Farewell

September 6 will be my last day at the Eastham Library. I hope to see as many of you as possible to thank you for your support and wish you farewell and good luck. There will be a reception that afternoon. If you can I hope you will stop by.

It has been a privilege to work in Eastham during such a period of great transition. I have really enjoyed learning about Eastham's unique and wonderful history, and getting to know many of you.

It has been a busy and productive period for the library with the completion of a community -based long range service plan, technology planning, a Preservation Survey grant to get advice for the new building from the New England Document Conservation Center, instituting The Eastham Game, Geek Talks, E-resource trainings, community artist shows and talks and local history programing in the summer; while as a staff we continue popular programs like the Book Group, Stories in the Pines, the winter music series, the Turnip Festival and our popular and growing children's services programs.

It has been a pleasure to be part of such a beloved town institution and meet the many hardworking people who make the library's services possible. With such a small staff we could never deliver the extensive program Eastham residents enjoy without our committed volunteers who always cheerfully support both ongoing services and special events.

As documented here the building project is now well under way with our professional architects leading the Building Committee and staff through explorations of possibilities that we think will delight the community when the Capital Projects Committee allows us to share our plans with you.

Best regards and best wishes to all!

Cheryl

New Library Moves Into Design Development

Last week our schematic design was accepted and we are now moving in to design development of the new building. What does that mean exactly? While we were in schematic design we were determining where rooms, areas, stairs, elevators and doors would be in the new building. This process began last September when we started working with our architects and project management team. Now that the Board of Trustees, the Capital Projects Committee and the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners , our granting agency, have all agreed on the basic layout we can begin to share our plans for what the new library will look like.

The architects are scheduled to show the plans for the new library at the September 16 Board of Selectmen meeting. Following their approval we will begin to schedule public meetings so everyone can see the new library.

We are now moving in to Design Development which involves placing bookshelves and furniture in the building, and determining what materials the surfaces will be made of. The architects will be gathering public comments and working with the Trustees and staff to determine what will make for a functioning and attractive new library.

The excitement is building!

Best regards,

Cheryl

I'm reading Letters From Skye by Jessica Brockmole

Tips and Tricks to Get the Most Out of Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is one of the most important sources of free ebooks on the web. This longest-established ebook project releases books that entered public domain, and can be freely used in electronic format.

World’s first ebook ever, created by the founder of Project Gutenberg Michael S. Hart, was officially added to the catalog in December 1971 – and, obviously, is still available for download.

Currently there are almost 43,000 ebooks in PG catalog. There are several file formats for download, including the ones compatible with Kindle (mobi), as well as Nook, Kobo or iBooks (epub).

Most epub and mobi books have two versions, with and without images, so you can not only enjoy reading the classic literature at its best, but also get the feeling of an old book.

I’m a fan of Project Gutenberg, not only because of its history, but also its clean interface and well-organized structure. It’s just a sheer pleasure to browse for new free books on PG, and I’m coming back to the site every week.

Some tricks to make it easily used are listed below.

1. Preview books online – with images

Before downloading any book from PG to your e-reading device, you can preview or read it in your web browser. The site offers two ways to do that.

First, you can read the book in a special reading interface. Click on a text link “Read this book online…” (No. 1 on a screenshot below). I like the other option, which preserves all hyperlinks, and most of all, it lets see illustrations, if they are a part of the book. All what you have to do is to click on “HTML” on a list of available formats (No. 2).

Project Gutenberg - preview books online

The “HTML” is somehow a hidden read-online option, as users can expect the file to automatically download on mouse-click. It is also very good to test how the book file is formatted.

Project Gutenberg files are very well prepared: the table of contents is working, and most of the elements of original print books are preserved.

2. Send ebooks in one click to Dropbox and Google Drive

At the end of 2012 the site added a very useful Dropbox integration. Google Drive joined in March 2013. What these integrations mean? You can send ebooks to any of the services in just one click. This is a huge time-saver. You can send the book to your favorite cloud storage service without downloading it to disc, and then upload it to the cloud.

Project Gutenberg - one-click send to Dropbox and Google Drive

When using Dropbox for a first time, click on a button and Dropbox will ask you to authorize Gutenberg app. Click Allow and the app will create a new folder, named gutenberg, where all the files will be sent and stored.

With Google Drive, you will be asked to grant access to your Google account. After that, sending files to Drive is a matter of one click. Unlike Dropbox (where books land in a special folder), files will appear in a main Drive catalog. You may want to move them to a special folder created especially for ebooks.

3. Get complete works of popular authors

When it comes to collections, Project Gutenberg does a fantastic job in putting together the works of popular authors. So, instead of several books (files) by Mark Twain, you can download all his titles published earlier on PG – in one file.

You can find here complete works of not only Mark Twain, but also William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Jane Austen, or Winston Churchill. What’s very important, if any of the collections is being updated, you can get an update via RSS, if you subscribe to it.

The best way to browse PG for these books is to type in a search box a keyword “complete” or “complete works“.

4. Get new entries via RSS feed

RSS feed is one of the strongest benefits of Project Gutenberg. Any new book added to the catalog will appear in the feed, but as mentioned above, also updates to older files will be seen.

