Taste Buds Cookbook Club

Join us for our inaugural meeting of the Taste Buds Cookbook Club on Saturday, May 5 at 11:30 a.m.! The theme will be appetizers.

If you love to cook and want a fun, casual environment to try and share new recipes, the Taste Buds Cookbook Club is just for you! Each quarter you make a recipe from a selected cookbook or theme and then bring your dish to share with the group. We will have a discussion about your experience cooking and the cookbook itself. Don’t forget to bring a copy of the recipe and serving utensils. Library will provide beverages, plates and utensils.

The Taste Buds Cookbook Club will meet quarterly at 11:30 am.  Open to cooks ages 14 and more seasoned! Registration is required.

 

Show Your Library Card

During the month of October, we are celebrating how valuable your library card is! Show your area library card at these participating area businesses and get a discount.

1 Stop Auto Shop – 10% off any service.
1210 N. Main St., Chatham
217-483-1234

doTerra Essential Oils with Anne Tetzlaff – Your choice of FREE 1 year wholesale account ($35 value) or FREE car diffuser with wholesale account/essential oils purchase.
217-414-9055

Fantastic Sams – 10 % off all haircuts.
1013 Jason Place, Chatham
217-697-5490

John’s Appliance Service Center – 10% off service charges.
416 E. Walnut St., Chatham
217-483-2468

Lake Shore Learning Center – Free enrollment ($35 value) for new customers and $10 off one weekly tuition for existing families.
6100 S. 6th St. Frontage Rd., Springfield
217-529-9190

Marine Bank – We’ll deposit $50 in your new account! When you show us your Chatham Library card and open a new personal checking account with debit card.
Multiple locations
217-726-0660

Modern Woodmen of America – Free financial planning/life insurance/retirement consultation.
7036 Kingsmill Ct., Springfield
217-697-8317

Titan Games – $5 off any purchase of $50 – $99 and $10 off any purchase of $100 or more. (Can not be used with store credit.)
2205 Wabash Ave. Suite 103, Springfield
217-697-7019

Trendsetters Floral – 10% off in-store fresh flower purchase.
309 N. Main St., Chatham
217-483-8800

Usborne Books with Kathy Cooney – 10% off regular order.
217-370-9570

 

New Subscriptions for Investors

Attention investors!  The library has two new subscriptions that will interest you.  We recently acquired subscriptions to Morningstar DividendInvestor and Morningstar StockInvestor.

According to Morningstar’s website, DividendInvestor emphasizes quality recommendations for current income and income growth from stocks.  DividendInvestor “invests in economically advantaged companies that consistently raise their dividends and grow fast enough to keep ahead of inflation. Stock prices will fluctuate over time, but our strategy tries to minimize permanent losses of income and capital by focusing on dividend sustainability and margins of safety when purchasing stocks.”

According to Morningstar’s website, the focus of StockInvestor is buying core holdings at a discount.  StockInvestor “invests in companies with established competitive advantages and generous free cash flows, trading at discounts to their intrinsic values. These are core holdings, with more conservative ideas appearing in the Tortoise Portfolio and more aggressive ideas in the Hare Portfolio. We expect both portfolios to beat broad U.S. stock index benchmarks, such as the S&P 500, over rolling three-year periods.”

We hope you will come in and take a look at these new acquisitions.  These newsletters can be found in the Reference Collection, shelved in the 322s next to Morningstar FundInvestor and Value Line.

More Festive Christmas Cheer

Among the many delightful seasonal decorations gracing the library right now, none is cleverer than the Christmas tree made from books.  Have you seen it?

The book tree is located on our Christmas books display, located just past the main entry of the library.  We do hope you’ll come in to check out all of our lovely holiday décor along with your books, audiobooks, and movies.

Ushering in the Holiday Season

The arrival today of a gingerbread house made by library assistant Noel marked the beginning of the holiday season at the library.  Making a gingerbread house for the library is an annual tradition for Noel, pictured below with her latest creation.

To make this year’s house, Noel used four packages of pretzels (for the “logs”), seven pounds of powdered sugar (to make frosting), a box of frosted mini wheats (for the roof shingles), and a Halloween Kit Kat (for the front door), along with assorted store-bought candies and cookies.

For those interested in making their own gingerbread houses this holiday season, the library has two instructional books: The Complete Book of Gingerbread by Valerie Barrett and The Gingerbread Architect by Susan Matheson and Lauren Chattman.  Several others are available throughout the Rolling Prairie Library System as well, so let us know if you’d like to request one.

Be sure to come in and see Noel’s gingerbread house, which will be on display at least through the end of the year.

Learn More about Library on the Go

Want to know more about Library on the Go and how it works?  We’re having an informational class on Saturday, July 10 at 10:00 a.m.  Call the library to sign up!!

Library on the Go is the library’s new service that allows you to check out and download audiobooks, ebooks, music, and movies for your mp3 player, ebook reader, smartphone, and other devices.

Library on the Go

Download Audiobooks, eBooks, Music, and Video Anytime, Anywhere

Enjoy popular titles from the comfort of home

Chatham Area Public Library is proud to offer you best-selling and classic audiobooks, eBooks, music, and video available 24/7 from Library on the Go, http://libraryonthego.org.  You can browse the collection, check out with your library card, and download to PC, Mac, and many mobile devices.

