NYPL Blogs: eReading Room

Reader's Den: The Contract With God Trilogy by Will Eisner - Week 1

Thomas Knowlton, Mid-Manhattan Library, Language and Literature — Fri, 10 May 2013 06:28:17 -0400

For this month's Reader's Den, we'll be hosting an online book discussion of Will Eisner's The Contract With God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Aveue. This is only the second time we have featured a graphic novel (the first was Joe Sacco's Palestine in October 2010).

However, as part of NYC Summer, we have two more graphic novel discussions coming up: Alan Moore's The Watchmen in July and Leela Corman's Unterzakhn in September! Please visit bit.ly/nycsummer-nypl for the full schedule.

If you need a copy of the book, you can request The Contract With God Trilogy through the NYPL catalog. This compilation (published by W.W. Norton & Company in 2006) consists of three different works: A Contract With God (1978), A Life Force (1983), and Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood (1995).

To give us a loose structure for the discussion, I've listed a schedule below, but please feel free to comment on any of the four postings throughout May.

Week 1: Introduction
Week 2: A Contract With God (p. 3-180)
Week 3: A Life Force (p. 181-322)
Week 4: Dropsie Avenue (p. 323-498)

Will Eisner, for many readers, is synonymous with the annual Eisner Awards, which were established in 1988 after the discontinuation of Fantagraphics' Jack Kirby Awards in 1987. The nominees for 2013 were recently announced and this year's winners will be revealed on July 19 at Comic-con International in San Diego.

A Contract With God is sometimes referred to as the "first graphic novel". However, most critics agree that this title most likely belongs to either Gil Kane and Archie Goodwin's Blackmark (1971), Richard Corben's Bloodstar (1976), or George Metzger's Beyond Time and Again (1967-1972). Interestingly, Will Eisner has stated that he originally thought that he had invented the term in a shrewd attempt to gain an audience with the president of Bantam Books, before learning of these earlier works.

Another point of interest is the book's many ties to New York City. Eisner was born in Brooklyn, attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. and later taught cartooning at School of Visual Arts. All three stories in this compilation are set in the apartments and surrounding blocks of 55 Dropsie Avenue, a fictional tenemant building inhabited by Dutch, Irish, Italian, and Jewish immigrants in the Bronx.

Lastly, Eisner is also well-known as creator of The Spirit, a masked crimefighter who first appeared in a self-titled newspaper serial in 1940, was later revived in 2006 with a Batman/Spirit crossover by Jeph Loeb and Darwyn Cooke as well as an ongoing series by Cooke, and most recently appeared in the DC Comics First Wave limited series written by Brian Azzarello and spin-off ongoing series in 2010. The Spirit was also adapted in the hyper-stylized, but poorly-received movie by Frank Miller in 2008.

Below are some general questions to get us started:

Are you familiar with Will Eisner? Have you read any Eisner Award-winning graphic novels?
Have you come across any versions of The Spirit mentioned above or seen the Frank Miller film? If so, what did you think?
How does The Contract With God Trilogy compare to other graphic novels you've read, on first glance?

eBook Update: OverDrive for Nook, and New Titles in 3M Cloud Library

Lauren Lampasone, Reference and Research Services — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 14:46:33 -0400

Great news for Nook tablet owners and readers looking for more new titles in ebook format.

OverDrive Media Console is now available for

NOOK HD
NOOK HD+
NOOK Tablet™
NOOK Color™

You can get it right from the Barnes & Noble NOOK Apps storefront on your device.

This means you no longer have to "side-load" ebooks using your computer. You can download library ebooks direct from our catalog to the device. As long as you have a wi-fi connection you will have something new to read!

How to install OverDrive's mobile app on your NOOK
Getting started with Android (NOOK's version is the same as other Android tablets)

If you're on an older or e-ink NOOK, you can find instructions on syncing with Adobe Digital Editions.

Here is a quick overview video from our friends at King County Library System.

The other exciting news? New York Public Library cardholders now have access to even more books than before, with a pilot offering through 3M Cloud Library. Download the app for Windows PC, Android, iPad, or iPhone, and enter your barcode to start getting books!

If you have a Windows computer and an ereader (other than Kindle) you can transfer your ebooks to the device.

Connect your device to your Windows computer with a USB cable. In the 3M Cloud Library App, a notification will appear below the navigation tabs: connected to device: [device name]. Click on My Books and you will see a green download to device button on your ebooks. Click it to transfer your ebooks. A dialog box will tell you when your ebook has been successfully transferred to your device.

If you already use Adobe Digital Editions to download eBooks from OverDrive or another service, 3M Cloud Library should automatically detect and use the same Adobe ID you used to authenticate that program.

If Adobe Digital Editions is not already installed and registered, or 3M Cloud Library does not detect your Adobe ID, it will give you two options: Use a 3M Cloud ID or enter an Adobe ID and Password. If you intend to transfer both 3M Cloud Library eBooks and OverDrive ebooks to your ereader you should authenticate your 3M Cloud Library app using your Adobe ID and password. Otherwise your ereader will only work with one service at a time.

Here is a short video demonstration for iPad.

If you're planning to use one of these new apps, what's the first book you want to read? Tell us what you think in the comments!

More Graphic Novels for Children

Ryan P. Donovan, Mid-Manhattan Library — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 06:49:21 -0400

Due to the popularity of last month's post, here are six more recent works of comic titles for the young or maybe just the young at heart. The last three titles are also available as eBooks through Overdrive, which you can know check out directly through the library's Bibliocommons catalog interface. Click here to access specific intructions on how to download eBooks to your eReader or visit the Help section on Overdrive's website. I hope that you enjoy these titles as much as I did!

Explorer: The Mystery Boxes edited by Kazu Kibuishi
Classic Catalog | Bibliocommons

Raina Telgemeier (Smile, Drama), Dave Roman (TeenBoat!, Astronaut Academy), and Kazu Kibuishi (Amulet, Copper) are just a few of the contributors to this collection of disparate tales featuring mystical boxes that hold gateways into the unknown. My personal favorite out of the bunch is a story smack dab in the middle called "The Keeper Treasure" by Jason Caffoe. The story follows a conversation between a young treasure seeking boy and the monster-like guardian he is trying to get past. The stories are pretty short, so this might not be ideal for the older and more established graphic novel reader, but it's great for young picture book fans who are looking for something slightly more advanced to try out.

Mal and Chad: Food Fight
Classic Catalog | Bibliocommons
A story of a young boy genuis who loves inventing complicated machines and his dog who loves, well... food of any kind. This story is a follow up to Mal and Chad: The Biggest, Bestest Time Ever! which introduces us to these characters. This story fleshes out the character of Megan — a girl that Malcolm, with all his advanced intellect, still cannot work up the courage to even talk to. After inadvertantly unleashing Chad's evil dream demon, Mal has to save Megan and her boy-hating friends. If you're a fan of the series, look for the third book Mal and Chad: Belly Flop! that will be released in early December of this year.

Take What You Can Carry by Kevin Pyle
Classic Catalog | Bibliocommons
This particular graphic novel actually depicts two different stories, both involving the same character. The first is a story of a young boy who gets caught shoplifting in the 1970s while the second follows an Asian-American boy the same age whose family is relocated to a Japanese internment camp after the attack on Pearl Harbor. We eventually find out that the owner of the convenience store from the first story is actually the young man from the second, while the title refers to each boy taking something that they shouldn't have respectively. If you like Take What You Can Carry, check out Kevin Pyle's other graphic novels Katman and Blindspot.

