Give Your Brain a Boost
In a recent article in The New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell quotes James Flynn, a renowned scientist, as saying "The mind is much more like a muscle than we've ever realized… It needs to get cognitive exercise". Learning a foreign language is one way to flex those brain muscles. Now you can take your brain to the gym with help from the Massillon Public Library. We have a fun, fast and easy language learning program called Mango Languages. The best part is that it's free for Massillon Public Library patrons and you can access it anywhere there is internet with your library card.
Mango is an easy and effective way to learn to speak a foreign language. Mango is available in two versions:
Mango Basic:
Perfect for a foreign language beginner, Mango Basic teaches everyday greetings, gratitudes, goodbyes and helpful phrases in a short period of time. The courses, which require only two to five hours of time to complete, are currently available in 34 foreign languages and 15 English as a Second Language (ESL) courses.
Mango Complete:
Mango Complete offers a 100-lesson course that digs much deeper and is designed to provide a more complete understanding of the entire language and culture. It is available in 31 foreign language and 14 ESL courses. Foreign language courses include Chinese, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. ESL courses include Polish, Spanish and Portuguese.
To learn more about Mango you can visit us at http://www.massillonlibrary.org/mango and get started on boosting your brain!
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Honoring our Past
Questions have been pouring in about Martin Luther King. One of the most interesting features we found is on the University of Virgina's Miller Center of Public Affairs web site http://millercenter.org/. In honor of Martin Luther King Day, the first installment of the new Presidential Recordings Series, a collaboration of the University of Virginia Press, its e-imprint, Rotunda, and the University's Miller Center of Public Affairs is the Lyndon B. Johnson Digital Edition that includes several conversations with and about King. The title includes hundreds of hours of presidential tapes covering everything from the War on Poverty to the Civil Rights Movement to the Vietnam War.
Each conversation is fully transcribed and annotated and accompanied by its audio file. The edition includes photos and video galleries, a linked timeline, and searching ability. Miller Center scholars are in the process of transcribing and annotating the secret White House tapes recorded by every president from Franklin Roosevelt to Richard Nixon. The press is offering a free trial of the edition through January 27. After that, users can sign up on the site for a free 48-hour trial.
As part of the University of Virginia's week-long commemoration of the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, the Miller Center is hosting a program exploring King's private conversations and public communications tomorrow, Wednesday, at 11 a.m. The program will highlight the relationship between King and President Lyndon B. Johnson that emerges in secret tapes recorded by Johnson. This event takes place at the Miller Center and will be webcast live at http://millercenter.org/.
Each conversation is fully transcribed and annotated and accompanied by its audio file. The edition includes photos and video galleries, a linked timeline, and searching ability. Miller Center scholars are in the process of transcribing and annotating the secret White House tapes recorded by every president from Franklin Roosevelt to Richard Nixon. The press is offering a free trial of the edition through January 27. After that, users can sign up on the site for a free 48-hour trial.
As part of the University of Virginia's week-long commemoration of the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, the Miller Center is hosting a program exploring King's private conversations and public communications tomorrow, Wednesday, at 11 a.m. The program will highlight the relationship between King and President Lyndon B. Johnson that emerges in secret tapes recorded by Johnson. This event takes place at the Miller Center and will be webcast live at http://millercenter.org/.
Excerpt from Shelf Awareness, Daily Enlightenment for the Book Trade
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Harness the Power of the Web
Did you know thousands of titles are at your fingertips from home or anywhere? You can learn how to browse, checkout and download digital books and more from the Massillon Library Web Site. We offer eBooks, audio books, music and video through the Ohio e-Book Project (OEP). As of September 2010, over 34,000 library patrons like you have enjoyed the Ohio e-Book Project holdings. The OEP is a consortium of 37 libraries that pool their resources to collectively purchase downloadable audio books and eBooks for use by library patrons right from their home computers and portable devices.
Let's take a closer look. What is an eBook you may ask? An eBook is made of text and images. It's a digital book, magazine or graphic novel that can read on a computer or portable device. How about an audio book? An audio book is a book you listen to. It's a recorded reading by a narrator or cast of actors and can also be enjoyed on a computer or portable device.
All you need to get started is an internet connection and a Massillon Library card. First start by checking to see if your device is supported by going to our web site http://www.massillonlibrary.org/, open the Books and Reading tab, click on Digital Books and then click on the Overdrive icon. Unfortunately not all devices are supported. We are here to help and would love to show you more. You can call us at 330-832-9831 ext. 327 or stop in our Computer Center and setup an appointment to see a demonstration.
Monday, September 27, 2010
BRING THEM ON!
