Volume
XL No.3
Fall
2017
Holiday
Book Requests
With the holiday season in full swing, it is time to start
thinking about closures at the library and post office. This year, the library
will be closed on Monday, December 25th, Tuesday, December 26th,
and Monday, January 1st. As a result, there will be no incoming or
outgoing mail on those days so your book deliveries may be interrupted or
delayed.
We encourage you to take a few moments and order extra
books to have on hand during that time; please have all requests in before Monday,
December 18th to ensure that your books have plenty of time to get
to you. Since our mail goes out first thing in the morning, book requests made after
Thursday, December 21st, will not be mailed until we re-open on Wednesday,
December 27th.
The holiday season is a great time to think about signing
up for BARD or downloading the BARD Mobile app (now available for iOS, Android,
and Kindle devices). BARD is a free download service for Talking Book patrons
that will give you instant access to over 100,000 audio books, braille books,
magazines, and music scores from the comfort of your home, even when the
library is closed!
For more information on BARD, please visit www.nlsbard.loc.gov or
call us at 1-800-622-4970. If you are interested in signing up for BARD, please
be aware that we will not be able to approve your BARD application on days the
library is closed, so be sure to apply before the holiday closures.
Quick
Tips: Talking Book Topics
A few reminders about your Talking Book Topics catalogs:
·
Talking Book Topics is available as either an
audio catalog or a paper magazine. The audio magazine comes in a cardboard
container with an order form; magazine cartridge needs to be returned in order
for you to receive future issues. The paper magazine can be kept forever.
·
Talking Book Topics is published six times a
year, or once every two months.
·
Each issue generally comes out no earlier than
the last week of the first month of that issue. For example, the
November-December issue will usually arrive during either the last week of
November or the first week of December.
·
You can always order out of any issue at any
time. In fact, ordering from an older issue makes it more likely that the books
you want will be available right away. We keep copies of each issue for a year,
so if you would like another copy feel free to give us a call.
·
If you choose to mail in your order form, send
it to your local library in Indiana instead of the address on the back of the
catalog.
·
Always remember to write your name on any order
forms or lists of books you send to the library.
New
Books from Indiana Voices
Indiana Voices is the program that allows our library to
produce books about Indiana or by Indiana authors. Please contact the library
about ordering these books or about signing up to receiving Indiana Voices
books regularly.
Robert
F. Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary (IDB00144) by Ray
E. Boomhower
On April 4, 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., arrived
in Indiana to campaign for the Indiana Democratic presidential primary. As
Kennedy prepared to fly from an appearance in Muncie to Indianapolis, he
learned that civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had died. Kennedy
broke the news of King's death in an impassioned, extemporaneous speech on the
need for compassion in the face of violence. It has proven to be one of the
great speeches in American political history.
Marking the 40th anniversary of Kennedy's Indianapolis
speech, this book explains what brought the politician to Indiana that day, and
explores the characters and events of the 1968 Indiana Democratic presidential
primary in which Kennedy, who was an underdog, had a decisive victory.
Scavengers:
A True Story of Money, Madness, and Murder (IDB00146) by Dick Cady
When a band of predators came to believe eccentric widow
Marjorie Jackson was a modern-day witch, it became the seed for the theft of
$3,800,000--more than the famous Brinks robbery. Did the Jackson family
grocery-chain fortune carry a curse? The money contributed to the mental
illness of the heir and his wife, lured 24 people into crime, brought about two
murders, and led two men to the electric chair.
An
American Tune: A Novel
IDB00150 by Barbara Shoup
While reluctantly accompanying her husband and daughter to
freshman orientation at Indiana University, Nora Quillen
hears someone call her name, a name she has not heard in more than 25 years.
Not even her husband knows that back in the ‘60s she was Jane Barth, a student
deeply involved in the antiwar movement. An
American Tune moves back and forth in time, telling the story of Jane, a
girl from a working-class family who fled town after she was complicit in a
deadly bombing, and Nora, the woman she became, a wife and mother living a
quiet life in northern Michigan.
The
Keeper of the Bees (IDB00153)
by
Gene Stratton Porter
Set in the author's adopted home of California in the
1920s, this is Gene Stratton-Porter's last novel, a story filled with wisdom, a
love of nature, and her own abiding optimism. In it a master bee keeper, his
bees, and the natural beauty of California restore a wounded World War I
veteran to health.
Morgan’s
Great Raid: The Remarkable Expedition from Kentucky to Ohio (IDB00158) by David L. Mowery
A military operation unlike any other on American soil,
Morgan's Raid was characterized by incredible speed, superhuman endurance, and
innovative tactics. One of the nation's most colorful leaders, Confederate
general John Hunt Morgan, took his cavalry through enemy-occupied territory in
three states in one of the longest offensives of the Civil War. The effort
produced the only battles fought north of the Ohio River and reached farther
north than any other regular Confederate force. Historian David L. Mowery takes
a new look at this unprecedented event in American history, one historians rank
as among the world's greatest land-based raids since Elizabethan times.
2018 Braille Calendar
We
have a limited supply of small, spiral bound 2018 braille calendars, sent to us
by the Michigan Braille Transcribing Fund, to give away. If you would like one,
please contact us at 1-800-622-4970.
NLS
has also compiled a list of organizations that produce calendars in braille,
print/braille, large print, or audio, which can be found online at: https://www.loc.gov/nls/braille-audio-reading-materials/calendars/
New Magazine Available
The
National Library Service recently added Kiplinger’s
Retirement Report to both their Magazine on Cartridge Program and BARD. Kiplinger’s is published monthly and
covers practical strategies to help grow retirement savings, how to make money
last during retirement, maximization of Social Security and Medicare benefits,
and other retirement related topics.