The Girl Who Owned a City by Dan Jolley
Classic Catalog | Bibliocommons | Overdrive
Imagine a world without parents. Sounds fun, right? It's not for Lisa and Todd, a brother and sister who wake up one day to discover no one over the age of 12 has survived a mysterious virus. Attempting to survive in a tribal-like society, filled with gangs and looters, Lisa takes charge and attempts to establish a safe place that can fend off interlopers. She still has to contend with the villainous Tom Logan, an old enemy who has it out for her and longs to take away everything she's built. Filled with expressive illustrations, this story adapts a 1970s children's novel that kind of reminded me of The Walking Dead (minus the zombies) meets Lord of the Flies. If you like the story, check out O.T. Nelson's original novel.

Secret Diary by Julien Neel
Classic Catalog | Bibliocommons | Overdrive
Lou is kind of a wacky girl. A 12 year old girl who makes her own clothes, it's pretty clear that she marches to a much different drummer than the rest of the kids in her class. Her mom Cat is her best friend and partner in crime. She's a writer... when she finally takes a break from all her video games. The girls deal with crushes, parties, and even their stick-in-the-mud grandma. Their small shared apartment is an enviornment most New Yorkers will appreciate. With bring colors and snappy dialogue, Secret Diary is a great title to give to any boy-crazy girl that needs convincing that there's a graphic novel out there for her, too.

Earthling! by Mark Fearing
Classic Catalog | Bibliocommons | Overdrive
Bud just moved to a new town, mainly so that his scientist father can work in a gigantic field of satellites. On his first day of school, Bud gets on the wrong bus... right into outer space! Making fast friends with new buddy Gort, Bud has to master alien classes, the mysterious Zero-Ball, and hide from an entire school of Earth-hating creatures! A wild adventure story, this graphic novel will appeal to kids of many ages just like last year's Zita the Spacegirl did. For more on Mark's unique style, check out The Three Little Aliens and the Big Bad Robot or visit his website.

Check out this booklist on BiblioCommons >>

Reader's Den: The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton - Week 4

Thomas Knowlton, Mid-Manhattan Library, Language and Literature — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 14:31:54 -0400

Our final discussion will cover Chapters 13 - 15 of The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton. Mystery Summer continues in August with an online discussion of Dashiell Hammett's classic 1930 novel The Maltese Falcon.

If you are looking for the previous posts, please visit the following links for our earlier discussions of Chesterton's book:

Week 1: Chapters 1-4

Week 2: Chapter 5-8

Week 3: Chapters 9-12

Many critics have debated the meaning of the ending of the novel as well as who or what Sunday symbolizes. In Chesterton's autobiography, he commented at length about the novel. The following passage provides some context as to his authorial intentions, and perhaps even more importantly, gives insight into the intellectual environment of the late 19th and early 20th century during which he was writing:

"I have often been asked what I mean by the monstrous pantomime ogre who was called Sunday in that story...But the point is that the whole story is anightmare of things, not as they are, but as they seemed to the young half-pessmist of the '90s; and the ogre who appears brutal but is also cryptically benevolent is not so much God, in the sense of religion or irreligion, but rather Nature as it appears to the pantheist, whose pantheism is struggling out of pessimism. So far as the story had any sense in it, it was meant to begin with the picture of the world at its worst and to work towards the suggestion that the picture was not so black as it was already painted."

From this perspective, one could almost view the novel in terms of the inevitable chaos and order found in the natural world. What is interesting about the conclusion to the novel is, despite the philosophical dialogue between Sunday and the other members on the Council of Days, it ultimately ends almost like a conventional love story:

"Dawn was breaking over everything in colours at once clear and timid; as if Nature amde a first attempt at yellow and a first attempt at rose...Syme felt a simple surprise when he saw risingall round him on both sides of the road the red, irregular buildings of Saffron Park. He had no idea that he had walked so near London. He walked by instinct along one white road, on which early birds hopped and sang, and found himself outside a fenced garden. There he saw the sister of Gregory, the girl with the gold-red hair, cutting lilac before breakfast, with the great unconscious gravity of a girl" (p. 265).

As Martin Gardner notes in The Annotated Thursday, Chesterton met his wife in Bedford Park (fictionalized as Saffron Park in the novel) and the two characters, Gabriel and Rosamond, can be seen as thinly-veiled versions of the real life couple (p. 264).

Thank you for reading and discussing The Man Who Was Thursday as part of NYPL's Reader's Den. Please join us in August for The Maltese Falcon.

Questions:

Would you classify The Man Who Was Thursday as a mystery, conspiracy novel, or something else?
How did you interpret the ending of the novel? Did you find the conclusion satisfying?
If you had to summarize what this novel is about, how would you describe it?

How to Return eBooks Early

Lauren Lampasone, Reference and Research Services — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 09:05:35 -0400

When you check out an ebook from the library, you get to keep it for the full loan period (7, 14 or 21 days) before the file is no longer accessible to you.

Which means you will never get an overdue fee!

But there may be times when you want to return a book early once you finish it, decide you don't like it, or want to make room to check out more books — and that way the next person in line for it will have access that much sooner. Think of it as being a good digital neighbor.

What you need to do to return depends on the device you are using and sometimes the type of file.

Kindle
Nook
Kobo
Sony Reader Wi-Fi
iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
iPod audio
Android
BlackBerry
Windows 7 Phone
Adobe Digital Editions for Mac or PC
OverDrive Media Console

Note: If you have completed the check out process for an ebook or MP3 audiobook but have not successfully downloaded to a device, you will not be able to return it immediately. Contact eNYPL Support to remove the item from your account.

How to Return Kindle Books

Go to amazon.com/manageyourkindle and on the Actions... button next to the title select Return this book. See step by step instructions from the County of Los Angeles Public Library.

You'll receive an email from Amazon reminding that you returned the library eBook, and it will be removed from your device(s).

To manually remove the title from your Kindle, click on the Home button. Underline the title you want to remove with your 5-way controller. Move the controller to the left and select remove from device. For Kindle Fire, tap and hold down on the book cover to get the option to remove from device. For Kindle apps, tap and hold down on the book cover to get the option to remove from device.

How to Return Nook and Kobo Books

Open Adobe Digital Editions on the computer where you downloaded the eBook. Click on the Library View. Titles you have downloaded appear on the right. Click on the triangle in the upper left corner of the book cover. Select Return Borrowed Item on the list of options. A dialogue box will pop up. Click Return. The ebook will disappear from your bookshelf in Adobe Digital Editions.

To delete the items from your Nook or Kobo reader, connect it to your computer with the USB cable. Click on its icon in the left sidebar. Click on the triangle in the upper left corner of the book cover and choose Delete. You also may want to delete any expired books in your library the same way so that the interface is less cluttered.

How to Return Sony Reader Wi-Fi (PRS-T1) Books

From your home screen, tap Books. Go to Menu > Return Books. (The menu button has four horizontal lines.) Tap the eBook(s) you'd like to return, then tap Done. If you'd like to delete an eBook without returning it (so you can download it later), you can do so by tapping Delete Books instead of Return Books.

How to Return iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch Books and MP3 Audio

From the bookshelf, tap the (+) button next to the title that you want to return or delete. Tap Delete to display the return options. Tap Return then Delete to return the title back to the library. Selecting Delete only will delete the title from your device, but you will still have it checked out.

How to remove files from iTunes (audio you've transferred to your iPod).

How to Return Android Phone and Tablet Books

Open the OverDrive Media Console app. Go to the bookshelf. Tap (+) next to the book you want to return. Tap Return/Delete. Tap Return then Delete.

How to Return BlackBerry Books

With the title selected that you want to return, select Menu > Return / Delete to display the return options. Tap Return then Delete to return the title back to the library. Selecting Delete only will delete the title from your device, but you will still have it checked out.

How to Return Windows 7 Phone Books

On the library screen, tap and hold the title you want to return. Tap return / delete to display the return options. Tap return then delete to return the title back to the library. Selecting delete only will delete the title from your device, but you will still have it checked out.

How to Return Adobe Digital Editions Books

Click on the Library View. Titles you have downloaded appear on the right. Click on the triangle in the upper left corner of the book cover. Select Return Borrowed Item on the list of options. A dialogue box will pop up. Click Return. The ebook will disappear from your bookshelf in Adobe Digital Editions.

