Special Reminder for Zionsville Teachers! Sign up for a new library card in September- Receive a special gift!

Sign up for a new library card in September and receive a Hussey-Mayfield Memorial Library book bag!

We don’t want our Zionsville Teachers to miss out on the opportunity to use services at our public library.  Here is information on how to get a library card if you are not a resident of Zionsville. 

Hussey-Mayfield Public Library Teacher Card

Features:

1. Borrow a variety of materials for use in your classroom or lesson planning, including youth, young adult and adult books, audiobooks,  music CDs, and DVDs.  There are no restrictions on the types of materials they can borrow. Borrow up to 100 items
2. Request extended loan period: Videos/DVDs: 14 days [usually 7 days], Books: up to 6 weeks [usually 3 weeks.] Extensions may be obtained by calling the Circulation desk, 317-873-8340 or while checking out in person.
3. Place holds on up to 20 items
4. Your library card will give you access to our rich database resources such as:

•   Overdrive(download free AudioBooks and eBooks using your Library card.)
•   Freegal (Download up to 3 free songs per week to your audio device using your Library card!)
•   Rocket Languages (Learn as many as 11 languages using this free, fun interactive program!)
•   NoveList (an electronic fiction readers' advisory database of over 120,000 fiction titles including Author  Read-alikes, Book Discussion Guides, BookTalks, and Feature Articles.)

We hope this card will allow you to take advantage of the Library’s rich collection for your students!
Applying for a Teacher Library Card

Who can apply for a Teacher Library Card?

• Teachers, student teachers and paid workers in the classroom not classified as a teacher, who reside outside the Library District, but work in local public and private schools.
• Teachers in day care centers located inside the Library District.
• Teachers who also reside in the Library District may receive the same benefits of a teacher's card  on materials checked out for classroom use.

How do you get a Hussey-Mayfield Memorial Public Library Card?

When the ZCS teacher applies for this special card, They should be prepared to show their Driver’s License showing your current residence address and proof of school employment, i.e. a paystub or school ID. 

This card will expire 1 year from the issue date or be deleted from the file if the cardholder no longer works in the classroom in the Library District. The card may be renewed if the teacher or classroom assistant is still employed in the position during the subsequent school year.

"Today is National Punctuation Day!" the librarian exclaimed.

September 24 is National Punctuation Day.  In honor of the occasion, here are a few resources to help you choose and use the right punctuation marks.

Woe Is I : The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English by Patricia T. O’Conner is a humorous (yes, humorous) guide to good grammar usage.  According to O'Conner, "There's nothing much to punctuating a sentence, really, beyond a little comma sense.  Get the commas right, and the rest will fall into place."

Download a free, weekly podcast of Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing from iTunes.  Mignon Fogarty (aka Grammar Girl) is an expert at explaining the often confusing world of tenses, parts of speech, and punctuation.  Look for her book, Grammar Girl Presents: The Ultimate Writing Guide for Students, in the Library’s teen collection.

Listen to Robert Lane Greene as he reviews “Three Books for the Language Lover in Your Life” on NPR Books.  In his own book, You Are What You Speak:  Grammar Grouches, Language Laws, and the Politics of Identity, Greene, an international correspondent and speaker of  9 languages, “takes readers on a rollicking tour around the world, illustrating with vivid anecdotes the role language beliefs play in shaping our identities, for good and ill.”

Enter the National Punctuation Day Essay Contest or try one of these other How To Celebrate National Punctuation Day activities.

Reading with your children

Librarians share books during storytime in order to promote positive interactions between children and books.  A simple Storytime Secret that you can do with your children at home is read with them.  Shared reading with your child is the most important thing you can do at home to help your child learn how to read. 
 
Fun Fact #1: It is never too early to expose children to books!  We want you to share books with babies and toddlers, too!  Young children can flip through the pages and gain an understanding of the mechanics of the books, and they can look at the pictures and you can talk to them about what you see. 
 
