Library Closed, Resources Still Available

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

The Litchfield Public Library is closed indefinitely because of COVID-19, along with all other libraries in Pioneerland Library System.  The book drop is closed, as well.  For now, please keep public library books and movies at home, and once the library reopens you may return them.  Due dates will continue to be extended while the library is closed, so there’s no need to worry about late fees.

All library events and programs that had been scheduled for April and May are canceled or indefinitely postponed.  This includes storytimes, Brickheads Lego building, book clubs, craft and activity programs for adults and kids, and the May book sale.  We are hoping to offer some virtual programs or online content that you can access from home.  For example, I’m hoping to host my April 14^th book club meeting via Zoom or Facebook Live so that we can discuss “O Pioneers!” without the health risk of gathering a group of people. 

Some resources are available while the library is closed.

Pioneerland’s downloadable ebooks and audiobooks are available at pioneerland.overdrive.com or by using the free Libby or Overdrive app on a smartphone, tablet, or Kindle.  To find your local collection, search Overdrive for your local library, and that will lead you to Pioneerland.  If it lists a library system name other than Pioneerland, you may have chosen a Litchfield or Grove City in another state; it’s a common mistake.

Most titles are available to only one person at a time, just like a physical book, but a collection of classics is available for unlimited numbers of users to borrow at one time.  Another option is the current Big Library Read, a book that Overdrive chooses for unlimited checkouts for a limited time.  The current title is Funny, You Don’t Look Autistic: A Comedian’s Guide to Life on the Spectrum by Michael McCreary.  This is a teen-oriented memoir that adults can also enjoy.  It’s available for unlimited borrowers through April 13. 

Even though the libraries are closed, our library system is adding more downloadable titles all the time to meet your need for books.  Looking for something you can check out immediately, instead of putting yourself on a waiting list?  Choose “collections,” then “available now,” and you can view your many options for checking out a book right away. 

Don’t have a library card? There’s a new way to sign up for a digital card online.  Go to Overdrive or Libby on a computer, phone, or tablet, and choose the option to sign up for an instant digital card using your cell phone number. You should only use this option if you don’t already have a library card. Ebooks are only available to people who live within the service area of each library system; Meeker County residents can access Pioneerland ebooks, but residents of some of our neighboring counties cannot.

If you have a library card that has expired within the past year or that was about to expire in the coming two months, your card’s expiration date has now been extended to June, and you should be able to use it to check out ebooks.  If you have trouble using your card, you can email me at elizabeth.cronk@pioneerland.lib.mn.us and I will find out if someone from our headquarters can resolve the issue. 

You can also send me an email if you need assistance with research, and I’ll do what I can with online resources from home.  Another option is AskMN, the 24-hour information and research help service from Minnesota libraries.  Visit askmn.org for real-time online chat assistance from a librarian for help finding information on any topic, including college research. 

Prefer to do the searching yourself? The Electronic Library for Minnesota (ELM) is a massive online resource that’s free for Minnesotans.  You can access magazine, academic journal, and newspaper articles, encyclopedias for all ages, test prep resources, résumé guidance, and federal government documents.  It’s a fantastic resource for students as well as the general public.  One unique collection within ELM is called Minnesota Reflections; it’s made up of images and documents from throughout the history of Minnesota, contributed by museums, archives, colleges, and libraries across the state.  Access ELM at elibrarymn.org.

Free public wifi is available outside the library.  If you park on the street or in the parking lot near the building, you should be able to pick it up, and no password is required.

I hope you are staying home as much as possible as our whole society works together to control this pandemic.  I am hopeful that we can care for each other and each do our part for the greater good.  I wish you health and happiness in the midst of this stressful time.

Free test prep resources online for Minnesotans

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

Do you know a high school junior who is getting ready to take the ACT?  Or someone who is preparing for the ASVAB, the nursing school entrance exam, or even their citizenship test?  The Electronic Library for Minnesota has a new free resource available online to help with all of these tests.