How to Return OverDrive Media Console MP3 Audio (Windows only)

Only MP3 audiobooks downloaded after you install the OverDrive Media Console for Windows v3.2.2.0 update will have the return option.

Select the title you would like to return in OMC. You can select more than one audiobook by holding down Ctrl and clicking on each title. Click the Delete button to display the return and delete options. Click Return/Delete to both return the MP3 audiobook and delete it from your computer. If you click Delete instead, the title will be removed from your computer, but not returned to the library.

WMA audio, music and videos cannot be returned early. You can delete the files from your computer at any time, but they will still be considered "checked out" to you for the entire check out period.

More information is available at help.overdrive.com.

How to Return 3M Cloud Library Books

In the app, tap on My Books. Tap on the red button labeled Check In. Tap the "x" on the corner of the book you'd like to check in.

From the web: Log in into your account. Go to My Books tab. It should take you to Currently Reading; if not, click on that subtab. Click on Check In. The book is returned.

On the Trivial Pursuit of Useless Information

Lauren Lampasone, Reference and Research Services — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 04:47:43 -0400

I don't have a very good memory of the fiction books I read and enjoyed as a child. What I do remember is an obsession with encyclopedias, almanacs, atlases, the Guinness book, trivia, and general miscellanea. Which probably doesn't make it too much of a surprise that I ended up here, a reference librarian at one of the most fact-filled libraries in the world.

As a kid, I was also highly talented at games like Trivial Pursuit and You Don't Know Jack, usually beating any adult I played against. I assumed this was a credit to my lifelong love of reference books. After moving to New York City, I discovered the "pub quiz" and found that, well... turns out I'm not exactly Ken Jennings and these people are entirely out of my league.

That's ok. I've moved on. It seems that nowadays, the Internet and its endless rabbit holes do enough to satisfy our desires to accumulate bits of information flotsam and jetsam. How many articles in Wikipedia do you end up clicking through in a single sitting? I know I have had some marathons. Still, if you ever feel like physically flipping through some factoids (we also have ebooks and databases for you to read online), here are some suggestions.

Vade mecum is the subject term you'll see for a lot of these compendiums; it is a Latin term meaning "to go with me." According to the OED it is "a book or manual suitable for carrying about with one for ready reference; a handbook or guidebook." Now, the reference tool you keep in your pocket is likely a shiny bit of glass and plastic, with Google a tap away. But handbooks in the library are still cataloged as such. How quaint!

Access old-timey handbooks electronically:

Schott's Original Miscellany (2003) and Schott's Food & Drink Miscellany (2004) by Ben Schott are both small, elegantly typeset books of tables, diagrams, lists and definitions. Sections include "Birthstones," "Sushi," "Knights of the Round Table," "Colors of the Empire State Building," "Eponymous Foods," and "Cattle Branding."

The Uncyclopedia is another British import, full of random collections of facts. It is also available as an ebook. It includes "Fortune-Telling Techniques," "Sails on a Standard Three-Masted Ship," "Newspaper Slogans," "Diseases Named for Their Discoverers," and "Noteworthy Cats and Their Owners."

Noel Botham has produced a series of books of amazingly useless information; The Amazing Book of Useless Information is available as an ebook in which you can learn about American advertising that has had unfortunate translations in other countries, such as Coca-Cola's "bite the wax tadpole," common superstitions, and where to find the largest scale model of the solar system.

Mental Floss is a periodical I find uniquely suited to long car trips. They have also published several books, here are the ones available in ebook form:

Mental Floss The Book: Only the Greatest Lists in the History of Listory (2011)
The Mental Floss History of the World (2008)
Mental Floss Presents: Instant Knowledge (2005)
Mental Floss Presents: Forbidden Knowledge (2005)
Mental Floss Presents: Condensed Knowledge (2004)

Studies have shown that toast usually does fall butter side down and that cats react negatively to men with beards; did you know William Faulkner was briefly a postal worker? "Knowledge junkies" can also get their fix on mentalfloss.com or their Twitter.

Kenneth C. Davis's Don't Know Much About... series started with history and now covers an array of topics for adults as well as younger readers to fill in missing gaps in their knowledge.

David Feldman's Imponderables series includes a few I remember reading as a kid. He asks the kinds of questions that may keep you up late at night, but provides answers you can then use to impress your friends. Here are the ones available in ebook form:

Are Lobsters Ambidextrous? (reprint of When Did Wild Poodles Roam the Earth?, 2006)
Imponderables: The Solution to the Mysteries of Everyday Life (2004)
How Does Aspirin Find a Headache? An Imponderables Book (1993)
When Do Fish Sleep? and Other Imponderables of Everyday Life (1989)
Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise? and Other Imponderables (1987)

The People's Almanac and The Book of Lists are an ongoing series, first published in the 1970s, by David Wallechinsky and his father Irving Wallace and sister Amy Wallace. Some selections from the Almanac have been republished online with permission. A few examples from the 2005 New Book of Lists are "11 Famous People Who Were Dentists," "27 Things That Fell from the Sky," and "15 Notable Events That Happened Under the Influence of Alcohol."

Listomania: A World of Fascinating Facts in Graphic Detail puts a visual spin on some informative lists, such as "13 Colors Crayola Has Retired" and "21 Micronations."

Of course as almanacs go, there is always The World Almanac and Book of Facts and the Old Farmer's Almanac (now also available as an ebook). Or if you are training for JEOPARDY!, take a few lessons from the master himself.

Time keeps on slippin' slippin'... so find out about some of the most important Firsts and Lasts.

John Hodgman's The Areas of My Expertise: An Almanac of Complete World Knowledge Compiled with Instructive Annotation and Arranged in Useful Order by Me looks a lot like an information source along these lines except that it is all completely absurd and made up. It is also pretty funny, if you have a sense of humor when it comes to your love of trivia.

For Kids and Teens

New York City Factoids

I would be remiss not to include The Book of Answers: The New York Public Library Telephone Reference Service's Most Unusual and Entertaining Questions from the team now better known as Ask NYPL! You can still call them (or email) and ask them anything.

Databases

Sign into Credo Reference with your library card to browse a virtual shelf of books including atlases, chronologies, encyclopedias, factbooks, handbooks, quotations and statistics.

Sign in with your library card, and then sign up for the fact of the day from Oxford Reference Online or the word of the day from Oxford English Dictionary.

Find books from this post (and more) in this list in BiblioCommons.

Finally, that little piece of plastic at the end of your shoelace? It's called an aglet. Don't ask me why I know that.

Reader's Den: The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton - Week 3

Thomas Knowlton, Mid-Manhattan Library, Language and Literature — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 08:24:09 -0400

For our penultimate discussion, we will be taking a look at Chapters 9 - 12 of G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday, A Nightmare, which is part of both Mystery Summer and the New York Public Library's monthly online book discussion Reader's Den.

For those just joining us this week, please feel free to visit the first and second post for even more discussion of Chesterton's intriguing novel.

The narrative takes a dramatic (and humorous) turn in Chapter 10, when Gabriel Syme challenges the Marquis de Saint Eustache to a duel by first asking to pull the latter's nose and then feigning indignation at an imagined insult to his family. Between the clash of swords — nicely captured on the cover of the 1971 Ballantine Books edition to the right — the author sneaks in some interesting digressions, such as Syme's suddenly heightened senses in the midst of the duel:

"He felt strange and vivid value in all the earth around him, in the grass under his feet; he felt the love of life in all living things. He could almost fancy that he heard the grass growing; he could almost fancy that even as he stood fresh flowers springing up and breaking into blossom in the meadow—flowers blood red and burning gold and blue, fulfilling the whole pageant of the spring. and whenever his eyes strayed for a flash from the calm, staring, hypnotic eyes of the Marquis, they saw the little tuft of almond tree against the sky-line. He had the feeling that if by some miracle he escaped he would be ready to sit for ever before that almond tree, desiring nothing else in the world."

