Parents can help their children begin to learn a language in the comfort of home using the Library’s subscription to the award winning Little Pim language learning series. Parents and kids alike enjoy Little Pim because it uses the entertainment immersion method, an online, engaging and interactive way to learn.

Through the library, we offer ten different languages through Little Pim: Russian, German, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Hebrew, English, Spanish and French.

Oh, and for you grownups that want to learn a language, we offer Mango Languages as an online product in addition to the hundreds of language learning resources we have ready for check out on site.

Posted by Lindy, a second floor librarian

Corvallis has long been on the forefront of environmental and sustainability initiatives and the library is a proud partner in that effort. As such, we are happy to share that we have a new database this year: Global Reference on the Environment, Energy and Natural Resources (GREENR). GREENR offers authoritative, current and expansive content focused on environment and sustainability topics.

GREENR is perfect for researchers, students, professionals and community members who are interested in environmental topics. For example:

• Students will find resources covering science, history and politics.
• Professionals will find data on law, economics, politics, resource management and other issues tied to business success.
• Job seekers will learn about the education required to enter the green-collar marketplace.
• General patrons will find timely information on wide-interest topics like food safety and public transportation.

GREENR is truly a one-stop site, combining a wealth of resources, including news, unique commentary, audio, video, primary source documents, and case study statistics. Navigating GREENR is easy because of its web-like interface, making it intuitive and user-friendly. New information is added daily, making it a great place to research timely information and current hot topics.

One particularly unique feature of GREENR is its country, topic/issue, and organization portals, which cover 160 nations, over 150 different topics and issues (from animal welfare to solar energy), and overviews and links to major environmental international associations (from Greenpeace to the World Wildlife Fund).

Like all of our databases*, GREENR is accessible via an Internet connection, with your library card, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. If you would like to give it a try, access it from our A to Z database page.

Books, Videos, and other resources:

In addition to GREENR, we carry a wide variety of resources on sustainability and the environment. Additional searching in our catalog for key words such as solar power, recycling,  green living, environmental protection will retrieve great resources.

Local Resources:

Interested in getting involved in sustainability issues in your local community? Check out the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition and Corvallis Independent Business Alliance for more information.

If you have questions about GREENR or any of our other resources, please feel free to contact a librarian via email or phone at askalibrarian@ci.corvallis.or.us or (541) 766-6793.

* Exception: Ancestry.com is only accessible in the library.

I’ve discovered two things: 1. 1984 is a phenomenal book for fans of sci-fi and great literature alike, and, 2. 1Q84 seems only loosely related to 1984, so I could have skipped it and still understood the Murakami novel.  Reviews of 1Q84 have ranged from glowing to scathing, but no matter what I personally end up thinking of it when I finally finish 700 or so more pages (!), I will be forever grateful to it for encouraging me to read a bold, intense classic I’ll never forget.

Reading 1984 is in keeping with last year’s New Year’s resolution to read more classics I’ve missed.  I also read Love in the Time of Cholera (boring!) and tore through Wuthering Heights (loved it!)  Have you read a classic recently that has knocked your socks off?  What are some of the best classics out there, in your opinion?  Reading classics has definitely given me a greater appreciation for and understanding of my favorite genre, contemporary fiction.  Classics are key to fully appreciating great literature.

If you’re a fan of 1984 or 1Q84, below are some other books you might enjoy.  Also, don’t forget about our amazing database, Novelist ( look under “N” in the A-Z list of databases and use your library card to access it from home).  If you want to find books to read based on other books you’ve enjoyed that have been recommended by a trained and well-read librarian, take a look at Novelist.

If you like 1984 try:

The Children of Men by P.D. James

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut

If you like 1Q84, try:

Brida by Paulo Coehlo

The Changeling Kenzaburo Oe

Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges

V. by Thomas Pynchon

Villa Incognito by Tom Robbins

Posted by Bonnie, a second floor librarian

Take a look around the Booklist site (you’ll need to enter your library card to access it from home) where you’ll find other great lists such as Top 10 Food Books 2011 and the monthly High Demand Hot List .  This is a great database which we librarians use as one of our selection tools.  We think you’ll enjoy it too for getting reading suggestions.  The library has a subscription so it’s free to you with your library card.

You’ll find Booklist listed alphabetically under the A-Z list on our “Research” page along with all our other subscription databases.

Let us know what you think of Booklist!

Posted by Alex, a second floor librarian

I am also starting to be followed around by my own personal Spring poem. Like Emily Dickinson’s A Certain Slant of Light hounds me in Fall, Robert Frost’s Mending Wall always comes back to me in the Spring. Both of these poems are available in our LitFinder Database as well as a lot of wonderful essays, short stories, biographies and work overviews.