Fun Fact #2: It is ok to stop reading a book if your child is not interested.  Sometimes I am in the middle of reading a book during storytime, and I notice no one in my class is listening.  I those cases, I simply close the book—the end—it is that simple!  It is ok if your child doesn’t have the attention span to sit through a book, you can stop reading and simply talk about the pictures you see and the child is still gaining benefits from the shared reading time.  As you spend more time together sharing books, hopefully the child’s attention span will increase.
 
Fun Fact # 3: Reading non-fiction books can be really fun!  Is your little boy only interested in tractors?  We have non-fiction books that you can read together on tractors (or other heavy machinery).  Librarians love helping you find books that will interest your child, just ask us for help!
 
Exposing children to books at a young age helps develop curiosity, imagination, and builds their vocabulary.  An expanded vocabulary will give your child an advantage when it comes time to start reading!  Now, let's go to the LIbrary and gets some books!

Overdrive App and Apple iOS 7 Upgrade (released this week)

Have you ever checked out downloadable library books to your Apple mobile device?  
If so, you’ve used the OverDrive Media Console app to access the books.  
An Apple upgrade, iOS 7, was just released this week. If you have already upgraded to
iOS 7, you may run into a bit of trouble while running the Overdrive Media Console app.

If you already have the OverDrive Media Console app on your Apple device and if you upgrade to
iOS 7, the app will fail when trying to open an eBook.
New or first time users of OverDrive Media Console won’t be affected by this issue.

OverDrive is working to resolve the issue, but in the meantime, here are immediate remedies for users:

 1) Re-authenticate the app with your existing or a new Adobe ID. (_Recommended_)

2) Uninstall and re-install OverDrive Media Console, which will also require the user to re-authorize with Adobe. IMPORTANT NOTE: A re-install will clear a user's bookshelf, history, and app settings.

Audiobook users won't notice that anything is different unless they attempt to download parts of audiobooks they already downloaded to OverDrive Media Console before upgrading to iOS 7. A user will receive an error message informing them to download the title again.

Homemade Cheese Demonstration

Did you know that you can make almost any kind of cheese at home? Certain varieties are easier to make than others (which require special equipment), but generally, the tools needed to make homemade cheese are probably already in your kitchen. Imagine fresh, preservative-free cheese, flavored with herbs and other seasonings just the way you like it. It's easier to make cheese than you may think, and you can use simple, local resources to do it.

On Tuesday, September 24th at 6PM, Suzanne Krowiak of Indy Food Swappers will demonstrate how to make fromage blanc and cream cheese. She will walk you through the entire process, talk about common ingredients, and offer insider tips and tricks. Afterward, you'll have a chance to taste the cheese that she makes during the demonstration. Suzanne is a knowledgeable instructor who puts on a great program and makes delicious food, so reserve your seat today.

United We Read Boone County

10 Reasons to Read Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (United We Read Boone County 2013 Book Selection)--If You Haven't Already

You enjoy fast-paced mysteries, unlikely alliances and clever dialog.

You once built a miniature city in your basement out of Legos/gingerbread/origami.

You’re a sucker for an old-fashioned boy-meets-girl romance, especially when a “digital advertising computer algorithm” brings the couple together.

You’re not afraid to laugh out loud in college lecture halls, staff meetings, surgical recovery rooms, Starbucks—wherever you’re reading Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.

You like resourceful characters who can assemble GrumbleGear 3000 recycled cardboard book scanners in the dark.

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You lie awake at night thinking about the future of the book.

You agree with the bookseller/blogger (not Penumbra) who loved the book’s language and  juxtaposition of old and new technologies.

You know what serifs, majuscules and punches are. 

Like me, you think Robin Sloan is totally awesome and you want to skype with him at the Library on October 8th from 7 - 8 PM.