The above scene, in which Syme becomes hyper-aware of life (in the presence of death) takes on a certain amount of poignancy if one considers that G.K. Chesterton was writing the novel after emerging from a bout of depression. The almond tree also carries a number of cultural and religious connotations, which might be seen as prefiguring the writer's growing interest in spiritual matters later in life.

This section of the novel also contains many slang words, popular at the time. In Chapter 9, Dr. Bull exclaims, "Wasn't it a rag?" in reference to his ingenious disguise. Martin Gardner's The Annotated Thursday notes that rag was slang for a "boisterous joke" and that universities often held a Rag Week "in which students engage in ridiculous activites" (p. 160).

There are also several whimsical expressions related to drunkeness, such as the Doctor claiming Syme is "as drunk as an owl" (a phrase also used by Robert Louis Stevenson in Treasure Island) as well as Syme's reference to "All the blue devils in blue hell...contributing to my blue funk." Gardner explains that blue devils are similar in meaning to pink elephants and were associated with someone suffering from delerium tremens.

Lastly, at the very beginning of Chapter 11, Inspector Ratcliffe exclaims, "Of course the President is not with them. I wish to Gemini he were." This was a common expression at the time, thought to be a corruption of Jesu Domini and also related to the later forms Jiminy or Jiminy Cricket!

Questions:

Did you detect any other cultural or religious symbols such as the almond tree mentioned above?
If you had to describe the duel between Syme and the Marquis in one word (or subsequent chase) what would it be?
Have you encountered British slang words or expressions from the era that gave you pause?

eBooks, New and Improved: Place Holds, Download, and Manage Your Account in BiblioCommons

Lauren Lampasone, Reference and Research Services — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 10:11:17 -0400

It's now easier to download and request holds on EPUB, PDF, Kindle and e-audio, music and video (a.k.a. OverDrive) while in the library catalog, BiblioCommons. You no longer have to sign in to a separate site with your barcode.

Your electronic holds and checked out items will appear alongside physical books and materials you have out, so you can better prioritize your must-read list!

Here's an overview of the changes.

Here you can see an ebook and a print book appearing together in search results. Choose "Check availability," "Request this download," or just click on the title to see if the ebook can be downloaded now or if there is a waiting list.

When an ebook is available to check out (no waiting list) you'll be able to choose your format and lending period and download immediately.

If the item you want is not available, you'll select your format and request to be notified as soon as it is.

Here is how your Holds page will look, with outstanding physical holds and the location where they will be sent, digital holds, and your place in the queue for both. Holds can be canceled, but they cannot be suspended. When you are notified by email that a title is ready to be downloaded, you will see a READY FOR CHECKOUT link appear. You'll then find the item on your Checked Out page...

Here is how your Checked Out page will look, with both physical print materials and digital items together in order of date due. You will see a Download Now button next to digital materials, whether or not the file has already been downloaded.

Please note that as promising as it looks, you still cannot renew digital items. Of course you are welcome to check an item out again once your time is up, as long as there is not a waiting list. If you'd like to return an item early, you can usually do that from your computer or the device you are reading on.

Start downloading ebooks now!

If you don't already have an account in BiblioCommons, get one now. You can create an easier-to-remember username. You can rate, review, and tag items and create lists. You can also install the NYPL app to help you search the catalog and manage your account on the go. Note that while you can see all of your current holds and check outs in the app, you still have to log into ebooks.nypl.org to place holds and download to your mobile device.

Don't have a library card? Get one now.

Reader's Den: The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton - Week 2

Thomas Knowlton, Mid-Manhattan Library, Language and Literature — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 13:53:22 -0400

This week, we will be discussing Chapters 5-8 of The Man Who Was Thursday, A Nightmare by G.K. Chesterton as part of the New York Public Library's Reader's Den.

If you don't have a copy of the book yet, please visit the first post for links to request a library copy or download the FREE ebook.

In this week's reading, Gabriel Syme is pursued by the seemingly decrepit Professor de Worms. Several scholars, including Joseph Keogh and John Batchelor have noted similarities between the latter character and the chemistry professor found in Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, which was first published as a serial in 1906 in the periodical Ridgway's. In a 1974 article, Batchelor even went so far to call Chesterton's 1908 novel, a "wild parody of Conrad's The Secret Agent."

Those curious about the similarities between the two works can download a free ebook of the Conrad novel from Project Gutenberg. It's also available as free audiobook from the Internet Archive.

It's interesting to note that while the chase between the two men takes on a surreal, nightmarish quality as Syme frantically seeks to escape the frail, older man only to find the professor ordering yet another glass of milk, this is eventually resolved with a rational explanation in Chapter 8.

However, one feature of the novel that remains inexplicable is the bizarre shifts in weather, noted by Martin Gardner in The Annotated Thursday. He writes,

"It opens with a garden party in Saffron Park at a time when leaves are on the trees. A few days later, when Syme is about to board a tug, we are told it was 'half-past one on a February night.' Earlier in the same paragraph Syme is said to have outfitted himself in an 'exquisite summer suit.' He arrives in London for breakfast with Sunday in 'glowing sunlight,' on an open-air hotel balcony. Below on the street are trees with 'sunlit leaves.' When Syme leaves the hotel, 'the bright, cold day had grown increasingly colder,' and it is starting to snow" (p. 117).

The nonsensical weather changes might cause some readers to interpret the story, as Garry Wills does in his introduction to the book, as merely a series of dreams within Gabriel Syme's imagination. Shortly before his death in 1936, G.K. Chesterton himself clarified his position in an article in the Illustrated London News, emphasizing that the novel's subtitle is "A Nightmare" and as he further explained:

"it was not intended to describe the real world as it was, or as I thought it was, even when my thoughts were considerably less settled than they are now. It was intended to describe the world of wild doubt and despair which the pessimists were generally describing at that date; with just a gleam of hope in some double meaning of the doubt, which even the pessimists felt in some fitful fashion."

Questions:

Above we noted the similarities to Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent. Thus far, does Chesterton's novel remind you of any other books you have read?
In Chapters 5-8, we are introduced to a host of strange characters: the madman Gogol, the paralytic Professor de Worms, the fashionable Marquis de St. Eustache, the enigmatic Dr. Bull, and of course, President Sunday. Was there a single character's description you especially enjoyed?
Has there been a point in the story so far which has caused you to question whether this is a realistic or fantastic novel?

Reader's Den: The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton - Week 1

Thomas Knowlton, Mid-Manhattan Library, Language and Literature — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 07:17:59 -0400

Welcome to the New York Public Library's Reader's Den, a monthly online book discussion. For July, we will be reading G.K. Chesterton's 1908 novel The Man Who Was Thursday, A Nightmare as part of Mystery Summer.

Get a free copy of the book from any of the following sources.

Download FREE ebook:
Amazon (Kindle)
Manybooks (Kindle, Nook, PDF, other formats)

Request a library copy:
NYPL Catalog (Print)
NYPL ebook (EPUB, PDF)

Read FREE ebook online:
Project Gutenberg

Download FREE audiobook:
Internet Archive

G.K. Chesterton is perhaps best known as the author of the popular Father Brown mysteries. However, the influence of his writing can be seen in the fantastical fiction of Jorge Luis Borges, the classic PC game Deus Ex, and even in the political writings of Slavoj Žižek.

For our first discussion, let's take a look at Chapters 1-4, in which the reader is introduced to the two main characters and discovers that each man carries a rather dangerous secret. Next week, we will cover Chapters 5-8.

