, |
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Conversational Portuguese: |
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Language Learning Service Adds Interactive FeaturesAt the Edgartown Public Library, on behalf of our patrons, we recently expanded our subscription to the online language-learning service, Mango. And now the folks at Mango, who continue to win prizes for their service, have added a rich set of new features for all our language-learners to enjoy. We've been offering the Mango Languages service free to our all our patrons since early in 2009. This January we expanded our contract with Mango so that our patrons now have access to all 36 language courses offered by the service. More recently, the Mango Languages team has announced the launch of a new feature called Voice Comparison, which is available to all users. Here's how it works, according to the announcement from Mango: "After a user completes a slide, the voice compare button will appear. They can then record their voice and play it back to hear themselves speak. In addition, they can align a visual representation of their recording with the native speaker’s version for comparison. Users may adjust their pronunciation until it lines up with ours–they’ll be speaking like a native in no time!" This service is available to you, as a library patron, from any internet connection — at the library, a coffee shop, or at home. All you need to log in is your 13-digit library card number. |
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Progress Report from the Library Building CommitteeSince two weeks before this spring's Annual Town Meeting, the Edgartown Library Building Committee has been meeting regularly, charting a path toward construction of a new library facility for our town. We thought that visitors to this site might like to know how the committee's work is going, so we are posting minutes of meetings as they become available. For your background, we're posting a timeline which tracks the story of the library from the time of the last expansion, in 1975, to the present. We hope you'll check back from time to time -- the committee meets once a week. Download pdf file: May 3 Minutes Download pdf file: August 2 Agenda Download pdf file: June 22 Minutes Download pdf file: Massachusetts Historic Commission Correspondence Download pdf file: June 14 Minutes Download pdf file: May 20 Minutes Download pdf file: May 17 Minutes Download pdf file: May 10 Minutes Download pdf file: Library Timeline Download pdf file: April 8 Minutes Download pdf file: July 23 Agenda Download pdf file: April 1 Minutes Download pdf file: July 26 Agenda Download pdf file: April 26 Minutes |
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Library Adds Genealogical ServicesThe Edgartown Library has just purchased access for all our patrons -- from any public computer in our building -- to two of the most powerful genealogical tools now available on the Internet. Just visit the library, sit down at one of our public computers (or bring your laptop and sign into our wireless network) -- and visit either the Ancestry Library or HeritageQuest. Ancestry Library Edition offers a wide variety of unique content allowing you to trace your family history. HeritageQuest Online is a treasury of American genealogical sources -- rich in unique primary sources, local and family histories, and finding aids. We hope you will find these tools useful in your genealogical research. |
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In Our Stairwell: Artist at WorkAt the bottom of the stairway leading down to the Children's Room, a graceful monarch butterfly takes flight, and bright summer flowers bloom. It's all the work of librarian and artist Donna Blackburn, who puts in an hour here, an hour there, making this entryway more attractive. This mural project is very much a work in progress, Donna says. But we think it has already brightened up its corner of our library considerably. And we invite you to drop by from time to time this winter to see how Donna's painted garden is growing. |
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New Shipment of Audio Players: They're Tiny, and They're Cool BlueOverdrive, the service used by the CLAMS library network to connect our patrons with free audiobooks, has released version 3.2 of its software, Overdrive Media Console. The upgrade includes several slick new features, but most importantly, Overdrive Media Console now lets you transfer most audiobooks to your iPod® and iPhoneâ„¢. You can use any PC loaded with the iTunes software to load books into your portable player or phone; the Overdrive media wizard may ask you to adjust your file settings to allow faster transfer, but will always politely remind you to set them back afterwards. Our initiative of selling inexpensive WMA audio players here at the library, begun back in March, continues to be a thumping success. We've connected more than 70 patrons with this new audiobook service since early spring. The Sansa Clip players in our latest shipment have a storage capacity of 2 gigabytes each, and we're still offering them for the same $30 donation to the Edgartown Library Foundation. This bargain includes a free tutorial, here at the library, on using the Overdrive service to download books and music to your home computer. If you bring in your laptop, we'll even help you install the software. To learn more about the Overdrive service, visit this link Download pdf file: Sandisk Sansa C250 User Guide Download pdf file: Sansa Clip User Manual |
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Introducing Our Newest Resource: |
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Recycling Project Raises $14,000A volunteer program begun in 2007 has now passed the $14,000 mark in funds raised for the campaign to build the new Edgartown Public Library -- all of it raised by recycling cans and bottles, five cents at a time. If there's a better example of how little efforts can add a lot to advance the campaign for a new Edgartown Library, we'd like to hear it! A friend of the library expansion project has kindly volunteered to manage this program, with collection bins set up at sites around the Island for returnable bottles and cans, and all proceeds going toward the new building fund. |
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Learning Express Gets an Overhaul, And It's Free to Our PatronsNo matter which acronym you're studying for -- ACT, SAT, GRE or any of the others -- you’ll want to sign up for the online test-preparation service, Learning Express. The Edgartown Library subscribes to this service, which on Feb. 9 launched a major site redesign and now is much friendlier for users. Now all our patrons can enjoy free access to practice tools to help prepare for dozens of important tests, from real estate exams to the U.S. citizenship test. Learning Express also offers free online courses which you can take at your own pace, in academic subjects from math to writing, reading comprehension and even English language skills. It only takes a minute to register -- just use your library card number as your user name, and your four-digit library PIN as a password. |
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Our New Microfilm Scanner |