A
full listing of magazines offered by NLS is available in the back of each issue
of Talking Book Topics. Please
contact us to subscribe to Kiplinger’s or
any other magazine being offered by NLS.
Grant Opportunity Returns in January
Following the success of the
program in 2017, the Indiana State Library Foundation, in collaboration with
the Indiana State Library’s Talking Book & Braille Library, is once again
seeking applicants for a grant supporting patrons with the purchase of
assistive technology devices. The grants provide monetary reimbursements in
amounts ranging from $50 to $1,000 towards the purchase of an assistive
technology device of the grant recipient’s choosing. These devices remove many
barriers to education and employment for visually impaired individuals and may
include: video magnifiers, optical character recognition systems, speech
systems, etc.
Grant requests may be submitted any time
after January 1, 2018. The requests will be reviewed by a committee and awarded
on a quarterly basis until the funds allotted for the calendar year are
expended. Grants will only be awarded to a particular individual or institution
one time every three calendar years.
More information, including
application instructions, can be found online at http://www.in.gov/library/5442.htm.
Questions may be directed to us by email at tbbl@library.in.gov.
The Indiana State Library
Foundation was established in 2011 with a mission to serve citizens of Indiana
through the support, enhancement and promotion of activities of the Indiana
State Library, their programs and collections and to aid in development of library
related programs benefiting libraries throughout the state and the library
profession. To learn more about how you can help the Indiana State Library
Foundation support the Talking Books program, contact donations@library.in.gov.
Book
Recommendations: Best of 2017
Here are some of the best books of 2017, as chosen by The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Library
Journal.
Exit
West by Mohsin Hamid (DB 87691)
Set in an unnamed city with a strict social code, atheist
Nadia rebels against the strictures put upon her. She falls in love with the
gentle, religious-minded Saeed as their city falls into chaos and militias
seize control, forcing the pair to flee together. Unrated.
Killers
of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
by David Grann (DB 87767, LP 20462)
An examination of the 1920s murders of wealthy Osage Indian
Nation members in Oklahoma. When the newly-formed FBI bungled the investigation,
young Director Hoover turned to ex-Texas Ranger Tom White, who put together an
undercover team, including one of the only American Indian agents in the
Bureau. Unrated.
Letterman: The Last Giant of
Late Night by Jason Zinoman (DB
87901, BR 21985)
A
comedy critic for the New York Times examines the career of comedian and TV
host David Letterman, especially his many years as host of two consecutive
groundbreaking late-night TV shows. Includes interviews with Letterman and his
collaborators. Some strong language.
Lucky
Boy by Shanthi Sekaran
(DB 86763)
After being detained for illegally entering the country
from Mexico, Solimar Castro Valdez is forced to give
her son up for fosterage with Berkeley couple Kavya
and Rishi Reddy. While Soli fights to get her son back, Kavya
comes to love the boy. Unrated.
No
One is Coming to Save Us by Stephanie Powell Watts (DB 87902, LP 20515)
JJ
Ferguson grew up poor in Pinewood, North Carolina, but he has returned with a
fortune in hand. He begins to build an ostentatious mansion to woo his high
school sweetheart, Ava--who is now married and desperate for a child. JJ's
return upends the whole town. Some strong language.
Saints
for All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan (DB 87768, LP
20523)
The Flynn sisters, twenty-one-year-old Nora and
seventeen-year-old Theresa, leave their small village in Ireland for the
promise of America. Fifty years later, they are estranged. Nora is a matriarch
and Theresa a cloistered nun. Secrets they have hidden are revealed. Unrated.
Conversion
of Cassette Books Complete
In 2009, the Indiana Talking Book and Braille Library began
sending audiobooks to patrons on digital book cartridges. The digital books
come in blue containers and play on the small black Digital Talking Book
Machine; this is probably the only type of book and machine many patrons have
ever had. Since 2009, NLS has been working on converting the old cassette recordings
into a digital format; this project is now complete.
As such, the library is no
longer sending patrons the cassette books in the green containers or replacing
the large yellow cassette players. This
will not impact the library service you are currently receiving. If you
still have a cassette player that belongs to the library and you are not using
it, please return it to us by mail at 140 N. Senate Ave, Indianapolis, IN
46204. You can write “free matter for the blind” on the box you return it in so
you do not have to pay postage.
Indiana Insights is a
publication of the Talking Book and Braille Library, Indiana State
Library. Indiana Insights is also available online, in Braille, or on a
digital cartridge upon request. Any mention of products and
services in the Indiana Insights
newsletter is for information purposes only and
does not imply endorsement. This project
is funded in part with a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library
Services which administers the Library Services Technology act.
Indiana
Talking Book and Braille Library Calendar:
Monday December 25, 2017 Library Closed
Tuesday December 26, 2017 Library Closed
Monday January 1, 2018 Library Closed
Monday January 15, 2018 Library Closed
Friday March 30, 2018 Library Closed
Tuesday May 8, 2018 Library Closed
Monday May 28, 2018 Library Closed
Wednesday July 4, 2018 Library Closed
Monday September 3, 2018 Library Closed
Monday October 8, 2018 Library Closed
Tuesday November 6, 2018 Library Closed
Monday November 12, 2018 Library Closed
Thursday November 22, 2018 Library Closed
Friday November 23, 2018 Library Closed
Monday November 24, 2018 Library Closed
Tuesday December 25, 2018 Library Closed
Indiana
Talking Book and Braille Library Hours:
Monday
– Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
__________________________________________________________
Free
Matter for the Blind