The Electronic Newsletter of the Palm Beach County Library System

Contents:
1/ Introduction to Books & Bytes
2/ Library Services
3/ Columbus Day Closings
4/ Useful Web Links Section Highlight
5/ In Next Month's Issue

1/ Introduction to Books & Bytes

Welcome to the September issue of Books & Bytes. This month we will provide an overview of our Library Services section. We will also notify you about a holiday closing and explore another area of our Useful Web Links.

We hope you enjoy receiving Books & Bytes. Please let us know what you think of our publication by writing to: webmaster@pbclibrary.org

2/ Library Services

The Palm Beach County Library System offers a wide range of services. Some of these services are only accessible in our libraries while others reach out into the community to help those in need. The Library Services section of our web site is designed to help you locate these services.

Library Services contains information on our library locations, hours, and Outreach Services.

Outreach Services: The library is more than simply a collection of buildings and books. Outreach extends library services to residents who are unable to come to the Library, or use regular library materials. Access may be limited for a variety of reasons, including age, disability, lack of transportation, or distance from a branch library. We offer a variety of outreach programs that aid the public and promote a lifetime love of reading. These services include Bi-Focal Kits, Book Deposit, Books-by-Mail, Described Videos, Outreach to Daycare, Outreach Links, and Telephone Devices for the Deaf.

The Adult Literacy Project offers adults an opportunity to become part of the solution to the problem of illiteracy. We recruit and train volunteer reading tutors to work with English-speaking adults who read and write below a 5th grade level. No teaching experience is required. We offer free, ten-hour Laubach tutor training workshops and provide all necessary materials to help English-speaking adults learn to read and write.

Our Bookmobile brings the Library to your neighborhood with a collection of over 2,000 books. The resources of the entire Library System are available to every Bookmobile user. The Bookmobile schedule of stops is also available at this site.

Talking Books are current popular books and magazines for adults and children, recorded on cassette tapes for patrons who are unable to read regular printed materials. Anyone who is unable to read small print due to blindness or a visual disability (includes large print readers), or anyone unable to hold a book or turn pages due to a physical disability, is eligible. Visit this page to learn more about this service.

Locations and Hours: We proudly offer service through the Main Library, 2 Regional Libraries, 11 Branch Libraries, a Bookmobile, and a Library Annex. Each branch location has its own web page which provides the telephone number, address, hours of operation, directions to the branch, and links to the special programs available each month.

Our Library Location Map provides a quick and easy way to locate the branch that you wish to visit. All branch icons are clickable, and will jump you to that library's information page.

Explore our "Library Services" further by clicking on over to:
http://www.pbclibrary.org/services.htm

3/ Columbus Day Closings

All Palm Beach County Library System locations will be closed on Monday, October 8, in observance of Columbus Day. (No materials due on this day; you may return materials in the book drop.)

4/ Useful Web Links Highlight

As a regular feature each month, we will examine one section of our Useful Web Links. Our web directory is compiled by librarians who apply their knowledge and experience of the Internet to locate the best web sites for each topic.

Did today's newspaper arrive too soggy to read? Do you need to locate an article from a few weeks back? Are you nostalgic to see what is happening in your old home town? To help answer these questions, this month we will provide a tour of our "Local and National Newspapers" section.

This is one of the smallest sections in Useful Web Links, but it is full of information. We start locally with a link to a page in our Government Research Service providing "Local Newspapers on the Web". From here, one can locate such diverse titles as the "Boca Raton News," the "Jupiter Courier," "New Times," and the "Palm Beach Post." We then branch out across the continent with a link to "Newspapers on the Web" which provides access to newspapers across the United States and Canada. The state of Florida is covered in- depth with "Florida Newspapers Online" covering publications from Jacksonville through Tampa and into South Florida. "U.S. News Archives" provides access to the online archives of many newspapers. Many of these archives are free, but some do charge a fee for accessing their information. Finally, this section contains "Prensalatina", a Spanish language site linking to newspapers across Latin America.

So the next time you are looking for a newspaper online, visit our "Local and National Newspapers" section.

5/ Next Month in Books & Bytes

In our next issue, we will examine the "Search this Web Site" feature, where you can locate information on the "pbclibrary.org" web site.