Tuesday, April 21, 2009

One Book, One Region 2009: Eastern Connecticut

The One Book, One Region Eastern Connecticut selection for 2009 is David Benioff's City of Thieves.


The author will be kicking off the event on April 30th, at 7pm at the Mystic Art Center. Map here.

Below is a review from Booklist:

Booklist Review: In 1941, the Germans circled Leningrad, starving its remaining citizens. His mother and sister evacuated, 17-year-old Lev Beniov remained, heeding the call for every able-bodied man to come to the defense of his country. After being caught out after curfew, Lev is thrown in the Crosses, the notorious prison, and while waiting for what he assumes will be an inglorious end, a summary execution at dawn, he is joined by the gregarious, indefatigable, and literature-spouting soldier, Kolya, imprisoned for desertion. When their lives are spared, they are assigned the impossible task of acquiring a dozen eggs for the wedding of a colonel's daughter, a task that takes them into the company of cannibals and Einsatzgruppen, dreaded Nazi death squads. A high-spirited adventure, Benioff's second novel (following the 2001 debut, The 25th Hour), ostensibly an account of the author's grandfather—a quiet immigrant who sold his real-estate business and retired to Florida with his wife—takes more than a little poetic license. When Benioff tells his grandfather that a few things don't make sense in the narrative, his reply: "You're a writer. Make it up." -- Segedin, Ben (Reviewed 04-15-2008) (Booklist, vol 104, number 16, p31)



It is the hope of the One Book, One Region Committee that everyone in the region can read the book and hopefully join us for the book discussions and programs that will be held by local libraries and schools.

Check out the One Book, One Region website for more information.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Finished your term paper...and now you have to cite your sources? We can show you how!

Here are a couple of cool tools for students and others who may be faced with the tedious chore of typing up a list of citations for term paper bibliographies or other types of formal reports.

Knight Cite http://www.calvin.edu/library/knightcite/ and Son of Citation Machine http://citationmachine.net/ both provide foolproof templates for easily creating perfectly formatted citations.Essentially, here’s how it works for both tools.

First, click on the formal “citation style” (APA, MLA, Chicago etc) you’ve chosen for your bibliography. Next, select the specific “resource type” (book, journal, web document etc) for each item to be included in your bibliography. Then type the information into the boxes provided (author, title, publisher etc) and click on the “submit” button. The citation tool creates a citation with accurate formatting and punctuation on the next page. Simply copy the citation and paste it into the Word document that will be your bibliography.

Incidentally, both of these tools can also be accessed from the Otis Library’s webpage under Resources and logging into ICONN.org with your library card’s barcode number. Then click on “Other Useful Resources” from the ICONN homepage and then “Citing Sources” to find both citation tools. Give them both a try and let us know what you think.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Friends of Otis Library Book Sale

First of all, we really appreciate the Friends of Otis Library! The monies they raise really helps the library acquire some great items that we normally couldn't afford, like our microfilm reader in the Genealogy room. Every Friday you can see the Friends here sorting the donated books to put into the book sale. It is truly a monumental task judging by the amount of books we receive each week. (By the way...there are some really good books down there ready for the sale!)


The hours of the Friends of The Library Book Sale are as follows:

Friday, April 17, 2009: 10-3
Saturday, April 18, 2009: 10-3
Sunday, April 19, 2009: 12-3

Get here early for the best selection!