YA Skull Session 3 24 2015

YA Skull Sessions

You needn't learn to research on your own! Check this link for tips:

http://digitalliteracy.rosendigital.com/article/450/2/login?username=booklist1&password=trial

and remember to look at your library's eResource tab on the library website for links to many databases: http://martinsburg.lib.wv.us/

Your library is here for you.

3D Printing comes to the Martinsburg Library

YA Skull Sessions

3D PRINTING may take forever, but it’s totally boss

3.17.15 was more than St Patrick’s Day this year!  March 17^th 2015

marks the first trial of our magenta-colored Cube 3D printer. 

Thanks to a generous grant, Martinsburg Public Library was able

to obtain four 3D printers (two white, two magenta, the colors

of which do not determine its function, they’re just fun).  You

can see the general size of the printer is smaller than a com-

mon printer, about the size of smallish box. If you can see on

the computer screen in the background, we're printing a rhino-

ceros head that is a wall hanger (hang on the horn).

The printing for this particular object will take (get ready for this) 6 hours and 26 minutes. Yikes! Not something one would want to wait around for, but we plan to have our printers up and running for upcoming festivals.  Among many other activities, we’ll have them printing during Martinsburg’s Chocolate Festival on April 25^th.

Follow Martinsburg Public Library on Facebook for more

images and a video of the 3D printer as it constructs the

rhino head wall hanger.  Very cool.

Check this link to Cube’s website to see the possibilities –

people have printed prosthetic arms, and these printers even have the capacity to print 3D objects with food (hummus, banana,meat).  Crazy?!  You decide.

http://cubify.com/?utm_expid=54557154-16.MbczTxfJSdy7HzF61vdnTw.0&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fcubify.com%2Fen%2Fstore%2Fkids

3.17.2015 Erin K Henry

Databases & Reference Links

Databases & Reference Links

The Martinsburg-Berkeley County Public Libraries subscribe to many databases and electronic resources which provide library users with excellent information.  The word database, according to the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, refers to “a comprehensive collection of related data organized for convenient access, generally in a computer.”  Many libraries subscribe to databases offered by commercial vendors, because the information contained in them is considered to be more reliable than information that one might find just anywhere on the Internet.

To access the library’s databases from your home or office computer, go to the Martinsburg-Berkeley County Public Libraries website at http://www.martinsburg.lib.wv.us. Click on the word “e-Resources” on the menu bar close to the top of the page, and from the drop-down menu, click on the word “databases.”

On the next page, you will find databases and web-links listed categorically under headings such as Genealogy, Educational Pursuits, History, Legal Resources, Periodicals, Readers Advisory, etc.  Click on the category which will be most helpful for your research.

Within the category you chose, there will be a list of links to databases and library-selected websites. Choose one that you desire to access, and click on the name of it. A welcome page should appear on the screen.  For subscription databases, you will be prompted to enter the 14-digit library card number that is printed on the back of your library card. Do not include spaces (for example: 32100001237856).  You should now be able to access the information in your selected database. If prompted for a username and password, then please contact your library for that information.

As mentioned earlier, these databases and web-links were carefully selected and included on the library website because they are considered reliable.  The criteria that one should evaluate for reliability include accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency, and scope of coverage.  The library cares about your information needs and wants to provide you with the best information available!

St. Patrick's Day--why celebrate?

Why do we celebrate St Patrick’s Day?

St. Patrick's Day is celebrated annually on 17 March.   St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland is believed to have died on that day.  We know from ancient writing (Annals of Ulster) that St. Patrick was born in Roman Britain in AD 387.  As a teenager, he was captured and taken to Ireland. He was held captive for 6 years and became religious during that time.  When he returned to England he became a priest.

Patrick had a dream that the people of Ireland asked to him to return to them. He did return to Ireland and converted many people there to Christianity. He used their pagan beliefs to explain Christian teachings. For example, he explained the concept of the Holy Trinity by using the Shamrock with its three leaves as symbol.  St. Patrick died on 17 March, 493.  Saint Patrick is venerated in Ireland and many parts of the world although there was no formal canonization process in the Catholic Church at that time.

St. Patrick's Day is an official holiday in Ireland and is celebrated to honor the saint and pay tribute to the cultural traditions of Ireland. St. Patrick's Day is celebrated as a feast day by the Roman Catholic Church and in Ireland, the celebrations are religious. The first St. Patrick's Day parade in Ireland was held in Dublin in 1931.  In 1762 Boston held its first St. Patrick’s Day parade. New York is host to the largest St. Patrick’s Day parade in the U.S.; other cities hosting parades include Seattle, Savannah, New Orleans, Syracuse, and Las Vegas.  Wearing the color green (associated with the green leaved Shamrock), consuming Irish food and drink, and parades mark the festivities. 

The library has many books available on St. Patrick (and those little leprechauns that Ireland is also known for).  Listed below are a few of the selections.

  Ireland's saint: the essential biography of St. Patrick by J.B. Bury

May the wind be at your back : the prayer of St. Patrick

by Greeley, Andrew M

  

May the wind be at your back:  The prayer of St Patrick by Andrew M. Greeley

St. Patrick's Day in the morning by Eve Bunting

The St. Patrick's Day shamrock mystery / Marion M. Markham

Ballroom versus Follies

Ballroom versus Follies

The book Ballroom by Alice Simpson was unofficially given to me as my “Blind Date With a Book” by my assistant branch manager.  I use the word “unofficially” because I did not fill out the required dating profile and it was not presented to me in wrapping paper.  However my assistant branch manager read the blurb about the book and thought that the themes in this book were similar to the theme of Stephen Sondheim’s musical  Follies—one of my favorite musicals and one that I have had the privilege of directing locally.

Ballroom and Follies do have similar themes and I basically did enjoy the book—however I didn’t like it as much as the musical Follies.  Ballroom tells the intermingling stories of a group of strangers who are united by a desire to escape their complicated and unhappy lives, if only for a few hours each Sunday evening, in a dilapidated Manhattan dance hall on the verge of closure.  Follies brings a group of past performers in the Weismann Follies, a musical revue (based on the Ziegfeld Follies), together for a first and last reunion at the Manhattan theatre in which they performed before it is torn down and turned into a parking lot.

The characters in both the book and the play have a “lost souls” quality about them and are searching for happiness and human connection.  In both works the journey is not easy.  However in the musical, the principal characters leave the reunion somewhat shaken by what they encountered during this evening of ghosts and reminiscences—but they all leave the theatre ready to face another day.  

Follies is ultimately about survival and letting go of the past.  Ballroom is not as grittily optimistic as Follies.  Some of the journeys of the main characters end tragically and ambivalently.  It is more of an in-depth character study than Follies.  The only resolution that is truly optimistic is the journey of the younger couple:  Angel and Maria fulfill their dream of opening a new dance hall—“Club Paradiso”.  So I guess in this sense Follies and Ballroom do share the similar theme of letting go of the past and survival:  the dilapidated dance hall is closed—but a new dance hall is opened.

I certainly encourage everyone who enjoys looking at bygone eras and exploring how the ghosts of the past can successfully or unsuccessfully move people to “survive “ and/or “thrive” in the present, to see a production of Sondheim’s Follies and to read Alice Simpson’s Ballroom.

                      --submitted by David Porterfield