eBooks and audio books

Veterans Honored at the Library

1 Comment / eBooks and audio books, exhibit, Latest, Tell Your Story / Diana Lasky / November 9, 2023

With respect, honor and gratitude the Harrison County Public Library celebrates veterans this November 11. The library thanks all veterans for their service and shows gratitude by displaying two Hero Trees at the Elizabeth Branch. Sara Deatrick, the Elizabeth lead circulation associate, stated, “There are more than 150 ornaments of past and present Harrison County veterans on our trees.” Sara invites the community to bring in a photo to be scanned and placed on the Hero Tree. Photo ornaments are saved and used on future trees.

The library has two staff members who are veterans. The first is reference assistant Julia Phipps. Phipps is a 6-year veteran and was stationed at Travis Air Force Base in California from 1989 to 1995. She served as an Air Force security police officer for the base during her first three years and trained to become a base paralegal for her last three years of service.

Our second veteran is circulation associate Robert Ohlrich. Ohlrich enlisted in the Navy in 1972 and was a gunner’s mate during his 4-year service on the U.S.S. Guadalcanal. The helicopter carrier housed 2,500 Marines along with a Navy crew of 307 and was stationed in the Mediterranean Sea during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Ohlrich was trained on surface-to-air missile systems. In 1976 he helped evacuate civilians from Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War. Ohlrich returned to service for one year in 1986 as a Navy chaplain on the U.S.S. Forrestal.

Thank you Julie, Bob and all veterans! You are honored with gratitude for your service to keep our lands safe and our country free.

The public is invited to celebrate Veterans Day by visiting the Frederick Porter Griffin Genealogy branch to research veterans and family history, viewing the Hero Trees at the Elizabeth branch or exercising your freedom to read by checking out a book of your choice from any of the HCPL locations or downloading an eBook with the library app from your favorite app store.

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The next Big Library Read starts Monday, April 4

Book club, eBooks and audio books, Notices, Virtual program / Jessica Stroud / April 4, 2022

Questlove photo by Daniel Dorsa — Photo by Daniel Dorsa

From April 4 – April 18, readers all over the world will be able to check out the eBook and audiobook of Music is History by Questlove without waitlists or holds. Click here to access the title through HCPL’s OverDrive collection. Music Is History combines Questlove’s deep musical expertise with his curiosity about history, examining America over the past fifty years. This past Sunday, Questlove won the best documentary feature Oscar for his film Summer of Soul about the Harlem Cultural festival of 1969.

Join the conversation online by using the hashtag #biglibraryread on social media for a chance to win a pair of Airpod pros! There is a discussion board available where you can chat with other readers.

Music Is History combines Questlove’s deep musical expertise with his curiosity about history, examining America over the past fifty years.

Focusing on the years 1971 to the present, Questlove finds the hidden connections in the American tapestry, whether investigating how the blaxploitation era reshaped Black identity or considering the way disco took an assembly-line approach to Black genius. And these critical inquiries are complemented by his own memories as a music fan, and the way his appetite for pop culture taught him about America. A history of the last half-century and an intimate conversation with one of music’s most influential and original voices, Music Is History is a singular look at contemporary America.

Download the Discussion Guide — Click image to download the book discussion guide

About Questlove

Academy Award nominated filmmaker, drummer, DJ, producer, director, culinary entrepreneur and New York Times bestseller author Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, is the heartbeat of Philadelphia’s most influential hip-hop group The Roots. He is the Musical Director for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where The Roots also serve as the house band.

Questlove Executive-Produced the acclaimed documentary series, Hip-Hop: The Songs The Shook America on AMC under his production company, Two One Five Entertainment which recently announced a first-look deal with Universal Television to develop scripted and non-scripted programming. He made his directorial debut with the Academy Award nominated feature documentary Summer of Soul. The film premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, where it was awarded the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award for Best U.S. Documentary. The film most recently broke the record for the highest selling documentary to come out of Sundance. Questlove is also set to direct the upcoming feature documentary on Sly Stone.

Additionally, he co-produced the GRAMMY Award winning Original Broadway Cast Recording of Hamilton. Questlove co-starred in Disney Pixar’s Golden Globe-winning animated feature Soul, which landed him an NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance.

