Thing 11 Library & Reference

East Central Regional Library has a couple of digital resources that I have been using for the past few years. Overdrive gives access to ebooks and eaudio.  Using my home computer and downloading to Kindle through Overdrive, I have been able to get many popular nonfiction titles right away.   I have downloaded eaudio books to listen to on my ipod--right now I am listening to 12 years a slave.  I'm pretty sure there is a long waiting list for the book.  I am glad that I have access to these devices so that when patrons have questions about how these programs work, I can help them to troubleshoot.
Zinio is our newest digital addition.  It is an app for looking at magazines.  We can get free access to about 80 magazines by typing in our library card.  This is a really fun site.  It's like browsing a magazine, but with an electronic version.  I also get a free digital subscription to the New Yorker because I have a paper subscription.  I must confess that I like the digital version better than the paper because I get it the day it comes out instead of in a week.  Reading magazines is probably how I use my tablet the most.
I was able to use my tablet to do some searches on ELM.  I was disappointed that I couldn't get the whole article in some cases.  I think I'll probably stick with the laptop or desk top version to do actual research.  I downloaded the St.Paul Public Library App.  It makes the screen easier to read.  I like how the site is organized and how easy it is to back and forth between locations, programs and searching the catalog.  It looks like it would be very fast to place holds and check your account.  It would be nice if ECRL had this feature--maybe in a few years.

We had a patron in yesterday and he said that he went shopping for a cell phone.  The clerk asked him what his previous cell phone was.  He replied that he had never had a cell phone.  The clerk then referred to something that could be done "on-line."  The patron said that he didn't have a computer.  This is typical of the patrons that we have at our rural library.  In the future we may have more cell phones, tablets and computers, but right now many of us manage to live our lives without these things.  He stopped in on Tuesday and asked us for a book and then stopped back on Thursday to see if it had come in (it had).