Who knew that anyone would want to price beer cans? Well, now the Reference Department of the Massillon Public Library knows, and so do you! Louisville Public Library had the catalogue that contained the knowledge being sought by one of our patrons during the recent past.
The questions have been more diverse than usual these past few weeks. Our Reference Staff have been busy searching for state laws pertaining to child custody issues. We were able to guide the patron to The Public Library of Law website at http://www.plol.org, one of the largest free law libraries in the world. We were also able to help a patron find the Ohio law to determine the culpability of someone who did not report a sexually transmitted disease. Since we are not attorneys, these patrons were encouraged to seek help at websites that were compatible with their problems. Sites such as the Cleveland Law Library http://www.clelaw.lib.oh.us and http://ohio.gov/ have proven very helpful.
Study materials have also been a popular item as well. How to write a memoir, educational journals on special education, and documentary movies on planets were needed by our eager-to-learn-patrons. One of the more interesting queries was a nun who was trying find one of her ex-students, a priest. We found him at a new position at one of the merged parishes.
College and high school students have been swarming in with urgent requests for help. One student had a project on world poverty and we were able to guide her to the United Nations website http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ and http://www.un.org/en/mdg/summit2010 to find more information about the eight anti-poverty goals adopted by the General Assembly at a Summit Meeting that took place on September 20-22, 2010. We are confident that the next several months will be just as challenging if not more challenging! Bring your questions on!
The questions have been more diverse than usual these past few weeks. Our Reference Staff have been busy searching for state laws pertaining to child custody issues. We were able to guide the patron to The Public Library of Law website at http://www.plol.org, one of the largest free law libraries in the world. We were also able to help a patron find the Ohio law to determine the culpability of someone who did not report a sexually transmitted disease. Since we are not attorneys, these patrons were encouraged to seek help at websites that were compatible with their problems. Sites such as the Cleveland Law Library http://www.clelaw.lib.oh.us and http://ohio.gov/ have proven very helpful.
Study materials have also been a popular item as well. How to write a memoir, educational journals on special education, and documentary movies on planets were needed by our eager-to-learn-patrons. One of the more interesting queries was a nun who was trying find one of her ex-students, a priest. We found him at a new position at one of the merged parishes.
College and high school students have been swarming in with urgent requests for help. One student had a project on world poverty and we were able to guide her to the United Nations website http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ and http://www.un.org/en/mdg/summit2010 to find more information about the eight anti-poverty goals adopted by the General Assembly at a Summit Meeting that took place on September 20-22, 2010. We are confident that the next several months will be just as challenging if not more challenging! Bring your questions on!
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Journalism and Sports: A Successful Combination
Recently we had a question from a patron for our Reference Staff: Who is Frank Deford and why do I keep hearing about him? If you are an avid reader and sports fan, you may know that Mr. Deford has written 16 books of which two (Everybody's All-American and Alex: The Life of a Child) have been made into movies. He is the Senior Correspondent on the HBO Show Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel and a Senior Contributing Writer at Sports Illustrated. He does not stop there, however. You can also hear him every Wednesday morning NPR's Morning Edition. His recent novel, Bliss, Remembered is a love story set at the 1936 Olympics and in World War II.
We found his work so interesting we thought we would include a piece he shared with Morning Edition on August 4, 2010. This story will be sure to touch your heart and soul, as it did our patron and our staff.
Eric Compton's Gifts: Talent and a Donor's Heart
In May, two years ago, Isaac Klosterman, 26, a fine young man and former college volleyball player, was riding his motorcycle one night in Florida, when a hit-and-run driver pounded the bike from the rear. Isaac never saw what hit him.
Last Thursday in West Virginia, at the lovely old Greenbrier, a short golfer appeared visible approaching the 18th green, the final hole of the opening day $6 million PGA Classic there. The golfer coming down the fairway was named Erik Compton. He parred out, finishing the round in 63 to tie for the lead. Only it was Isaac Klosterman's heart that beat under the leader's shirt.
And even more incredibly, that heart is Compton's third.
Growing up in Miami, he was only 9 when he learned he had a rare disease that caused his heart to enlarge. He finally got a transplant three years later, took up golf, and became the country's best junior player.
He turned pro in 2001, but by 2007 he had a massive heart attack, nearly dying.
"Well, I'd had a great life," he told me when I interviewed Compton last month for HBO's Real Sports. But then, he got Klosterman's heart and started life all over again — but now with a wife, too, and a miracle baby that doctors told him he could never father because of all his medications.
Amazingly, he qualified for the U.S. Open this year, having to play 39 holes in a playoff — because fatigue is Compton's greatest enemy. He's made five cuts in the seven PGA tournaments he's played this year. But the grind is still often too much for his rehabilitation, and at the Greenbriar, he faded on the last day. That part is heartless.
