eBranch Blog

October 26, 2007

Nora Roberts Wins Quill Book of the Year Award

Author Nora Roberts won the Quill Book of the Year Award for her novel, Angels Fall. She was also the finalist in the Romance category. She and other bestselling authors can be seen on the Awards Program on NBC this Saturday, October 27th. MSNBC will also be streaming live video coverage.

The Quill Awards are the only televised literary awards. Finalists are selected by a voting board composed of booksellers and librarians. Readers got to cast their vote for Book of the Year online. A list of the winners is linked here.

October 22, 2007

iHCPL Week 4

Week 4 of iHCPL: A Learning Experience for Our Customers is now available. In the first post/exercise this week, you set up a Bloglines account and learn about RSS on Monday. On Tuesday find out more about RSS feeds. Join us and your fellow customers online for iHCPL at http://ihcpl2.blogspot.com/.

October 19, 2007

2007 WILLA Literary Awards Announced

The 2007 WILLA Literary Awards have been announced. Awards are presented to the winners and finalists at the annual conference held October 19 - 21. The WILLA Literary Awards are presented to the best books about women and the West published in 2006.

The WILLA fiction winners are listed below. See the WILLA Literary Award website for complete listings.

Contemporary Fiction
K.L. Cook. The Girl From Charnelle
It's 1960 in the Panhandle town of Charnelle, Texas ? a year and a half since sixteen-year-old Laura Tate's mother boarded a bus and mysteriously disappeared. Assuming responsibility for the Tate household, Laura cares for her father and three brothers and outwardly maintains a sense of calm. But her balance is upset and the repercussions of her family%'s struggles are revealed when a chance encounter with a married man leads Laura into a complicated relationship for which she is unprepared.
--Publisher comments (William Morrow & Company)

Historical Fiction
Elizabeth Crook. The Night Journal
Meg Mabry has spent her life with her back turned to her legendary family legacy. When an unexpected discovery casts doubt on the history recorded by her great-grandmother, Meg succumbs to the allure of the family stories in order to unlock an old mystery.
--Publisher Comments (Viking Books)

Children's/Young Adult Fiction & Nonfiction
Sheila Wood Foard. Harvey Girl
Fiesty 14-year-old Clara struggles to make her own way as a Harvey Girl--a waitress in one of the Harvey Eating Houses on the Santa Fe Railroad. Taking one of the few opportunities available for 19th century women, Clara leaves behind her Ozark background, becoming strong and confident.

October 17, 2007

October Kids Newsletter

The October/November 2007 issue of the Kids Newsletter is now available!

The Kids Newsletter is produced every other month and features news about Harris County Public Library children's programming. It also contains interviews with our Children's Staff and new children's materials that we have just added to our collection.

This issue features Children's Book Week. Celebrated the week of November 12-18, this year's theme is Rise Up Reading.

The staff interviews in this issue are with Miss Donna of the Crosby Branch Library and Miss Judy of the Maud Marks Branch Library.

October 15, 2007

iHCPL - Week 3

Week 3 of iHCPL: A Learning Experience for Our Customers is now available. In the first post/exercise this week, you set up a Flickr account on Monday. On Tuesday you'll have fun with Flickr mashups, and on Wednesday you'll play with online photo editing tools. Join us online for iHCPL at http://ihcpl2.blogspot.com/.

October 11, 2007

Doris Lessing Wins Nobel Prize for Literature

British novelist Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize for Literature today. The 87-year-old novelist is the oldest person to win the Prize for Literature, and the 11th woman to win. She is the author of a large body of work including The Four-Gated City, The Cleft, African Laughter, The Grass is Singing, and the feminist classic The Golden Notebook.

The Nobel Prizes will be presented to the Laureates at ceremonies on December 10.

October 05, 2007

Oprah Announces New Book Club Pick

Oprah Winfrey announced her next book club selection today. She has chosen Love in the Time of Cholera by Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Marquez is well known for his earlier work One Hundred Years of Solitude, a past Oprah's Book Club selection.

October 03, 2007

Interlibrary Loan Survey

You are invited to participate in an online patron survey from the Texas State Library and Archives in order for us to better understand your library needs. Patrons who complete the survey may choose to enter in a drawing to win one of 10 gift certificates from Amazon.com. You do not have to enter the drawing in order to complete the survey. Click on the following link to complete the survey.

http://www.yourinfonow.com/surveys/patronsurvey.htm

This survey is intended for the patrons who benefit from interlibrary loan service and is available through Friday, October 12.

October 01, 2007

New Titles Catalog Lists Updated

The New Titles Cataloged in the Past 30 Days have been updated for September 2007.

The lists are in PDF file format and require the free Adobe Reader to view. We hope you enjoy the new format. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions about this change please use our Feedback Form.

October/November Our Space Newsletter

The October/November issue of the Our Space: People & Books @ HCPL Newsletter is now available.

This issue features an article on author Kathy Reich's talk at Murder by the Book, interviews with Dorrie Scott, reference librarian at Cy-Fair and Wayne Hovey, a La Porte customer, a reading list of books that kept our staff up all night and the most checked out Science Fiction and Fantasy titles.

The newsletter can be read online or you can subscribe by email or RSS feed.

Press Release: HCPL Launches Free Technology Training Program

iHCPL offers nine weeks of self-paced web instruction plus fun.

Beginning today, Harris County Public Library debuts iHCPL: A Learning Experience for Our Customers through the world of web based tools.

Technology has changed the world and not everyone is experienced with the types of free tools that are available online or the ways they can be used in our jobs and personal lives. The iHCPL program was created to increase understanding of and comfort with these tools. This program was adapted from the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County?s Learning 2.0 program and has been enthusiastically received by the staff of Harris County Public Library, who started the program three weeks ago and are ready to share it with the public.

So, if you?ve ever wondered what it?s like to have your own blog, to post pictures on Flickr, to catalog your personal library on LibraryThing or to create your own online alter ego, then the iHCPL learning program is made for you! By the end of this nine week program, you will have done all of these things and much more.

Each week of the program is centered around a theme, such as blogging or sharing photos, and 2-3 discovery exercises are posted each week to explore these themes. Anyone following through the program is encouraged to share their discoveries through their own blog, which is set up as part of the program.

Week 1: Introduction to Lifelong Learning
Week 2: Blogging
Week 3: Photos & Images
Week 4: RSS & Newsreaders
Week 5: Play%
Week 6: Tagging, Folksonomies & Technorati
Week 7: Wikis
Week 8: Online Applications & Tools
Week 9: Podcasts, Videos & Downloadable Media

http://ihcpl2.blogspot.com

Join the fun and let the blogging begin!