Singing in Storytime

Storytimes are back in session and the library is booming with business—preschool and toddler business that is!  Librarians are working hard to make sure that children attending Library Storytimes are enhancing their pre-reading skills because believe it or not, reading starts way before school ever does!  The things we include in our storytimes are simple things that you can do at home.  Over the next few weeks we will share our Storytime Secrets with you so you can work on those pre-reading skills at home.

Singing is one of the important features of our Library Storytimes.  In the toddler class, you may have noticed that 80% of the storytime is repetition of the same songs from week to week.  Children receive many benefits from the singing and repetition.  You don’t have to know how to read to sing, so anyone can do it at any age (babies and toddlers included)!  When a child learns a song he/she is committing the sounds to memory, and they are also separating the syllables of words without even realizing it.  When children do start learning phonics in school, it is much easier for them to translate the sounds to letters if they are already familiar with the sounds. 

Singing provides great benefits to children and doesn’t require much effort.  You can sing anywhere—the car, the bath, the doctor’s office.  Sing songs you like with children, or if you don’t know any songs, simply check out our amazing CD collection, or we also have many nursery rhyme books you can read with your child if that is more your style.
 
Simple suggestions for home:
 
Play “Storytime” at home.  Have your child lead a storytime with stuffed animal friends.
 
Once you learn a song, get silly with it!  For example, instead of saying “Hickory dickory dock the mouse ran up the clock” you can say, “Snickory, snickory, snock” and see if that gets any laughs!  Then you and your child can come up with other nonsensical rhymes.
 
Clap out syllables to songs or words in songs.

Sing songs with actions like The Goldfish by Laurie Berkner (that's the song we are acting out in the picture)

Mary Janes Farm Magazine

Sometimes in our busy lives, all we really have time for is a quick read.  Or maybe we are just looking for some ideas or recipes for get-togethers.  Look no further than Mary Janes Farm magazine.  It’s a fun and festive gathering of information from women with an adventuresome spirit and knowledge of what works.  After you open the first page, you won’t be able to put it down.

Glamping (a word coined by Mary Jane herself) is regularly mentioned, with pictures of refurbished vintage camping trailers and memos of trips made with friends and family. In the current issue of Mary Janes Farm, there is an article about a seventy year old woman -a retired beautician who received her pilot’s license at age fifty- who actually has more than one camper that she has purchased and decorated to have fun with her “traveling sisters.”

How long has it been since you made a terrarium?  Check out our current issue (Aug/Sep 2013)  for new ideas that are beautiful and easy enough for the kids to help.  Plus, there are always recipes which can be used for most occasions. Take a look and let us know what you think.  I’ll bet you will feel uplifted after entering into the pages of Mary Janes Farm.

Limestone Carving Demonstration

Indiana limestone. You probably see it every day, drive past it countless times, perhaps live in a home made of it. You see it on television every time there is an aerial view shown of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis. The Soldiers and Sailors Monument is made of gray oolitic limestone from quarries in Owen County, and at 284 feet and 6 inches high, stands a mere fifteen feet shorter than the Statue of Liberty. Many national landmarks are made of Indiana limestone, including the Empire State Building and the Biltmore Estate, and a visit to the Circle Tower in downtown Indianapolis shows the intricate, curvilinear designs that can be wrought from Indiana limestone.

Many Indiana limestone craftspeople carve objects out of limestone that are both beautiful and functional, from limestone garden animals to birdbaths to headstones. Matt Bruce is one such individual. He is a stone cutter and carver in Bedford, Indiana, who in his spare time carves amazing pieces including the scissors --they work-- shown in the above photograph. Mr. Bruce will be at the Library for a very special Limestone Carving Demonstration on Tuesday, September 10th at 6:30pm, outdoors at the Fifth Street entrance. This unique event is a collaboration between the Library and Traditional Arts Indiana. Adults, you don't want to miss this opportunity to see some of Mr. Bruce's handiwork on display and watch him carve a piece of limestone. Register your seat today.