Rejoice, MAC Users

While PC users have long been enjoying the digital audiobooks available through the OverDrive Media Console, MAC users have been waiting to download and transfer the files using their MACs. The wait is now over! Download MP3 audiobooks at www.longmeadow.org/library. The OverDrive MP3 Audiobook offers iPod®, iPhone™, and iPod Touch support! To download our MP3 content, please make sure you have OverDrive Media Console v3.0 (or newer) for Windows or OverDrive Media Console v1.0 (or newer) for Mac installed on your computer. Simple instructions are available when you click on DOWNLOADABLE DIGITAL BOOKS, AUDIO AND VIDEO at www.longmeadow.org/library.

Some of the more popular titles:

Sideways
The story of two friends, Miles and Jack, going away together for the last time to steep themselves in everything that makes it good to be young and single: pinot, putting, and prowling bars. A raucous and surprising novel filled with wonderful details about wine, Sideways is also a thought provoking and funny book about men, women, and human relationships.

Master and Commander

This, the first in the splendid series of Jack Aubrey novels, establishes the friendship between Captain Aubrey, R.N., and Stephen Maturin, ship’s surgeon and intelligence agent, against the thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic wars.

Murder on the Yellow Brick Road

It is November 1, 1940. In the famous sound stage ofThe WIZARD OF OZ on the MGM lot, a little man is lying face-up on the yellow brick road. Someone has murdered a Munchkin. Toby Peters is summoned to the scene of the crime by a very young and frightened starlet named Judy Garland. He begins to put together the scanty clues. Within an hour, he is hired by Lewis B. Meyer himself to keep the name of Judy Garland (and MGM) clean of the scandal, and to hold off the police and the newspapers.

We hope that MAC and IPOD users will enjoy this new service. If you have any questions, please call us at 413-565-4181. Farida Pomerantz

Visit the Digital Bookmobile on August 28th

Have you been to www.longmeadow.org/library and wondered about that link to Digital Books, Audio and Video? Would you like special help getting started with this new offering? Then come to a special event on Thursday, August 28th at the Agawam Public Library, 750 Cooper Street, sponsored by OverDrive Media and CWMARS. A 74-foot, 18-wheeled Digital Bookmobile will be there from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on its only stop in western Massachusetts! This traveling exhibit for public library download services allows readers of all ages to try out digital audiobook, ebook, and video downloads. Library staff will be on hand to help and advise regarding downloading free software, transferring to compatible portable devices and other matters. We invite you to participate in this unique opportunity and become a frequent user of this exciting new offering in Storrs Library services.

Storrs Library, old but also new!

It is hard to believe that the addition to Storrs Library is already more than 16 years old!! Those of us who were here at that time remember how cutting-edge the design seemed, featuring a centralized circulation desk, a separate Reference Desk, areas for computerized catalogs, a children’s room on the main level and an elevator to the second floor.
Little did we imagine that sixteen years later, we would have seven public access catalogs, eleven Internet stations, plus wireless capacity throughout the building. Our fiction and nonfiction collections have continued to grow, adding new titles to those already on the shelves and creating a depth and range difficult to find in bookstores oriented to stocking only the latest publications. In 1997, five years after the opening of our addition, we timidly launched our first web presence at http://www.longmeadow.org. Back then we had a few sections—a very basic computerized catalog, sections on library history and policies and a Web gateway with some favorite links. Eleven years later, how things have changed! We are now at www.longmeadow.org/library with a newly designed enhanced library catalog. With a Storrs Library card not only can you search Longmeadow’s holdings from home, expand your search to all Massachusetts libraries and place online requests, but you can read summaries and reviews of most titles right from the catalog. High-quality reference databases include searchable, general interest periodicals, full-text, peer-reviewed academic and professional journals and newspaper backfiles such as the New York Times, the Boston Globe and the Springfield Republican. The website provides access to full-length downloadable videos, like the Globe Trekker videos and hundreds of audiobooks that can be downloaded and played on portable devices. One of the databases, Academic Onefile, has free downloadable podcasts from NPR and the New England Journal of Medicine. Issues and Controversies and Issues and Controversies in American History contain excellent resources for students working on contemporary issues, while Science Online provides support to the middle and high school science curricula.

I am delighted to have been invited to participate in Longmeadow Buzz. Be on the lookout for news from the Library and in the meantime, don’t forget to visit at 693 Longmeadow Street or at www.longmeadow.org/library. Farida Pomerantz/Reference