For your enjoyment click on the following link to access a piece of the soundtrack to my brain:

Mending Wall

If you have trouble with the above link go to the

LitFinder Database

and search for Robert Frost and Mending Wall.  Then click on the tab for Primary Sources & Literary Works. The second link is the poem.

For more great online resources please visit the Research section of our website.

Got questions please feel free to contact us.

Posted by Sharon, a Second Floor Librarian

* More than 14,000 pro/con viewpoint essays
* 5,000+ topic overviews
* More than 300 primary source documents
* 300 biographies of social activists and reformers
* More than 775 court-case overviews
* 5 million periodical articles
* Nearly 6,000 statistical tables, charts and graphs
* Nearly 70,000 images and a link to Google Image Search
* Thousands of podcasts, including weekly presidential addresses and premier NPR programs
* A national and state curriculum standards search, correlated to the content that allows educators to quickly identify material by grade and discipline

As I was browsing through this resource today I found great articles on a couple of topics that have had a strong presence in the news lately.

Health Care and Insurance

Gun Control

Just click on the links above to be taken to these articles.

For more great online resources please visit the Research section of our website.

Got questions please feel free to contact us.

Posted by Sharon, a Second Floor Librarian

Although I am done with my Christmas shopping there may be those of you out there who are still trying to decide what to buy. In a previous post (ok, perhaps more than one) I hawked our subscription to the online version of Consumer Reports but we also have other consumer help resources that you might find useful.

One recent addition to the Consumer Information section of our Research pages is the Consumer Product Reviews widget. It allows you to quickly locate product/service evaluations for some of today’s most purchased products from thousands of magazines available through our Gale OneFile magazine article database. This search will limit you to just product review articles that have been selected by editors at Gale so there is no wading through endless hits of articles that may not have anything to do with what you are looking for.

To access this online tool visit our Consumer Information page. The widget is located on the upper right hand corner of the page. You can choose from a select list of products, or type a product name into the search box to locate full-text product/service evaluations from a variety of publications.

Got questions?  Feel free to email us at askalibrarian@ci.corvallis.or.us.

Posted by Sharon, a Second Floor Librarian

With LearningExpress you have access to free, unlimited  interactive skillbuilding courses in math, reading, writing and computer programs like like Excel, Word and Adobe Photoshop. You also have access to a variety of practice tests based on official exams such as the ACT, SAT, GED, ASVAB Core, and EMT Basic, firefighter, police officer, paramedic, Allied Healthcare, U.S. Citizenship and many more.

LearningExpress provides over 770 of the most up-to-date test preparation and skill-building resources. In addition, job-skills tutorials are available to assist in creating a great resume, honing interviewing techniques, and improving business communications. Patrons also have the option of selecting from more than 130 e-Book titles to help learners of all ages prepare for success. This innovative platform includes self-paced study, instant scoring, and diagnostic feedback .

To access LearningExpress go to http://corvallis.libguides.com/education or http://corvallis.libguides.com/atoz.  These are just two of our great research pages located under the Research link on the red bar at our homepage.

Posted by Sharon, a Second Floor Librarian

First, the celebration piece. We have a variety of books with tips on celebrating the holidays with traditions, food and family. Just click on the book jackets to get more information.

Second, we can help you to shop smarter with ready access to Consumer Reports online and in print.

You can access ConsumerReports.org for free - we paid for the subscription so you don’t have to!

To access Consumer Reports: Click here if inside the library | Click here if outside the library

Just enter your library card number to get to the website if you are accessing it from home.

And finally some fun and light-hearted fiction to brighten up your days.

Posted by Sharon, a Second Floor Librarian

Or if you are new to Novelist, this is a great resource for finding books in a series, read-alikes, reviews and recommendations on what to read next.

To access Novelist:

–Click here if inside the library

–Click here if outside the library

One of the new features that intrigues me is the  the ability to search for appeal factors including storyline, pace, tone and writing style.  While Novelist and our online catalog have always offered the ability to search by subject, these appeal factors get more to the feel of a particular book.  For example I recently read and greatly enjoyed the book The Help by Kathryn Stockett.   For me the subject matter was interesting but that was not really what kept me flipping pages late into the night.  For me it was the fast-paced  and upbeat feel of the book.

Now with Novelist you can search by just those kind of appeal factors.

Want to try it out?  Here are a few tricks I found useful:

• To get directly to the kind of items you want, use advanced search.  To access this screen click on the words Advanced Search located under the search box on the home page.

• To limit your books to just adult titles only click the checkbox Adults and then click Update Results after you do your initial search.

• Use the links on the right side to limit your result set even further based on appeal characteristics you may not have thought of.

If you like Novelist  check out our other reader’s advisory pages:

Books

Lisa’s Good Nonfiction Reads Guide

Sharon’ Fiction Guide

Posted by Sharon, a Second Floor Librarian