To get started, you will need to install free software. For audiobooks, music, and video, you will need OverDrive Media Console. To read eBooks, you’ll need Adobe Digital Editions. Titles can be enjoyed immediately or transferred to a variety of devices, including iPod, Sony Reader, and many others. Some audio titles can also be burned to CD to listen on-the-go. Titles will automatically expire at the end of the lending period. There are no late fees!  Download the necessary free software and find out which devices are compatible at http://overdrive.com/ (look for the “Quick Links” section).

With hundreds of popular fiction and non-fiction titles to choose from, the new collection is guaranteed to have something for everyone. You can download best-selling novels, well-known classics, self-improvement guides, and much more.

This new service, powered by OverDrive, is free with your Chatham Area Public Library card. To get started downloading audiobooks, eBooks, and more, visit http://libraryonthego.org.

Gingerbread House

If you have been in to the library recently, you have seen how beautifully the building has been decorated for the holiday season.  One of our favorite decorations, however, is the gingerbread house that was made by our very talented staff member, Noel (pictured here at our staff Christmas party).

Noel said the house took about twenty hours to make over the course of more than a week.  She estimated that the house contains three batches of gingerbread cookie dough, two boxes of crackers for the roof, and about nine pounds of powdered sugar.  She said that she doesn’t like to buy too much candy or other special ingredients for decorating the house.  Most of the decorations are made from homemade frosting and other things from around the house–she saves Halloween candy every year to use for decorations, and reports that the trees are made from waffle cones.

Noel said that she learned how to make gingerbread houses from reading books on the subject.  Although it is fairly advanced, Noel said that The Gingerbread Architect: Recipes and Blueprints for Twelve Classic American Homes by Susan Matheson and Lauren Chattman is a very good book about making gingerbread houses.

Milestone Documents in American History

Attention history buffs and history students!  The Chatham Area Public Library has a new resource just for you.  Milestone Documents in American History is now more than just a book–although it is a book that can be found in the reference section under call number 973 MIL.  But if you’re at home and can’t make it to the library, you still have access to this important reference material online; all you need to access it is your library card number.

What documents might you expect to find in this database?  Some examples include:  “Revolutionary era standards such as Patrick Henry’s ‘Liberty or Death’ speech, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution. Important Presidential sources include Thomas Jefferson’s first inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Franklin Roosevelt’s speech following the attack on Pearl Harbor, John F. Kennedy’s 1963 address on integration, and George W. Bush’s address on September 11, 2001. Influential decisions of the Supreme Court are also included, from Marbury v. Madison to Brown v. Board of Education to Bush v. Gore. Critical documents related to minority rights are also present: Andrew Jackson’s message ‘On Indian Removal,’ the Seneca Falls Declaration, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, and the Equal Rights Amendment.“

While the full text of these primary documents is one major aspect of the database, that’s not all you get.  Learn more about the document and its place in history from the other information that is included in each entry.  This additional information includes a timeline, information about the document’s author and intended audience, a glossary, bibliography for further research, a discussion of the document’s impact, essential quotes from the document, and cross-references to related documents.

May Is National Mental Health Month

Did you know that about one in four adults in the United States suffers from a diagnosable mental disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health?  Recent economic difficulties have added to the stresses many Americans face in their daily lives; in fact, according to polls conducted by the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, the average well-being reported by Americans decreased steadily over the course of 2008, and Illinoisans reported lower-than-average well-being.  May is National Mental Health Month, one of the primary goals of which is to educate the public about mental health and mental illness.

What better place to educate yourself on the subject of mental health and mental illness (or any other subject for that matter) than the Chatham Area Public Library?  We have lots of books and other resources available on the subject, including:

Undoing Perpetual Stress: The Missing Connection Between Depression, Anxiety, and 21st Century Illness by Richard O’Connor [155.9042 OCO]

The Emotional Toolkit: Seven Power-Skills to Nail Your Bad Feelings by Darlene Mininni [158.1082 MIN]

Voluntary Madness: My Year Lost and Found in the Loony Bin by Norah Vincent [362.21 VIN]

Switching Time: A Doctor’s Harrowing Story of Treating a Woman with Seventeen Personalities by Richard K. Baer [616.85236 BAE]

The UltraMind Solution: Fix Your Broken Brain by Healing Your Body First: The Simple Way to Defeat Depression, Overcome Anxiety, and Sharpen Your Mind by Mark Hymen [616.8914 HYM]

Madness: A Bipolar Life by Marya Hornbacker [616.895 HOR]

Magnificent Mind at Any Age: Natural Ways to Unleash Your Brain’s Maximum Potential by Daniel G. Amen [612.82 AME]

More than Moody: Recognizing and Treating Adolescent Depression by Harold S. Koplewicz [616.8527 KOP]

Happiness Is a Choice: The Symptoms, Causes, and Cures Of Depression by Frank Minirth and Paul Meier [616.8527 MIN]

Bipolar Disorder for Dummies by Candida Fink and Joseph Kraynak [616.895 FIN]

Stalking Irish Madness: Searching for the Roots of my Family’s Schizophrenia by Patrick Austin Tracey [616.898 TRA]

If Your Adolescent Has an Anxiety Disorder: An Essential Resource for Parents by Edna B. Foa and Lisa Wasmer Andrews [618.92 FOA]

Enough Already! Clearing Mental Clutter to Become the Best You by Peter Walsh [646.7 WAL]

The Man Who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget’s Thesaurus by Joshua Kendall [B ROGET]

Mental Health Disorders Sourcebook : Basic Consumer Health Information about Mental and Emotional Health and Mental Illness, Including Facts about Depression, Bipolar Disorder, and Other Mood Disorders edited by Karen Bellenir [REF 616.89 MEN]