The LearningExpress Library is a test prep database available as part of the Electronic Library for Minnesota, or ELM, which you can access at www.elm4you.org.  ELM is a vast resource for Minnesota residents, made available by the State Library Services agency and Minitex, the resource-sharing network that brings you materials borrowed from libraries throughout the state. 

ELM includes many, many databases that you otherwise could not access for free on the internet.  Now and then you have to enter your library card number to use it, but most of the time the system can detect that you’re accessing it from within the state of Minnesota and will not ask for that. 

On ELM, you can search the Star Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, Consumer Reports, and many other publications.  You can search academic journals that you can use to write a college paper.  Miss those encyclopedia sets?  You can search Encyclopedia Britannica, even choosing the age range of the person using it: from Britannica Learning Zone for second grade and younger, all the way to Britannica Academic for college. 

Speaking of college, the college entrance exam resources in the LearningExpress Library are great free resources for your high school student.  There are sample tests and preparation modules for the ACT, SAT, and PSAT.  I made my high schooler go through some of the short lessons and exercises each time before he took the ACT, and we really think it made a difference.  Taking a practice test can be somewhat painful, but the modules on individual topics are short and manageable.  It’s far, far easier than using a test prep book, and did I mention it’s free?

Some of our customers will be happy to learn that there are test prep resources on the LearningExpress site for the Accuplacer test, the GRE, and the GED.  And like I mentioned earlier, there are modules for the nursing school entrance exam, the ASVAB, and many other tests.

If you need some guided practice using a computer, the internet, or Microsoft programs, the site has tutorials on those things, as well.  You might need someone who is more familiar with computers to get you started on the site, but then you can watch videos and do some guided practice.  They even have training on Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. 

We are very lucky to have a state library organization that makes these high-quality databases available to all of us.  I encourage you to try out ELM and explore the resources available to you.  

We support education

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

It's back to school time!  It will be quieter in the library during the school day now (except for storytimes).  It might be busier after school and in the evening when students with iPads and MacBooks need WiFi to do their homework.  We’ll be interested to see how that affects library traffic this fall.

 

The public library can be a resource for school in a number of ways beyond basic internet access.  Librarians still help people find information even in this era of search-it-yourself.  If you have a paper to write, whether you’re in middle school or graduate school, we can help you search for or order sources. 

One of the best sources is provided by the Minnesota state library agency.  It’s called ELM, the Electronic Library for Minnesota, and it can be accessed at elm4you.org.  You can get to it from home or we can help you with it at the library.  The website offers access to many databases of articles and encyclopedias, all high-quality, reputable sources.  If you’re in college and your professor requires it, you can limit your results to peer-reviewed journals.  Elementary school students can use the section especially for students their age that includes Britannica Learning Zone and Searchasaurus, a way to search elementary-age magazines, dictionaries, and encyclopedias.  I have used ELM countless times for my own grad school work as well as to help library patrons.  It has so much to offer.

Litchfield high school students sometimes come to us for help finding a book for a reading requirement.  We are glad to help you come up with ideas for that.  There are many options right here in our own building, plus we can order almost anything else you’d like to read.

Newsbank is a newspaper database that Litchfield Library subscribes to, primarily because it includes the Litchfield Independent Review in a searchable form.  But it also includes current event reports that could be useful to students.  This month’s include the latest articles on the Ebola outbreak, the threat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and the fighting in Gaza.  A social studies student may be able to use these special collections for current events homework.

If you’re getting ready to take a college entrance exam, you could check out one of our test prep guides.  We have the 2014 edition of Cracking the ACT from the Princeton Review and their 2014 edition of 11 Practice Tests for the SAT and PSAT.  We also have new test prep books coming in soon for the GRE, the LSAT, the GMAT, and the nursing school entrance exams. 

