Tech Tuesday: Funbrain

Funbrain is an online learning resource for children.  Children from Kindergarten to 8th grade can play games while learning math, reading, and logic skills.  In addition to games, Fun Brain offers books parents and children can read together and a variety of other education-based activities.  Check is out for yourself: http://www.funbrain.com/.

Banned Books Week

 
"The Banned Books Week Coalition is a national alliance of diverse organizations joined by a commitment to increase awareness of the annual celebration of the freedom to read. The Coalition seeks to engage various communities and inspire participation in Banned Books Week through education, advocacy, and the creation of programming about the problem of book censorship. The 2016 celebration will be held September 25-October 1.

Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than 11,300 books have been challenged since 1982 according to the American Library Association."  (Image and Text Source: http://www.bannedbooksweek.org)

Did you know our library contains a large number of the top 100 banned/challenged books?  Including:

Harry Potter (series) by J. K. Rowling
Alice series, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
His Dark Materials (series), by Philip Pullman
Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger
To Kill a Mocking Bird, by Harper Lee
The Giver, by Lois Lowry
Beloved, by Toni Morrison
Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson
What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Whale Talk, by Chris Crutcher
 Blubber, by Judy Blume
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey
The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
Olive's Ocean, by Kevin Henkes
Draw Me A Star, by Eric Carle
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred Taylor
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
Junie B. Jones (series), by Lois Lowry
The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold
Anastasia (series), by Lois Lowry
Detour for Emmy, by Marilyn Reynolds
Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, by Chris Crutcher
Cut, by Patricia McCormick
Tiger Eyes, by Judy Blume
Friday Night Lights, by H. G. Bissenger
A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L'Engle
Julie of the Wolves, by Jean Craighead George
Are You There, God?  It's Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume

 Stop by and check out some to celebrate Banned Books Week.

Thomas Nye: Author Visit

It was a great turn out for Thomas Nye's author visit to our library!  We greatly enjoyed hearing him speak about his books, his writing process, and reading one of his favorite passages.  Following his talk, he answered questions from the crowd.

A big thank you to Thomas Nye for coming to speak at our library!  It was a pleasure having you and hearing all you had to say.

Tech Tuesday: EBSCO

Today we are sharing with you about EBSCO, a research program our library offers.  Through EBSCO, patrons have access to a wide variety of reliable research without having to sort through the wide array of results that often arise through searching online via a search engine.  

To access EBSCO, please visit our webpage: www.wellman.lib.ia.us and select the EBSCO button on the home page.  When prompted, enter username: wellmanr and password: remote.  You can choose to search through the EBSCOhost databases or use Explora to access primary school level information on a large variety of subjects.  There are also Explora teacher resources.

At the bottom of the program list on EBSCO, you will find NoveList.  NoveList is a great tool for book suggestions, finding more books by a specific author, accessing lists of series, and more. 

Our Open House

 WSPL turns 100 this year!  To celebrate we held an open house last Saturday.  It was great fun visiting with patron, board members, past board members, and past directors. 

 

Thank you to everyone who joined us on Saturday.  Thank you all for making our library a success!  Here's to another 100 years!!

Tech Tuesday: Learning Express Library

The Learning Express Library is an excellent resource for exam prep, computer skills education, skill building (reading, writing, and math), and much more.  On their site you can take practice ACT, SAT, GED, and many more.

Check out all of what Learning Express has to offer here!

Read it Before the Movie: The Light Between Oceans

Get ready for the movie!  Be sure to stop by the library and check out "The Light Between Oceans" before the motion picture is released.

Intorducing: Tech Tuesday

We love a good book, seriously there's not much better than a book.  But we also enjoy our smartphones, tablets, and devices, so we thought we'd start a Tech Tuesday blog series to share some great apps with you.

To kick things off, we highly recommend you download the Zinio app (at Google Play or Apple's iTunes).  By creating an account with you library card, you will have access to over 5,000 digital magazines for FREE! 

With such a large variety of magazines, from health to political to kids to lifestyle to travel and more, there really is something for the whole family to enjoy.

Thomas Nye Event