Website Conversation

Photo by FHKE

The WCCLS Web Team gave a presentation on Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think at the Beaverton City Library today. This was the beginning of an ongoing conversation on web best practices between WCCLS, the city and community libraries, and their city web departments.

The presentation, an HTMLed version of the presentation, and a handout (PDF) are available online.

5/12: Molly Gloss at Garden Home Library

The Garden Home Community Library is pleased to host author Molly Gloss on Tuesday May 12, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. Gloss will be giving a reading and discussion of her book, The Hearts of Horses.

Molly Gloss is a fourth-generation Oregonian who lives in Portland. Her novel The Jump-Off Creek was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for American Fiction, and a winner of both the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and the Oregon Book Award.

The Dazzle of Day was named a New York Times Notable Book and was awarded the PEN Center West Fiction Prize. Wild Life won the James Tiptree Jr. Award and was chosen as the 2002 selection for "If All Seattle Read the Same Book."

The Hearts of Horses, published in 2007, is the novel of a young woman breaking horses for several ranchers in Eastern Oregon in the winter of 1917.

Garden Home Community Library is located at 7475 SW Oleson Road, just north of Garden Home Rd.

5/1-10: Hillsboro Library Friends Spring Book Sale

The Friends of the Hillsboro Public Library present their Spring Book Sale. It is held at the Hillsboro Main Library May 1-10, 2009 in the Main Library Meeting Room.

Items are added every day throughout the sale, so come early and come often.

Come in and browse any time during library open hours at the Hillsboro Main Library at 2850 NE Brookwood Parkway. The library (and sale) are open Monday through Friday 10-8, Saturday 10-6, and Sunday 12-6.

For your convenience, there is an ATM machine for the Main Library Lobby, where $1.40 of the $1.50 fee goes to the Friends of the Library.

For more information, call 503/ 615-6500 or sign up for their Book Sale announcement email list at http://hillsborolibraryfriends.org/.

This year's sale offers more than 50,000 items to choose from. For example, there are almost 300 boxes of books sorted into 32 categories. Those categories include:

General Books:

• Art/Photography
• Business
• Childrens books
• Classics/Poetry/Philosophy
• Computer
• Fiction/Fantasy/Science Fiction/Mystery/Religious Fiction/Romance/True Crime
• Large print books
• Biography/History/Political Science/Current events
• Reference
• Religion/New age
• Science/Animals
• Sports/Humor/Games

How-to:

• Cooking/Crafts
• Fix-It
• Gardening
• Health
• Parenting
• Self Help/Relationships
• World Languages

Audio/Video:

• Audiobooks
• CDs
• LP Records Albums
• VHS/DVDs

The Friends welcome your donations of books, videos (VHS and DVD) and CDs. Please drop them off the Main Library's Welcome Desk, where there are donation receipts for tax purposes.

Library2Go's New Features

You've asked for new features with Library2Go, and we've got them.

You asked for more control in how long you can check out an item. The new default lending period for Library2Go items is 7 days. A week for both audio and video.

However you can choose a different check-out period if you like.

• Lending period options for Library2Go Audiobooks:
  • 7 days (default)
  • 14 days
• Lending period options for Library2Go WMV Video:
  • 3 days
  • 7 days (default)
  • 14 days

You asked to be able to rate things in the Library2Go catalog.
Now, you can rate titles in the Library2Go catalog. And other patrons will see them! Patron ratings range on a scale of 1-5 stars.

New website for Beaverton City Library

Beaverton City Library is proud to announce its new website, at http://www.beavertonlibrary.org/.

The new website has a simpler design and a widget that lets patrons access the WCCLS catalog directly from the homepage.

Beaverton also introduced two new blogs when the website was unveiled earlier this month:

• Did You Know?
  Resources, search strategies, & helpful tips for finding information.
• BCL Kid’s Blog
  Good things for kids to check-out, fun things for kids to do.

Science Online gets Upgraded

Are you in middle or high school and need some reliable science information? If you have a Washington County Library card, you can use Science Online.

Now, if you don't have a card, we can help with that too.

Science Online is one of our subscription databases, and they've recently added new content and features. Why? To make it even more accessible and user-friendly for you.

For example, check out:

• their useful new "Did You Mean...?" feature and other search enhancements, including filtering video search results for closed-captioned only.
• the Science Standards link, which allows users to search for science education standards and then find entries related to those standards, now at the top of the page.
• their new easy-to-use conversion calculator, where you can convert measurements such as volume, weight, speed, time, and more.
• more new or newly colored illustrations, helping students to better visualize important scientific ideas and concepts.
• more than 500 new entries, including artificial intelligence, robotics, computer security and risks, the Internet and the World Wide Web, computer science fundamentals and programming concepts, and climate change.

This is one sure way to impress your instructors...

Hillsboro invites you to Share Your Oregon Story

Oregon Trail View, photo by Peter M. Graham

February marks the 150th (sesquicentennial) birthday of Oregon. In honor of the sesquicentennial, and as part of the Oregon Reads 2009 program, Hillsboro Public Library invites you to Share Your Oregon Story.

Every year, thousands of people come to Oregon to begin a new life. Pretty much everyone who lives here now either moved a long way to get here, or is descended from someone who did.

Maybe it is what drew you to this state, how things have turned out, or even the journey itself that is most interesting or memorable.

Tell your story in 500 words or less, and give it (along with a submission form) to a reference librarian at the Hillsboro Public Library by the end of April. Your story will become part of the library’s collection, shelved in the Oregon History section.

Guidelines

• Stories can be submitted from February 1 - April 30, 2009.
• Stories should be 500 words or less.
• Typed entries are preferred, but handwritten is OK.
• Turn in your story, along with a submission form, at a reference desk at either the Hillsboro Main Library or Shute Park Library Branch.
• Stories will be grouped by age: 8-10, 11-13, 14-17 and 18+/adults. The collection will be on display for the public to read at the libraries before it is catalogued and shelved.

More information is available on the Hillsboro Library website.