Questions:

Lucian Gregory argues that the true artist "abolishes all conventions" while the orderly Gabriel Syme insists that the most poetical thing in the world is the London subway. Do poetry and art tend towards chaos or order?
The novel's humor is evident from the very first chapters. Was there a particular funny scene or line of dialogue that stood out to you?
Allusions to British culture abound in the book: Ally Sloper, Joseph Chamberlain, Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Did you come across other interesting references or names, which might not be familiar to an American audience?

The Ultimate Guide to Free Library eBooks: Kindle Edition

Ruth Rodriguez, Grand Concourse Library — Wed, 02 May 2012 11:59:26 -0400

If it has happened to our patrons at the Grand Concourse Library and myself...

...then it must be happening somewhere else!

Here we are with our exciting new Amazon Kindles, and nothing to read except for Jane Eyre or Alice in the Wonderland — not that there's anything wrong with that!

But in this blog post, I am going to show you a couple of tips and tricks for getting books on your Kindle, even if the titles you want are unavailable.

If you are already familiar with accessing books via http://ebooks.nypl.org and just want to see the tricks, skip to Step #3. What you need before you start...

An Amazon.com account that is linked to your Kindle (the username is usually the e-mail address you use to purchase items, and the password is whatever you deemed it to be).

Knowledge of your library card and pin number (a secret four-digit number you created when you applied for a library card (this number can be changed at any NYPL branch with proof of ID).

An Internet browser that can open various tabs within the same window.

A WiFi connection. (Yes, you can do this using NYPL WiFi at your local branch.)

Your Kindle Reader, or other device with the Kindle App.

If you're a newbie, let's begin!

Step #1

Open http://ebooks.nypl.org and select the option under All Formats to Kindle Books

Make sure to select available.

Step #2

Type in your desired book Title or author — Creator (recommended) in the search bar, and when it appears on the screen, click on the Add to e-list link and make sure that the copy reads Kindle book.

Step #3

You will be prompted to Log In to your NYPL account. Type in your library card number (14 digits) and your pin number (four digits).

This is when you have the option to continue browsing or proceed to checkout. For the sake of this tutorial, we will click proceed to checkout. If you continue browsing, you can add books to your list and then check them all out at once.

Step #4

You will be redirected to a page that allows you to choose how many days you'd like to check out your titles: 7 days, 14 days, or 21 days. Remember — it is not possible to renew ebooks, so choose your time wisely. Click confirm check out.

Step #5

An option guiding you to download the titles will appear. Click Get for Kindle.

Step #6

You will then be redirected to the Amazon website. Click Get Library Book.

Step #7

Step #8

Choose the Kindle name, device, or app that you would like to send it to.

Step #9

The book should automatically appear on your Kindle app or on the home page.

Tips and Tricks

If the desired title is unavailable, but you are willing to wait for an item to become available, you don't need to click available titles in the search bar.

You can leave the default All Formats.

If you want to read anything now and don't care what it is as long as its the genre you like, you can type the genre in the search bar and select available titles.

E.g.: Type Romance > click available > select Kindle book

This will provide a list that will be delivered to you instantly.

There are more blog tutorials that are similar to this one. Check them out below:

Library Books on Kindle: A Visual Walkthrough by Lauren Lampasone, Reference and Research Services
Get the Most Out of Your Gadgets With NYPL by Lauren Lampasone, Reference and Research Services
Ebooks: Putting the "E" in Free by Brooke Watkins, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, General Research Division
Quick Start Guides

A special thanks to my colleague Sherise Pagan for lending me her Kindle for the tutorial.

I Love Reading: Bookmark This Post

Lauren Lampasone, Reference and Research Services — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:04:32 -0500

This month in the eReading Room I shared with you some of the ways that voracious readers are able to adapt their reading habits to the online environment. I explained differences between e-formats, the best ways to manage both short and long reads, and today I'll talk about clipping, bookmarking, highlighting, and marginalia — concepts that sound old-school but that are also being electronically reinvigorated.

BiblioCommons

The new NYPL catalog (new as of last summer) makes it easier than ever to make lists of books you plan to read or on topics you know a lot about. It also is a nice way to keep track of what you've already read, write reviews and rate materials.

If you're not from New York State or you use more than one library, you can also try out the list-making and bibliographic tools on WorldCat.org.

Bibliographies

If you've spent any time doing research, you know that it is important to continuously maintain records of what you've read, what you want to read, and what you're going to cite. Zotero is a tool that you can download as a standalone program or as a plugin for Chrome or Firefox. It also integrates into your word processor. It allows you to track the basic information about your sources, whether they are books, chapters, articles, or websites. It also allows you to manage, tag, share, search, and export your information. Zotero is a project of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building periodically offers classes on using Zotero, so check the calendar!

For students doing a short project and looking for a quick way to get all of those books into proper citation format, there are apps like Quick Cite and EasyBib for iPhone and Android that scan a ISBN barcode and return a formatted citation. Bibme does the same thing on the web for MLA, APA, Chicago and Turabian style citations, WorldCat for APA, Chicago, Harvard, MLA, and Turabian.

Notes

Similar in concept to Zotero, but less academically-oriented, is Evernote. Upload pretty much anything (PDF, text, photo, website) to the service using the desktop client, web client, or one of the mobile apps. Full text search is available and will even enable OCR on photographs of text; you can be reading a print reference book and take a snapshot of a definition or quotation with the smartphone app and be able to find it later in a search.

Bookmarks and Favorites

If you spend much time on the web, you know there are certain sites you return to again and again, and then others that you want to be able to reference in the future without too much digging around. Even the earliest web browsers had the functionality to save Uniform Resource Identifiers, websites designated as favorites, shortcuts, or bookmarks.

But what about when you're away from your usual computer (or your usual computer breaks down and dies)? The rise of Web 2.0-style applications that allowed for web-based storage and sharing of bookmarks was a boon for info omnivores, not to mention librarians.

Delicious - one of the original social bookmarking services, del.icio.us was launched in 2003. Though it recently got a facelift, it still lets users bookmark sites, and add their own descriptions and tags for organization.
Pinboard - similar to the previous format of delicious, there is a one-time fee to join.
Diigo - allows you to highlight, mark up webpages with sticky notes, and share bookmarks privately within a group.
Xmarks - allows you to sync bookmarks between browsers and within a web-based account.
If you use Chrome you can also sync bookmarks between computers within the browser itself; sign in with your Google account.
There are a bajillion other social bookmarking sites out there, find one that you like in terms of functionality as well as the community that surrounds it.

Visual Bookmarks

Pinterest is arguably the most popular of these right now, though not without criticism. The issue with images is that you can easily snip them from the source, but sometimes that leaves little indication of where the image originally came from, or credit to the creator. There are also the legal implications of sites retaining duplicate copies of the image files. Copyrighted images on Flickr can no longer be easily posted on the service. But used carefully and with basic online etiquette (give credit if possible and link back to the source!), visual bookmarks can be stunning and inspirational, as well as great research and personal reference tools. Did you know that NYPL and the Art and Picture Collection have been "pinning"?

Another visual bookmark service is Zootool, and Delicious (mentioned above) now has a similar feature called "stacks."

Interested to find the original source of an image? Try TinEye or Google Search By Image.

Highlights and Quotations

Readmill and findings are two sites that allow you to save bits of text from books or websites and share them with a community. Social reading has been around for a long time, so what can these new services offer? It's a good question.

If you are an Amazon Kindle user, you may have noticed that by default you can see what other readers have highlighted in the books that you are reading. It can be interesting to see what is popular right now, but did you know that you can also sign in to see highlights you have made to the books you've already read (both purchased and borrowed from the library)? Notes and highlights get saved to your Amazon account so if you return a book and check it out again, you'll keep your highlights. Hard to imagine that being possible in the print-only days (we librarians tend to discourage you from marking up the books.) Learn how to use Evernote to organize and back up your highlights.

Candide 2.0, an NYPL Labs project from a few years back, is a great example of how we can think about marginalia (notes in the margins of a text) in the digital age.