You can subscribe to PG feed right from this link:

New on Project Gutenberg – RSS feed

There are between 10 and 20 new books added each day. In the feed, you’ll see the title and language the book is written. That’s enough if you are hunting for a specific author or series. For instance, I’m subscribing to the feed, to get noticed if there are any new issues of Astounding Stories of Super-Science added to the catalog.

5. Get new entries via email once a day

New ebooks on Project Gutenberg - daily email updatesIf you don’t use RSS or want to move away from it, Project Gutenberg also offers email subscriptions. However, notifications are sent as-it-happens, so you’ll get between 10 and 20 emails per day.

If you use Gmail, you can create a filter that sends PG notifications to a special folder. Alternatively, you can use a special email subscription I created using Feedburner:

New on Project Gutenberg – email once a day

You will receive an email with new/updated Project Gutenberg books between 5.00 and 7.00 PM Greenwich Mean Time.

6. Search for vintage images

This is a totally fascinating topic – images from old books. Do you know that you can search them very easily using Google? It took me half an hour to find these wonderful vintage illustrations of people reading, including rare images of Charles Dickens and Abraham Lincoln.

The site which is best suited for Google image search is Project Gutenberg, no doubt about it. As I mentioned above, all books are offered in html format – and that means their content can be accessed by Google web crawlers.

To find images on Project Gutenberg:

1. In a Google web search type the command that limits search to one site only. For Project Gutenberg this is:

site:gutenberg.org

You can follow it with a keyword or key phrase you are looking for:

site:gutenberg.org library

2. Then, click on an Images search tab:

Finding images in public domain ebooks

The results are astonishing. You won’t see here scanned book pages, like on other sites. You’ll see only images that were included in the original books as illustrations or photos.

Below there is a screenshot with images returned for a “library” query:

Project Gutenberg - images from public domain ebooks

7. Access Project Gutenberg from your mobile phone

Project Gutenberg also has a mobile version. When you enter PG’s URL address in a browser on your phone, it does not automatically load the mobile interface, however there is an easy fix for that.

Project Gutenberg mobile siteIn the address box, replace “www” with “m” (which stands for “mobile”), and you’ll get a clean and very functional mobile interface that loads really fast.

So, the URL address to mobile PG site is:

http://m.gutenberg.org

You can use search book to browse for books. On a front page there are three sections you can use for a quick search: popular, latest, and random books.

What’s even better is that you can download ebook files from a mobile browser right to your e-reading application.

For instance, if you use Kindle app to read books on your iPhone, tap on a link to Kindle file and you’ll see a button “Open in Kindle”. Simple as that.

8. Browse Project Gutenberg from Google web search

Project Gutenberg is the only ebook site that has special treatment on Google. Like major news sites (NYT, Guardian, Forbes), you can search PG directly from Google web search.

Type “project gutenberg” in a search box, and you’ll see the extended site info. At the bottom there is a search box that will let you limit results only to Project Gutenberg. It works similarly to key phrase “site:gutenberg.org”.

Project Gutenberg - search via Google

What’s very good about this feature is that you can search PG using all available search options and tools Google offers (images, search by custom date range, sorting results, etc.)

Piotr Kowalczyk

About Piotr Kowalczyk Founder of Ebook Friendly. Ebook enthusiast, technology geek, iPhone artist, and self-published author from Poland.

We've started a very busy summer here at the Eastham Library. We have over 160 children participating in the library's summer reading program. The Tuesday evening programs for families at the Council on Aging have been drawing crowds of over 100 people. Adult programs include Stories in the Pines, local author presentations, and an exhibit and demonstration by local textile artist Susan Pellowe. Her weaving, felting, and handmade paper creations are on display for the month of July. All sales benefit the Library Building Fund.

We hope to wrap up schematic design with our architects this summer so soon we will have at least a layout of the new building to share with you.

Hope you are enjoying these beautiful days of summer. Cheryl

We've now had two reviews with the architects and MBLC Building consultant Lauren Stara and plans for the new building are coming together nicely.
The Library Trustees have cancelled the public presentation planned for June 12 so they can first meet with the Capital Projects Committee and Board of Selectmen with the plans to date.
We will let you know as soon as possible when the public meeting has been rescheduled.

Eastham Library Recieves Grant Funding

We have now signed a contract with the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) for the release of grant funding amounting to $4.3 over a period of five years. The first Payment is due before the end of June this year and we can file for the second payment after July 1 this year when the MBLC has approved our plans.
The photo above shows back row: Director Cheryl Bryan, Board President David Payor, and MBLC Consultant Lauren Stara and Front row:Architects Conrad Ello and Mathew Oudens reviewing the new schematic design for the building.

The excitement is building!
Cheryl

Beginning work with our new architects

On Monday , February 25 the Board of Trustees and I met with our new architects to review the new Building Program. The excitement is building now that we have begun work on the schematic design of the new building. We expect the new building to include more seating, more windows overlooking the pond, small and a large meeting room, a children's activity room, an expanded archive area, a modest coffee service, more seating with access to electricity for laptop and tablet users among other things.

If you have not yet attended any our Saturday winter music programs this is your invitation to join in the fun. The music begins on Saturdays at 1pm and continues through the afternoon.

Thanks to Stephanie Foster for sharing her Dune Experience photographs with us for the month of February!

Cheryl

I'm reading Bill Bryson's At Home and Tracy Chevalier's Last Runaway