Parents looking for ideas for those lunchboxes could check out The Best Homemade Kids’ Lunches on the Planet.  This has been a popular book this summer.  The author of “100 Days of Real Food”, Lisa Leake, endorses it.  I am completely stuck in a rut for cold lunches, so I think my kids would appreciate it if I’d check it out sometime.

And for anyone interested in our educational system and teaching, we have the book Getting Schooled by Garret Keizer.  Keizer is a teacher who left the profession and then returned fourteen years later to the same school, putting him in a unique position to see what has changed in high school education in the past two decades.  Critics say his writing style is very engaging and that he has some unique insights on what should be changed in our schools. 

Supporting life-long learning is one of the purposes of the public library.  Whether you have little ones to bring to story hour so that they can start to learn pre-reading skills, students to bring in to do homework, or sources to find for your own college paper, we’re here for you.

Visit the Library from the Comfort of Home

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian


Our library has some useful databases available to local residents who have a library card. These aren’t free, unreliable things that are just out there on the internet. They’re good sources of information brought to you by the library.

Our newest resource is available only to Litchfield and Hutchinson area residents. It’s an online database of newspapers and news magazines from around the country, called America’s News. It includes the past 12 years of the Litchfield Independent Review. You can search for articles on specific subjects in our local paper or browse past issues by date. I was able to go back and easily find articles about the opening of our library building ten years ago. There are no photos or images, and you won’t find ads, classifieds, or everything that’s in the newspaper, but you will find all of the articles.

You can also search recent years of the Hutchinson Leader, the West Central Tribune, the Mankato Examiner, the Duluth News Tribune, and other Minnesota newspapers, easy to find with a link labeled “Minnesota”. If you’re looking for news from your hometown in Odessa, Texas, or your winter home in Fort Myers, Florida, or the article on your nephew in Columbia, Missouri, you can search those newspapers specifically, too, and a wide variety of others.

You can access America’s News one of two ways: You can come into the library and use the computer on the far end of our catalog computers. You’ll see a sign next to it about accessing your local newspaper and icons on the desktop for getting there. If you use the database this way, you don’t even need a library card to get into it. The other way you can get to it is through the Litchfield Library blog. On the right side of our blog, under the links to the catalog and our ebook service, you’ll find links to searching the Litchfield Independent Review and to searching the entire America’s News database. To get in this way, you’ll have to enter your library card number. But then you can access it conveniently from your home or workplace.

Another database offered by Pioneerland to our entire library system is ChiltonLibrary, an electronic version of the Chilton’s auto repair manuals. If you’re a do-it-yourself person when it comes to your car or truck, this is a good way to find step-by-step repair instructions, maintenance schedules from the manufacturer, and wiring diagrams. You choose your year, make, and model, and then you can see what information is available for that vehicle. This is another database that you can either use in the library without a library card or sign into from your own computer if you have a Pioneerland library card. You can find it by going to the Pioneerland catalog, iii.pioneerland.lib.mn.us, choosing “other resources”, and scrolling down to ChiltonLibrary.com, a green button.

Finally, Powerspeak Languages is another database you can find on that same page of the Pioneerland website, a little bit above the Chilton link. It’s an online program you can use to learn Spanish, French, German, Mandarin Chinese, or English for Spanish-speakers. It’s again the same to access it: at the library without a library card or from home with a Pioneerland library card. You create an account so that you can track your progress and get back into the lessons where you left off. If you’ve always wanted to learn German or you’re planning a trip to Paris, give it a try.

I believe that our library should give you access to local information, and I know that many of us like the convenience of getting information from home, no trip to the library required. I hope you’ll take advantage of these resources to look things up in our local paper or other local papers around the country, find out how to fix your transmission, or study a language.

Library now offers database of Independent Review articles

The Litchfield Library has gotten a subscription to a database that includes the past 12 years of the Litchfield Independent Review.  You can search for articles from August 2000 to the present, searching for words in the headline or anywhere in the article.  You can even choose a particular issue to browse.  It does not have any images, so you'll only find the articles.  You can access the Independent Review search here: http://infoweb.newsbank.com/signin/LitchfieldPublicLibrary/MLRB

The database also includes newspapers and news magazines from throughout the United States.  Access the entire database here: http://infoweb.newsbank.com/signin/LitchfieldPublicLibrary

If you use the database on the library computers, you can get right into it without signing in.  If you access the database from home, you will have to sign in with your library card. 