What is your favorite way to bookmark? As long as it isn't dog-earing the pages, let us know in the comments!

I Love Reading: Long Form Essays and Journalism

Lauren Lampasone, Reference and Research Services — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:03:21 -0500

In this week's installment of I Love Reading I want to talk about the kind of reading that is not books, not news, not blogs, but something in between. It demands a little bit more of your attention span than Twitter, but maybe not as much as your book group's latest pick. It can be from last week or fifteen years ago, and still be relevant to today. It can be a true tale of crime and punishment, an industry exposé, an interview or profile of a famous figure, an in-depth review, or a speech. It could be a short story, nonfiction, or an interpretation or some kind. In my opinion, it makes the best kind of reading for airplanes, waiting rooms, the subway, and my couch. You won't exactly find it on the shelves in the library, unless you know where to look. It's the 'long read.'

While the future of niche news weeklies may not be as dire as other consumer magazines, things are changing rapidly. Tablets and ereaders are becoming more ubiquitous and our reading habits are changing too.

While most of us are content to catch up on the news and the latest short blog posts on our computers at our desks, an eight-thousand word essay is a different story. It requires us to temporarily mute the pings of our inboxes, recline slightly, and maybe even brew a cup of tea. Another thing — we don't want to have to depend on an active Internet connection to do this reading — airplanes and subway cars are two of the best places to read long articles, and they also happen to be the least connected. (The horror... what if you forget to bring a magazine with you and the only thing to look at is SkyMall?!) Thankfully, a few years ago software developers realized this and started working on solutions.

Apps

Instapaper, Readability, and Read It Later are three examples of apps (or Send-to-Kindle services) for various devices that let you save long articles for reading later, storing them offline on your device so you can read them whether or not you have access to the Internet.

The other great thing about these services is that they work together (using the magic of APIs) with other apps you may have installed to create a seamless sharing-to-saving experience. Checking Twitter updates on your iPad and see a cool article? Send it to Instapaper. Reading RSS feeds on your PC and find something that looks fascinating but is several pages long? Send it to Read It Later. Did your boss send a link to your email of an article that you really should read? Open the link in Firefox and then click a bookmarklet to add it to Readability.

Discovery tools

givemesomethingtoread.com works with Instapaper to do just that. Click the "read later" button and you'll have the articles of your choice ready the next time you load the app.

longreads.com features both curated and community picks for articles. It also has a handy search feature and lets you browse by length. The site started as a Twitter hashtag, #longreads, that the creator Mark Armstrong encouraged friends and followers to use to share this type of writing more broadly.

longform.org lets you see the latest picks or browse the archive organized by topic, writer, source, year, subject tag and story type.

@ifyouonly read one thing today... the editor suggests and tweets a link each day.

The Back Issues blog from The New Yorker's archivists revists older articles that may warrant another look based on current events. Today's post? Calvin Trillin on Mardi Gras, a piece from 1998.

Readings about long form reading

"How Technology Is Renewing Attention to Long-form Journalism," Poynter, 8/12/10
"Long-form journalism starts a new chapter," The Guardian, 8/29/10
"Long-Form Journalism Finds an Online Friend," The New York Times' Gadgetwise, 11/4/10
"When a Web Community Becomes a Book Publisher," The Atlantic, 1/18/12
"The Long and Short of New York Magazine’s Longreads," The New York Observer, 2/1/12

Long Reads at the Library Databases

Find journals and magazines you can access online with your library card; search by title using this tool.

Many, including Mother Jones, Vanity Fair, New York, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist, and Esquire, can be found in Academic One File. The embargo period may vary, but it just means that you have to wait to see the latest content. While it's true much of this can be found for free online, there might be instances where you want something older that is behind a paywall, or to search across multiple titles for articles on a single topic.

The New York Review of Books is now available to search and browse on site at any library location. (Read more about NYRB in Ray's post.)

Books

The Best American Travel Writing 2011
The Best American Science and Nature Writing, 2011
Best Music Writing 2011
Best Food Writing 2011 (ebook)
Best Sex Writing 2012 (ebook)
Additional anthologies of "best writing"
A 2005 fiction anthology, but on this theme: The Paris Review Book for Planes, Trains, Elevators, and Waiting Rooms

Visit

Love reading articles? Stop by the DeWitt Wallace Periodicals Room in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building for general as well as obscure magazines, journals, and zines, and learn more about the history of this industry in New York City.

What good, lengthy articles have you enjoyed recently?

I Love Reading: News, Blogs, Twitter

Lauren Lampasone, Reference and Research Services — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:12:17 -0500

In this week's episode of I Love Reading, I will talk about updates. I don't mean the kind of updates that clutter your Facebook feed, though they are basically the same thing. When I say updates I mean news in the journalistic, newspaper sense, news from your field or area of interest, or news that is created and shared among your group of friends and trusted online acquaintances.

A lot of these updates and news sources now take the form of blogs. Long ago, a blog was considered to be an online diary or personal journal intended for a small audience. Over the past decade, the blogging format has become mainstream and is used by major news organizations as well as individuals who make a living writing on various topics for their devoted audiences.

What to Read?

Where do you get your information? This post will not go into detail about all of the places where you can find a steady stream of information online, but beyond traditional news sources, here are some general interest reading suggestions:

Arts & Letters Daily consists of "news, reviews, latest trends, breakthroughs, disputes, and gossip in arts and culture."
Brain Pickings "is a human-powered discovery engine for interestingness, culling and curating cross-disciplinary curiosity-quenchers, and separating the signal from the noise to bring you things you didn’t know you were interested in until you are."
Metafilter is a community weblog, where members contribute links of interest with the intention of also fostering discussion.
The Morning News has "features, morning and afternoon headlines, with links to the most interesting news items, articles, and oddities around the web."

There are active online communities around every possible interest: books, food, lifestyle, productivity, just to name a few. And pretty much every profession these days has a robust online community with news sites and personal blogs where you can find the latest resources and tips to help you in your career, librarians included.

RSS

You could visit each website you like once a day and see what's new. But if you're pressed for time or want a high-level overview to browse through without a lot of distractions (like ads), you can subscribe to each site and receive notifications when there is new content. RSS is an easy way to receive and process the chunks of information regularly posted on a website. Look for the orange icon to locate an RSS feed. Some sites list out all of their available feeds by subject:

You can subscribe to and read feeds in an RSS reader, which can be:

a standalone desktop client
integrated with your email client
a browser based extension (Firefox, Chrome)
a web based account (Google Reader) you can access from any computer
a tablet or smartphone app

Once you have all the websites you want to read added, you will see some kind of number that reflects how many unread items you have. It doesn't make sense to get frustrated about the amount of feed reading you can accomplish in a day, so at some point "mark all as read" and move on. This is reading as skimming, finding out what is new and exciting — try not to get overwhelmed. Also, clean house regularly to get rid of feeds that update too often for you to manage, that you find yourself ignoring most of the time, or are otherwise not adding anything to your life.

Twitter

If your attention span is short (140 characters or less) you might find that Twitter is a good place for you to find out what is new. Turns out it is not just people talking about what they had for breakfast! Try following a news organization, a journalist, a library, or a professional association, in addition to people you trust (in real life and online) for links to the best news and updates from the field (literally as well as figuratively.)

Not sure where to start? Ask NYPL has compiled Twitter "lists" on various topics: Consumer, Health, Books, E-Resources, Reference, and NYC Community Information. You can check this list to see all of the NYPL Twitter accounts too! Start by following one of these lists, or follow a few individual Twitter accounts from them that interest you.

Tablet and Smartphone Apps

There are lots of apps for reading RSS feeds on your device. In addition, it seems that with the rise of the iPad and tablet devices has come the concept of "personalized magazines." These apps work using RSS technology, and sometimes offer preloaded content suggestions. Most allow you to add your favorite blogs, news sites and Twitter feeds, and then "flip" around until something catches your eye, much as you would with a magazine. Zite, Flipboard and Pulse are three popular examples; see this comparison chart for more information.