He has met the donor family, the Klostermans. He knows about their son, whose heart lets him play PGA golf.
"Transplants are fine, but a twisted thing you live with," Compton says. But Isaac Klosterman's parents, Lillian and Jeff, had been immediate in granting permission for all his organs to be taken from him. "Otherwise," Lillian told me, "it would have been a total waste of a good person's body."
In some countries, there is a policy called "presumed consent," where unless a person denies the use of his organs upon death, they automatically can be transplanted. Here, it's the other way round: you have to give permission.
About 3,000 Americans are waiting for heart transplants today. Presumed consent would make it possible for another Erik Compton to walk down a PGA fairway, or to play a piano symphony, or to paint a masterpiece — or just to come back home and greet a family with love and gratitude.
Transplanted hearts run out in 15 years or so. Erik isn't worried. He's sure medicine will advance enough in that time. I met the late Dr. Christiaan Barnard, the first heart-transplant surgeon, in Cape Town years ago.
"Someday," he said, "we will have a body transplant. You just keep your brain and get a whole new body."
"You're joking," I said.
"No," Dr. Bernard said, "and your wife will love you more."
I think Erik Compton will be playing seniors' golf before he's through.
Frank Deford.
Recently we had a question from a patron for our Reference Staff: Who is Frank Deford and why do I keep hearing about him? If you are an avid reader and sports fan, you may know that Mr. Deford has written 16 books of which two (Everybody's All-American and Alex: The Life of a Child) have been made into movies. He is the Senior Correspondent on the HBO Show Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel and a Senior Contributing Writer at Sports Illustrated. He does not stop there, however. You can also hear him every Wednesday morning NPR's Morning Edition. His recent novel, Bliss, Remembered is a love story set at the 1936 Olympics and in World War II.
We found his work so interesting we thought we would include a piece he shared with Morning Edition on August 4, 2010. This story will be sure to touch your heart and soul, as it did our patron and our staff.
Eric Compton's Gifts: Talent and a Donor's Heart
In May, two years ago, Isaac Klosterman, 26, a fine young man and former college volleyball player, was riding his motorcycle one night in Florida, when a hit-and-run driver pounded the bike from the rear. Isaac never saw what hit him.
Last Thursday in West Virginia, at the lovely old Greenbrier, a short golfer appeared visible approaching the 18th green, the final hole of the opening day $6 million PGA Classic there. The golfer coming down the fairway was named Erik Compton. He parred out, finishing the round in 63 to tie for the lead. Only it was Isaac Klosterman's heart that beat under the leader's shirt.
And even more incredibly, that heart is Compton's third.
Growing up in Miami, he was only 9 when he learned he had a rare disease that caused his heart to enlarge. He finally got a transplant three years later, took up golf, and became the country's best junior player.
He turned pro in 2001, but by 2007 he had a massive heart attack, nearly dying.
"Well, I'd had a great life," he told me when I interviewed Compton last month for HBO's Real Sports. But then, he got Klosterman's heart and started life all over again — but now with a wife, too, and a miracle baby that doctors told him he could never father because of all his medications.
Amazingly, he qualified for the U.S. Open this year, having to play 39 holes in a playoff — because fatigue is Compton's greatest enemy. He's made five cuts in the seven PGA tournaments he's played this year. But the grind is still often too much for his rehabilitation, and at the Greenbriar, he faded on the last day. That part is heartless.
He has met the donor family, the Klostermans. He knows about their son, whose heart lets him play PGA golf.
"Transplants are fine, but a twisted thing you live with," Compton says. But Isaac Klosterman's parents, Lillian and Jeff, had been immediate in granting permission for all his organs to be taken from him. "Otherwise," Lillian told me, "it would have been a total waste of a good person's body."
In some countries, there is a policy called "presumed consent," where unless a person denies the use of his organs upon death, they automatically can be transplanted. Here, it's the other way round: you have to give permission.
About 3,000 Americans are waiting for heart transplants today. Presumed consent would make it possible for another Erik Compton to walk down a PGA fairway, or to play a piano symphony, or to paint a masterpiece — or just to come back home and greet a family with love and gratitude.
Transplanted hearts run out in 15 years or so. Erik isn't worried. He's sure medicine will advance enough in that time. I met the late Dr. Christiaan Barnard, the first heart-transplant surgeon, in Cape Town years ago.
"Someday," he said, "we will have a body transplant. You just keep your brain and get a whole new body."
"You're joking," I said.
"No," Dr. Bernard said, "and your wife will love you more."
I think Erik Compton will be playing seniors' golf before he's through.
Frank Deford.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)