I believe our local library should offer access to our local publication.  I hope you'll find this a useful resource!

-- Beth Cronk

Minnesota's digital library

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian
4/20/11

People sometimes ask me if libraries are going to disappear as more and more things move to electronic, online formats.  If you come into the Litchfield Library almost any day of the week, you’ll be reassured that libraries are still community centers with plenty of bustling activity.  Neighbors of ours comment on how often our parking lot and street parking are full and what large numbers of people walk to the library any given day.

But certainly most of us do the majority of our information searching online now, instead of using books and physical copies of magazines and newspapers all the time like we used to.  Do you remember looking in periodical indexes in book form and then going to the old issues of magazines to find the information?  I don’t miss that.  But it can still be very difficult to find the information you’re looking for online, and you can find all sorts of inaccurate and unreliable information mixed into your search results.  Many things are just not available online for free; publishers are in business to make money, not to give away everything that they publish. 

One way that libraries have gotten involved in the online world as information providers is through digital libraries.  The state of Minnesota offers some wonderful digital library resources that you should try.

MnKnows, www.mnknows.org, is Minnesota’s digital library.  It offers access to information and publications, a Minnesota history collection, and live help from librarians.

The first thing you’ll notice on the MnKnows website is MnLink Gateway.  This is an online catalog for all of the libraries in the state that you can borrow from.  Please always check Pioneerland’s online catalog first, though, at iii.pioneerland.lib.mn.us, and order through that if possible.  But if you can’t get it from us, you can borrow items from libraries all over the state and have them sent to your local library

The next thing on the MnKnows site is the Electronic Library for Minnesota, or ELM.  You can find it directly at www.elm4you.org.  It’s a collection of excellent resources that are available to you at no charge.  These are not things that would be available for free on the internet otherwise.  Minitex, a program of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education and the University of Minnesota Libraries, contracts with companies to provide these databases to Minnesota residents.  Just like a brick-and-mortar library would subscribe to the Wall Street Journal or buy a set of enclyclopedias so that you can use them, Minitex provides these reliable information sources to the public. 

ELM is useful to students, business and professional people, and anyone looking for reliable information published in journals, magazines, newspapers, scholarly e-books, and encyclopedias.  It includes several Britannica encyclopedias, the ERIC education database, the medical database Medline, and many magazine and journal databases that cover business, arts, science, and consumer information, among other subjects.  Even your elementary school student can use ELM to do homework, with a collection of resources geared to grades K-5.  Even though these resources are online, it isn’t like using Wikipedia or Yahoo Answers as a source for a paper.  These are reliable sources that are just like the print resources in a library, brought to you conveniently online for use anywhere, any time.

The next collection of resources in MnKnows is Minnesota Reflections.  This is a collection of images related to Minnesota history, including photos, documents, and maps.  If you enjoy looking through museum collections to learn about Minnesota history, you’ll enjoy browsing through this. 

If you need help from a librarian any time of day or night, even on a holiday, you can use the Ask MN service on the MnKnows website.   Instead of talking to the librarian in person or on the phone, you discuss your question by online chat, typing your conversation.  This service is provided cooperatively by librarians from all over.  I once got help from a librarian in Honolulu late at night when I was working on a college paper and the libraries here were closed. 

The last feature on the MnKnows library site is a research project calculator.  If you have a major paper to complete for a class, or even if you just want to set yourself up with a plan for writing the great American novel, you can create a schedule with deadlines for each portion of your project.

Digital libraries are the next frontier in providing library services to the public.  If you like to find information online and would like to find good, organized sources, check out MnKnows and put your state’s digital library to use.