Information Overload

I have to admit, I feel a little overwhelmed when I think about all of the ways we read online. How can I possibly go into detail about everything! My strategy is to break things down into smaller parts until it is more manageable. The feeling of information overload remains; it just so happens that many books have been written that explore and endeavor to treat this affliction. But is it really a new phenomenon?

Information Overload! list in BiblioCommons
"Being Wired or Being Tired: 10 Ways to Cope with Information Overload" by Sarah Houghton-Jan (Librarian in Black)
Observe a Digital Sabbath or check in to a monastery (or maybe not.)
And finally: The cure for information overload (just kidding).

What blogs or news sources do you like to read and how do you usually read them?

Do you tune out in the evenings or on weekends, or do you have to escape to a remote cabin in the woods once a year? Share your thoughts in the comments.

I Love Reading: EPUB and PDF

Lauren Lampasone, Reference and Research Services — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:59:07 -0500

For the first part of this series, I want to talk about a few of the formats commonly used for reading digital text as well as the tools — software and devices — we can use to read them.

Library ebooks are available in EPUB, PDF, and Kindle format. The Library also subscribes to hundreds of databases, some of which will allow you to download articles or page images for personal use in PDF format.

Jump to files and formats:

The difference between EPUB and PDF
Borrowing library ebooks
Other reading material you can get from the Library besides ebooks
Public domain ebooks
Comics, graphic novels and manga

Jump to software and devices: on Mac or PC, iPad, Kindle, Android Device.

Formats The difference between EPUB and PDF

It helps to think of a PDF as a snapshot of a page in a physical book or journal. Charts, images, and diagrams will appear the same way they appear in the printed book. This is great for picture books as well as others where the design is key; it is also the main option for ebooks in non-Roman text (such as Chinese). You can jump to a page and it will be the same as in the print version. If you enlarge the page, you are zooming in to a section; this sometimes makes it not a practical option for people with low vision.

With EPUB, the emphasis is on the text itself. You can resize the text in either direction, to make short pages with large text or long pages with tiny text (this is referred to as "reflow").

I know you're probably saying, what about Kindle? Amazon uses a proprietary format based on Mobipocket (MOBI), which was initially developed for PDAs and other mobile devices. Kindle format is very similar to EPUB in the way text displays.

For additional formats in varying degrees of obscurity, see Wikipedia's comparison.

Borrowing library ebooks

Start by browsing our ebook catalog (also integrated in our full catalog) to find ebooks in EPUB, PDF, and Kindle format. All of our ebooks are protected by Digital Rights Management (DRM). What this means is that at the end of the lending period, the files are no longer accessible to you (they can't be opened and read) unless you check them out again. You also can't send them to a friend to read, or post them on the Internet for anyone to grab. Part of the checkout process is verifying your access to the file. For Kindle books this means Amazon keeps track of the file associated with your account; for EPUB and PDF this is managed through your Adobe ID, which you have to sign up for when you start using Adobe Digital Editions on your computer or OverDrive Media Console on your mobile device.

Other reading material you can get from the Library besides ebooks

We have hundreds of databases. Here's where you might want to start your research (or reading). Depending on which one you're using and what you end up finding, you may be able to save an article, reference book entry, or newspaper image as a PDF or plain text or HTML. These are all DRM-free (with the understanding that you are using them for personal research only.) How to get them on your iPad or Kindle? Read on.

Public domain ebooks

Love reading Twain, Dickens, Austen, Poe? You can always read these authors for free and without worrying about DRM. If you're doing research in publications from before 1923, a great deal has been digitized through Internet Archive, Google Books, and Hathi Trust. Brooke did a good job covering some of the options already; to see another rundown of various channels see the free ebooks section in eBook Central. Basically many of these sites let you choose your format — whichever you prefer or works best with your device.

Comics, Graphic Novels and Manga

I did not forget about you, readers of comics! We do have these materials in eNYPL, mostly in PDF and Kindle format. You can learn more about comic-specific formats and software at the MobileRead Wiki.

Software and Devices On a computer

You can use Adobe Digital Editions to read and manage both protected (DRM) and unprotected PDF and EPUB files. Under Library, use the drop down to select Add Item to Library. Then you can transfer your files to your Nook, Kobo, or Sony Reader if you want.

Calibre is another tool that can be used to manage an ebook library. It can sync files to your device and import metadata (Title, Author, Date Published) about your books to help keep them organized. It can also convert files that are not protected by DRM to other formats.

PDF files are sometimes easier to view on e-readers when extra white space in margins is cropped. Tools for cropping include: PDFScissors, Briss, OSX Preview, GoodReader for iOS, and Adobe Acrobat.

On an iPad

For library ebooks, you'll either use OverDrive Media Console or the Kindle app for the most seamless experience with DRM files. Otherwise, the default reader for non-DRM PDF and EPUB is iBooks. If you'd prefer a different way to manage your files, here are some alternatives:

GoodReader - Mashable called it “a Swiss Army knife of awesome;" it is definitely a Swiss Army knife for managing files of any type. It handles large files well, and allows you to mark up PDFs and crop margins.
Bluefire Reader (free) - supports Adobe DRM, so you can read both library and DRM-free PDF and EPUB.
Dropbox (free) - simple, no frills cloud storage, lets you share with others and between devices easily.
Evernote (free) - billed as a note-taking application, lets you easily save photos and webpages in addition to files.

If you have one or more of these installed, when you select Open In... you will be given a choice where to open and save your file. (Again, with library ebooks, the only option you will see is OverDrive Media Console.)

On a Kindle

Kindle Personal Documents Service - You can send and view files on Kindle Keyboard, Kindle, Kindle Touch, and Kindle for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Upon delivery, the files can be found in the Documents folder under Archive.
Your Send-to-Kindle email address is [name]@kindle.com and can be found at amazon.com/manageyourkindle
At the Manage Your Kindle page, also make sure to authorize the email address you will be sending documents from.
Send PDF, MOBI, and TXT files. To have a document converted to Kindle format (.azw), the subject line should be "convert."
Fees for using the service on 3G
Transferring Personal Documents via USB

On an Android Device

PDF reading and management in Android, all free:

For more reading app suggestions, see "A catalog of Android reading apps," dearauthor.com

Phew, that was a lot! Just a reminder this post is not an endorsement of any particular software product or device, but an informational resource with many options for you to explore. If you love reading PDF, MOBI, EPUB, or CBR, please ask questions or share your experiences in the comments. Next week I'll talk about reading news, blogs and Twitter for up-to-the-second information.

How Do I Love Reading? Let Me Count the Ways

Lauren Lampasone, Reference and Research Services — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:31:08 -0500

This February in the eReading Room we'll be celebrating all the different ways we love to read. If you're the kind of person who will read a cereal box if it's the only thing nearby, you'll want to pay special attention to this four-part series. I'll be detailing some of the new ways we read now, outside of the traditional printed-and-bound-and-published volume (which, don't get me wrong, we still love just as much). This purpose of this series is to help you get the most out of online reading at work, at home, or on the go.

I Love Reading: PDF and EPUB
All about ebooks and other downloadable text. Whether you have an ereader or mobile device, you read on your computer, or (gasp!) you just print everything out, this post will explain the differences between formats, help you manage your files, and demystify Digital Rights Management (DRM).

I Love Reading: News, Blogs, Twitter
As print newspaper subscriptions continue to decline, more people look to the internet for up-to-the-minute news. This post will explain how to stay on top of sources of news and current information — and also how to avoid that feeling of info overload.

I Love Reading: Magazines and Long Form Journalism
Sometimes a true story of a unimaginable crime, an industry exposé, or a larger than life personality can be just as gripping as a work of fiction. Many magazines specialize in this type of journalism, and this post will share how online communities have formed around keeping this type of reading alive.

