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It's Here for You at the Library (and it's pre-paid!)

The upside of tax time (thinking positively, here!) is a heightened awareness of what our tax dollars provide. The temptation is to call the library’s offerings “free,” but items don’t come to the library free from publishers or vendors any more than do utilities, space or personnel. Instead, it’s more accurate to say what the library has to offer is “prepaid.”

Together we share the costs through many kinds of taxes and fees. Come take advantage of what has been “prepaid” for our community!

• More than 100,000 items in a variety of formats at our local library. Books! Movies! Music! Magazines! Pictures!
   
• Easy access to many times that number of items through the shared resources of the libraries in the Evergreen Indiana consortium.
   
• Weekday newspapers from Portland, Muncie, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis as well as USA Today and The Wall Street Journal.
   
• Internet access at the library’s public computer and wireless Internet access for your own machine in the library. Children’s educational games too!
   
• The 1000 Books before Kindergarten program administered by the library and sponsored by Cincinnatus League, Portland Rotary Foundation, The Portland Foundation’s Women’s Giving Circle, Friends of the Jay County Public Library, and the Jay County Public Library Endowment at The Portland Foundation.
   
• Reference service to help you track down the information you need for home, school and work.
   
• Public meeting space for individuals and organizations for not-for-profit events.
   
• Display space for groups, students, collectors and others with items and information to share.
   
• Genealogy materials and local history.
   
• Tax forms, though no tax advice (but perhaps a helpful book or two).

All this and more is available to make living in our community better — prepaid.

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Learn How to Dig Up Your Roots

Library genealogy specialist Shirley Dollar will offer two classes for aspiring genealogists on Saturday, March 13.

Basic Genealogy meets 9:30 - 10:15 a.m.
Learn the basics about using the genealogy materials available in the library's Indiana Room.

Genealogy on the Internet meets 10:30 - 11:15 a.m.
Become familiar with genealogy searching on the Internet and take advantage of the library's subscriptions with Ancestry.com and Heritage Quest.  Participants in this class must have taken the Introduction to the Internet class and the Basic Genealogy class (above) or have experience in both areas.

Class size is limited to five and advance registration is required. Sign up for one or both of the March 13th classes at the circulation desk or by calling (260) 726-7890.

"In all of us there is a hunger, marrow deep, to know our heritage - to know who we are and where we came from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, an emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness."

                                                                                                 -- Alex Haley, Roots

From Newsnotes Past

15 years ago

The library Board of Trustees was seeking petition carriers to gather the signatures needed in order to incur debt to construct a new library building.

10 years ago

Hoosier poet John Sherman, a 1962 Portland High School grad, was to read from his book Marjorie Main:  Rural Documentary Poetry in the library's Community Room.

5 years ago

Newsnotes featured a list of movies shot on locations in Indiana. Among them were Some Came Running (1958), Breaking Away (1979), Hoosiers (1986), Eight Men Out (1987), Rain Man (1989), A League of Their Own (1992), Falling from Grace (1992), Rudy (1993), and Blue Chips (1994).

Have your Evergreen card?

Do your friends have Evergreen cards?

Pass the word!

 

Try It with Evergreen:

Evergreen’s potential to connect patrons with items from other libraries is impressive. Library staff can place holds for you, but requests can even be made directly from your home computer or one of the library’s OPAC computers.

But there are times when you see this message:

There are limits to what you may place a hold on, but consulting your local librarian could connect you with a solution by way of Inter-library Loan, or a request that a copy of the item be added to our local collection.

The good news is that the newest items at your home library will not be sent out to other libraries for the first six months — our own local borrowers get first crack at them.

Some further good news: borrowers with full privileges may visit the other libraries in person to check out items there. These items may be returned at your own home library. You may be in luck if you live, work or vacation near another Evergreen Indiana library!

Book Reading Group

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold appeared in 2002 but the 2010 movie has created a new wave of readers and nudged the memories of those who read it the first time around. The book group will discuss the novel March 15th.

From Publisher’s Weekly: “Sebold has taken a grim, media-exploited subject and fashioned from it a story that is both tragic and full of light and grace … Sebold's most dazzling stroke, among many bold ones, is to narrate the story from Susie's heaven (a place where wishing is having), providing the warmth of a first-person narration and the freedom of an omniscient one. It might be this that gives Sebold's novel its special flavor, for in Susie's every observation and memory of the smell of skunk or the touch of spider webs is the reminder that life is sweet and funny and surprising.”

Come join the discussion Monday, March 15th at 7:00 p.m.

The Book Reading Group welcomes new members.

Register at the library or by calling (260) 726-7890.

See past and upcoming titles

March at the library:

A library is thought in cold storage.
- Herbert Samuel

Libraries are not made; they grow.
- Augustine Birrell

Whether things are frozen or blooming,
find what you need at the library.

Titles on the Way

Fiction

Brunstetter, Wanda / Cousin's Challenge [Indiana Cousins #3]

Kingsbury, Karen / Take Three [Above the Line #3]

Parker, Robert B. / Split Image [Jesse Stone #9]

Non Fiction

This Book Is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All  / Marilyn Johnson

Natural Playscapes: Creating Outdoor Play Environments for the Soul / Rusty Keeler

Fly by Wire: The Geese, the Glide, the Miracle on the Hudson / William Langewiesche

Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual / Michael Pollan

Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library.
The only entrance requirement is interest.

Lady Bird Johnson

Gifts to the Library

Many thanks to those who have remembered family and friends with gifts to the library, or who have made a gift of a particular item.  A special bookplate is placed in each item.

Given through the Margie L. Steffy Trust
 

Twenty-four new books in large print.

Money was set aside from a bequest in 1999 to make such purchases annually for 10 years (through this year).

Learn more about making a gift to the library.

Beginning Internet Instruction One-on-One
for adults

Ask at the desk for a free 30-minute one-on-one class with a staff instructor during regular hours. 

You may be able to start immediately if the instructor and a spot in the gallery are available!  Or reserve a specific time to fit your schedule. Call 260-726-7890.

Heard at the Library

Don't you have all tax forms?

Tax forms are available, but both federal and state governments encourage taxpayers to file electronically and are providing fewer paper forms to the library.

Not finding forms you need? Some masters are available to photocopy. For other forms your best source may be online.  Check these helpful links.

The fee of 15¢ per sheet to copy or print helps pay the library’s costs for ink and toner.

  Friends of the Library

Next regular meeting: Tuesday, March 16th at 6:30 p.m.

Come spend time with friends!

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