Collection
Read On! Beginnings
Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash
The new year is upon us! If you’re like most people, the new year is a time of new beginnings. A time when we wipe the slate clean. A time when we decide/resolve to try new things, hone your skills, and improve your life.
Lucky for you, your library can make achieving these goals easier and a lot less expensive. We are your source for resolution resources!
Want to learn a new skill? Try our DIY online resources. They cover everything from home maintenance and repair to crafting how-tos. The written instructions include detailed pictures and the video instructions are as good as YouTube but without commercials.
Want to learn a new language? Check out Mango through your computer or their app. With more than 70 languages to choose from, you’re sure to find something fun to learn. Our nonfiction collection (specifically the 400s) also includes several languages.
Want to get organized and declutter your home? Our nonfiction collection (specifically the 648 area) has you covered! We have popular titles like “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” and more generalized titles that will help get you started.
Want to eat healthier? Or perfect a new style of cooking? We have cookbooks for days! They range from specialized diet cooking to cookbooks by famous chefs.
We even have resources for money management, exercise, etc. And of course, we have plenty of material for even the most strenuous reading challenges!
If your goals for 2019 include making friends or being more social, don’t miss out on our adult workshops and events. Join us the second Thurs. of each month (Feb. through Apr.) at 7 PM for a mixture of speakers and crafts. Don’t forget about our Books and Brews Club the 1st Sat. of each month at Fat Toad Brewing! We’ll discuss “Soulless” by Gail Carriger this Sat.
Read On! Organizing a Personal Library
Photo by Iñaki del Olmo on Unsplash
I get asked a lot about the best ways to organize a personal library. To be honest, there is no right or wrong way as long as the way you’ve chosen to organize your library works for you. Even if what works for you is to organize by size and color.
The whole point of organizing any library – personal or public – is so you can find the materials you want easily. In my personal movie library, I classify everything into two main categories with two subcategories. The main categories are: “Kids” and “Not Kids.” Within my “Not Kids” category, I have the subcategories “TV Series” and “Movie Series.” Then, according to their category or subcategory, I dump the movies into a cloth-covered bin and put the bins in a cube storage organizer.
I classify our books and comic books a bit differently and with more complicated categories and subcategories. But like our movies, I have not put our books and comic books in alphabetical or Dewey Decimal order. They aren’t dumped in bins, but they’re not shelved with meticulous care either.
That works for us. We know where things are and we don’t have a personal library large enough that we need to be more specific in our categorization or shelving.
For anyone wanting to keep track of a personal library with more than a spreadsheet, I always recommend Library Thing. It’s a free (up to 200 items) online tool to help catalog and inventory your personal library. Some organizations like churches and small law libraries use Library Thing for their public collections. It lacks some of the features of a more robust library software package (like the ability to print spine labels), but it’s pretty neat and very functional for a mostly free service.
If you need more books for your personal library, check out our perpetual book sale in the Graham Ave. vestibule.
Read On! Fitness & Food
This year is going so quickly! Here we are in May. If you’re like many, May means the sudden realization that summer is coming. And summer coming means reevaluating that hastily made New Year’s resolution. You know the one. How’s it going? Yep. Me too.
If you want to reinvigorate a long-term goal of getting healthier, your library has you covered. From books about exercise and nutrition to cookbooks that will get you out of a cooking rut (or inspire you to start cooking with all the fruits and veggies coming into season), our collection is a good place to get inspiration.
Our staff will always help you find what you need, but if you’d like a place to start browsing, head over to the nonfiction collection. Generally speaking, diet and nutrition books are shelved at 613.2 while exercise plans are at 613.7. “Learning to Breathe Fire,” a book about Crossfit, is on my short list of things to check out.
For inspiration in the kitchen, check out 641.5. That’s where the cookbooks live. My spring project is to check out cookbooks and copy recipes for my personal library. “101 One-Dish Dinners” is my current favorite, but I’m pretty sure “300 Slow Cooker Favorites” will move up the list soon.
The above Dewey Decimal numbers will get you started, but it’s worth browsing beyond those general numbers in order to catch books that have a more specific focus. If you’re looking for something particular like the Paleo diet or cooking for diabetes, it’s worth asking staff or checking our catalog to save you some time.
You can access our catalog by going to www.pryorlibrary.org and clicking “Search the Library.” Our ebooks and downloadable audiobooks will come up in your searches too, so don’t forget about Overdrive.
Always remember: the best way to have a beach body is to take your body to the beach.
Not your Grandma’s Poetry
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
So begins a poem in Mary Oliver’s New And Selected Poems, volume 1, one that ends with the determined line,
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
This sense of energy and resolve permeates Oliver’s work. It took me until I was in my late twenties to realize that poetry could be read for pleasure – it’s not all the dry, flowery stuff we studied in school (sorry, English teachers!) Mary Oliver was one of the first poets I really loved; she might be your new favorite, too.
If you’re new to the contemporary poetry scene, a good place to start is Billy Collins’ (Poet Laureate, 2001 – 2003) Poetry 180, a collection of poems about everything from Alzheimer’s to bagels to an ode to Barbie’s Ferrari. Sad, romantic, funny, desperate – there’s a poem for every emotion. Try dipping into it a poem or two at a time, and before long I suspect you’ll find that more and more of them speak to you.
For poetry that showcases a diverse slice of humanity, Poetry Speaks: who I am (edited by Elise Paschen) and Cool Salsa: bilingual poems on growing up Latino in the United States (edited by Lori M. Carlson) both do the job with unapologetic verve.
God made you brown, mi’ja
color bronce, beautiful/strong,
reminding you of the goodness
de tu mamá, de tus abuelas
y tus antepasados.
But to many of us, say “poetry” and the first thing we think of is the romance of love poems. For a modern take on the ode to love, try Dizzie in Your Eyes: poems about love by Pat Mora.
We watch other couples
and feel happy that now we belong
to the world of twos.