I Love Reading: Bookmarks, Pins, Favorites, Sharing
Maybe you read it and loved it and want to share it with others in your community, maybe you need to collect a bibliography for a project or paper, or maybe you want to save something to read or reference later. This post will discuss ways to save the things you read.

Is there anything in particular you'd like to see addressed on any of these topics? Please leave a comment!

Kerri's eBook Tips: Keep it Simple with One Catalog!

Kerri Wallace — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:12:08 -0500

The other day someone asked if I still read "regular books." Have I become anti-paper with my new Kindle love? The answer to that is, look at the paper cuts on my fingers. I am a fan of reading, whether it's in book format or electronic. During my commute I use my Kindle because it's lighter to carry around, but I still love the feeling of a heavy book on my lap when I read in my apartment. When looking for material to read or download, I can now do all of my searching and downloading in New York Public Library's catalog. Thus my latest eReading searching tip: keep it simple, use one catalog.

When you go to the New York Public Library's website you can search for materials in the search box located in the top right hand corner. When your results show, you can narrow down your search on the left hand side by choosing Availability, Format, Audience, and when items were acquired by the library. Let's say you type in "Joyce Carol Oates." Click on format to see what items might be available to download electronically. If it's not available to download, then you have the option to place a hold or request in the paper format.

My other favorite way to search the catalog for eBooks is by using the Advanced Search, which is located directly underneath the Search button. Clicking this link will bring you to a form where you have multiple options to narrow down your search. After you type in your keywords (or author, title, subject, etc.), scroll down the page, where again, you can choose the format of the items that you're looking for. For example, try typing "biography" as a subject and choose the format "eBook." You will get a list of great biographies that are available to download right to your eReader. Another thing that's great about using the Library's catalog is that you can now download the item right away, rather than get directed to eNYPL. You can also view your eCheckouts and eHolds from My Account on the New York Public Library's website. One catalog for one-stop shopping! Or should I say borrowing?!

Whew, after all that searching, here's a list of some great biographies that are available to request and download through the New York Public Library's catalog.

Celebrities:

Culinary Biographies:

History:

Humor:

Memoirs:

Kerri's eNYPL Tips: The Wish List

Kerri Wallace — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:14:26 -0500

I'm sure you've created a wish list in your mind that contains some impossibly unattainable items. For example, one of my wish list items includes a home on a private island. While my improbable wish list grows, I have started another list — an eNYPL wish list — where at least my reading dreams will come true.

My fellow eNYPL users: my number one eNYPL tip is to utilize the wish list feature, if you haven't already done so.

Last time, I mentioned that the best way to utilize the eNYPL catalog is by browsing, which can be a bit overwhelming and time consuming, as the catalog is so vast. Your eNYPL account allows you to place 12 holds, but you can add as many items as you would like to your wish list. As I browse the catalog, I like to add items to my wish list that I'm interested in reading but may not want to read or place on hold right away. This way, when I want to look for a new book to read, I simply browse my wish list first before consulting the eNYPL catalog. Keep in mind that the eList is different from a wish list. The eList is like an online shopping cart that lets you check out all your books at once rather than one at a time.

Don't know what to add to your wish list? Why not choose a popular mystery series? Here are some suggestions. You can also find more suggestions on this BiblioCommons list.

James Patterson's Women's Murder Club series:

Karin Slaughter's Grant County series:

Lee Child's Jack Reacher series:

Lisa Scottoline's Rosato & Associates series:

Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy:

Need an eBook Recommendation?

Kerri Wallace — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 03:39:31 -0500

After the unfortunate death of my Sony Reader, I went through the five stages of grief, as the loss of my device was a very dramatic event. I denied that it was broken, I threw a temper tantrum, I told a Best Buy employee that I would do anything to have it back, and I cried on the train, but I finally came to accept that I had sat on my Sony Reader and I alone was to blame. As I browsed sadly through the eNYPL catalog, images of the distinctly curved cracked screen flashed through my head, and I imagined the day when I could once again comfortably read a book on my 1 1/2 hour (sometimes standing) train commute. Finally the day came when I was united with a new eReader — a Kindle Fire from the Christmas gift giver, Santa Claus. I instantly downloaded a book and my obsessive use of the eNYPL catalog began again.

Whether you are a new or seasoned user of eNYPL, you may realize that searching the catalog can be a little tricky. Not all our favorite authors and titles are available to download instantly, so the best way to search is by browsing, which can be time consuming. So, I have decided to help you out! Every so often, check back for some of my eNYPL browsing tips and book recommendations when you're in need for a read. Be sure to also check out NYPL's new eBook Central if you have any questions about your device.

Today, I would like to start you off with a reading recommendation. The first book that I downloaded onto my new device was 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill. It has been on my to-read list for quite some time and happened to be one of the books that was waiting to be read on my ill-fated Sony Reader. 20th Century Ghosts is a collection of horror stories written by Joe Hill, a.k.a. Joseph King, Stephen King's son. While the collection is classified as horror — and there certainly were spine tingling tales — overall I thought the stories were more twisted and weird (but in a very good way).

This addictingly odd collection features a boy who transforms into a giant bug (Kafka fans?), a young outcast that befriends a living inflatable boy (my favorite of all the stories), a horror novel editor that finds himself in a real horror scenario, and plenty more. All the stories will grab your attention as you quickly devour Hill's writing.

If you like Hill's collection or creepy, twisted stories in general, here are similar titles that are available through eNYPL:

A Digital Public Library for America?

Matthew Boylan, Ask NYPL — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 07:26:37 -0500

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one... Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe... seems to have been designed by nature.

— Thomas Jefferson, Letter to MacPherson, August 13, 1813

The future of a Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) was the subject of a recent conference at Columbia University. The keynote address on DPLA was given by Robert Darnton, Director of the Harvard University Library (and an NYPL Trustee). No one has done more to push the idea of DPLA into the public consciousness than Darnton, who has written numerous articles, testified before both houses of Congress, and sought both public and private support to bring this idea into fruition. Last month there was an announcement that two foundations — the Sloan Foundation and Arcadia Fund — would contribute five million dollars toward its realization. The same day, DPLA announced that it would be collaborating with Europeana, the European digital library project, that has already began aggregating some five million digital objects from research libraries. Darnton now hopes to have some version of DPLA up and running by April 2013.

The objective of DPLA can be summed up as the desire to make as much of the learning and cultural patrimony of the United States in the humanities, the sciences, the social sciences, and other areas of knowledge free and accessible to the citizens of the United States and around the world. The technical backbone of DPLA is the use of free open source code. In order to lay the foundation for its collections, DPLA will begin with works in the public domain (broadly speaking, those published before 1923) that are freely accessible, and many of which have already been digitized. The Library of Congress and the National Archive have both already committed to providing content to DPLA, and it is hoped that the digitized holdings of NYPL, other major research libraries, as well as works already digitized by initiatives like the Hathi Trust and the Internet Archive, are set for inclusion in DPLA. DPLA will provide a number of tools to facilitate broad public access to this content.

The next objective of DPLA is to digitize the vast bulk of cultural works that are still in copyright — but long out of print — and, one would think, unlikely to generate any meaningful stream of revenue for those publishers and authors who hold copyright to these works. However, attorneys and lobbyists for publishers and authors who envision an endless "long tail" of sales for these works have strenuously resisted any meaningful change to existing United States copyright law, which in the view of many is both archaic and convoluted. There are now many proposed changes to copyright law that could clear away the roadblocks to the realization of DPLA. One can only hope that the relationship of DPLA with that of the representatives of the authors and publishers becomes, as Tom Allen, President of the American Association of Publishers, suggests, much like that of Humphrey Bogart to Claude Rains (the Vichy official who has just pointedly ignored Bogart’s shooting of a Gestapo Major) at the end of Casablanca: "the beginning of a beautiful friendship."