The Electronic Newsletter of the Palm Beach County Library System

Contents:
1/ Introduction to Books & Bytes
2/ Renewing Your Material Online
3/ Database of the Month – Poem Finder
4/ The Book is Announced!
5/ A Quick Byte – Print Preview
6/ In Next Month's Issue

1/ Introduction to Books & Bytes

Welcome to the February issue of Books & Bytes. This month we will provide a guide for renewing your material online. In addition, we will look at Poem Finder in our Electronic Databases. We will announce the book chosen for the Read Together Palm Beach County Campaign. Finally, “A Quick Byte” which will feature a short tip to assist you in your daily computer use.

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

2/ Renewing Your Materials Online

With the quick pace of life it is easy to overlook things, such as the due dates for your library materials. Sometimes, it is simply not possible to get to a branch to renew your items before they come due. The library understands this dilemma. To make your life easy, you can renew your library materials online through “Check My Account” in the library web catalog.

There is a set of simple steps to follow for renewing your items online. Just follow the numbers below:

1/ Visit “http://www.pbclibrary.org”
2/ Select “Check My Account” in the top right corner of the screen on our home page or under the Catalog and Account menu.
3/ Click on "Renew My Materials."
4/ Enter your library card number in the User ID field. (e.g. d012345678)
5/ Enter your four digit PIN.
6/ Click on "List Charged Items."
7/ Select “Renew Selected Items” or “Renew All.”
8/ If you are renewing selected items, select the check box by the items to be renewed.
9/ Click the "Renew Selected Items" button to renew your materials or "Clear Selections" to start over.

Wait for a message confirming that your items have been renewed. If an item can not be renewed, please visit your local branch for more information or check our Library Card FAQ.
http://www.pbclibrary.org/cardfaq.htm

What is a PIN? Your Personal Identification Number (PIN) provides access to your borrowing information on our web site. If you had a library card before November 20, 2003, your PIN was reset to the last four digits of your home telephone number. If you got a card after this date, you were given a random PIN when you signed up for your library card. You are encouraged to change this number to one of your own choosing. A PIN may be changed in any library by talking to a staff member at the check-out desk or online in the "My Account" section of our Web Catalog.

The “Check My Account” feature allows you to renew your materials easily. We hope you will enjoy this service. Check it out for yourself at:
http://www.pbclibrary.org

3/ Database of the Month – Poem Finder

Do you need to find articles on the life of Sylvia Plath? Are you looking for a copy of “The Raven”, written by Edgar Allen Poe? Are you still trying to figure out what is meant by a pentameter? The answers to these and other poetic questions can be found in the Poem Finder database. Best of all, this information can be accessed from home. Poem Finder can be found at:
http://www.pbclibrary.org/edb/patronlinks.asp

Poem Finder is a large, comprehensive poetry database available through our web site. It is international in scope, and covers poetry from antiquity to the present day. Poem Finder is a one-stop resource for locating over 4 1/2 million lines of poetry.

Here is quick overview of the vast resources contained in this database:

* 100,000+ full-text poems including over 10,000 copyrighted poems
* 800,000 poem citations and excerpts
* Subject Navigator (over 9,000 specific subject headings for poems)
* Year's Best Poetry Anthology (New Poems)
* Kids' Korner
* Explanations (Detailed explanations of more than 1,000 poems.)
* Biographies (Critical essays provide detailed profiles of the poets and their lifeworks.)
* Pictures of poets
* Glossary (Provides definitions of various poetic terms)

Perhaps you are looking for information on the famous Robert Frost poem “The Road Not Taken.” A search in Poem Finder will uncover the full text of the poem, the date it was written, a link to an explanation of the poem, a biography of Robert Frost, and a list of his other poems. This provides a great start to a research paper on Robert Frost, or simply a way to enjoy this poem and learn a little more about the man who crafted it.

If poetry is your passion, dive into Poem Finder. You will not be disappointed.

4/ The Book is Announced!

In a ceremony at Centennial Square on Clematis Street in downtown West Palm Beach on Monday, January 26, The Book for the 2004 Read Together Palm Beach County campaign was announced. We are pleased to let the residents of Palm Beach County know that “The Book” is:

THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD
by Zora Neale Hurston

Independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person — no mean feat for a black woman in the ’30s — whose quest for identity takes her on a journey back to her roots. The novel is set in Belle Glade against the backdrop of the 1928 hurricane.

Hundreds of copies are already available in the Palm Beach County Library System. Check out one today, and keep checking our web site over the next three months for more information on the Read Together Campaign.

Read Together Palm Beach County – One Book, One Community!

5/ A Quick Byte – Print Preview

Have you ever printed a web page or word processed document and noticed that the printed page is different from what appears on the screen? If you want to know what a print job will look like before you waste ink and paper, use the Print Preview option. Print Preview is available on most programs and is located under the File menu in the top left corner of the screen. From here you can see exactly how the document will print out, including the number of pages. This is useful when printing a web page when all you want is a part of the page, not the whole thing. You can use the preview to isolate a page number for printing. So remove one of the mysteries of computers by using the Print Preview option today.

6/ Next Month in Books & Bytes

We will examine the Popular Subjects and Kids’ Catalog portions of our web catalog. We will also look at the Story Finder database to locate information on famous writers and their works.