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Harrison County Community Services (HCCS) Wins Big!

eBooks and audio books, Notices / Jessica Stroud / March 1, 2022

Presented by Diana Lasky

Richard Cooper HCCS Gift Card — Richard Cooper of Harrison County Community Services accepts a $75 gift card donated by Walmart from Diana Lasky of Harrison County Public Library.

During the month of January, Harrison County readers were challenged to help feed the hungry by reading 9,400 books. Readers of all ages and school grades topped the goal by reading 16,966 books! Tyson and Walmart sponsored the Harrison County Public Library winter reading challenge. Tyson agreed to donate 100 cases of chicken and Walmart a $75 gift card if the county met the goal. HCPL is proud to say the goal was met and exceeded!

Richard Cooper, the executive Director of Harrison County Community Services shows off a portion of the 100 cases of chicken donated by Tyson in the HCCS freezer.

HCCS is always happy to receive donations and loves the community spirit of the annual Feed Harrison County – Winter Reading Challenge. This was the 2^nd year for the challenge and the library expects to continue this program as a way to collaborate with the community and businesses and bring awareness to the need to help others in our county. Thank you to our readers and generous sponsors!

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Attention OverDrive/Libby users: HCPL will join larger OverDrive consortium March 1

eBooks and audio books, Notices / Jessica Stroud / February 23, 2022

On Tuesday, March 1, Harrison County Public Library will merge with a large consortium of libraries called Indiana Digital Library. HCPL is excited for the change, because it will give our patrons access to a collection of books and audiobooks from almost 200 libraries across the state. The Indiana State Library will pay the platform fees for the group, which means 100% of the member libraries’ fees will be spent on digital titles.

The new consortium will also have a team of librarians who will actively monitor holds and purchase additional copies of books that have long wait lists. This means you shouldn’t have to wait as long to get the books you want to read.

Some things to note:

You will need to log in to your app again, using the same library card number and PIN you currently use.
Items you currently have checked out and your hold list will still be there when you log back in.
Your reading history will not be there. If you want to keep your reading history, you can download it.

Here’s how (click on line 1 or 2 to learn more):
1. Libby – exporting reading history
2. OverDrive – exporting reading history

If you currently use the OverDrive app, you might consider making the switch to the Libby app. The OverDrive app is no longer supported and the Libby app is OverDrive’s updated version of its original app.

HCPL expects the merger to go smoothly, but if you run into trouble you can always contact us.

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Together We Read program from OverDrive offers free digital copies of “The Five Wounds”

Adult Program, eBooks and audio books, New books and other materials, Notices, Online resources, Reading Program / Jessica Stroud / February 7, 2022

During Together We Read from OverDrive, borrow The Five Wounds for free with no waitlists and no holds from February 7 through February 21!
Download Libby or visit OverDrive to borrow the eBook or audiobook from HCPL using your phone or tablet.

The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade

It’s Holy Week in the small town of Las Penas, New Mexico, and thirty-three-year-old unemployed Amadeo Padilla has been given the part of Jesus in the Good Friday procession. He is preparing feverishly for this role when his fifteen-year-old daughter Angel shows up pregnant on his doorstep and disrupts his plans for personal redemption. With weeks to go until her due date, tough, ebullient Angel has fled her mother’s house, setting her life on a startling new path.

Vivid, tender, funny, and beautifully rendered, The Five Wounds spans the baby’s first year as five generations of the Padilla family converge: Amadeo’s mother, Yolanda, reeling from a recent discovery; Angel’s mother, Marissa, whom Angel isn’t speaking to; and disapproving Tíve, Yolanda’s uncle and keeper of the family’s history. Each brings expectations that Amadeo, who often solves his problems with a beer in his hand, doesn’t think he can live up to.

Click to download the book discussion guide

Kirstin Valdez Quade is the author of The Five Wounds, which is currently shortlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence, and is longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize. Her story collection, Night at the Fiestas, won the John Leonard Prize from the National Book Critics Circle, the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a “5 Under 35” award from the National Book Foundation, and was a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Award. It was named a New York Times Notable Book and a best book of 2015 by the San Francisco Chronicle and the American Library Association. Kirstin is the recipient of the John Guare Writer’s Fund Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award, a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation, and a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, The New York Times, and elsewhere. She is an assistant professor at Princeton.

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The Art of Taking It Easy: the next Big Library Read encourages you to relax

eBooks and audio books, Reading Program / Jessica Stroud / April 5, 2021

Big Library Read begins today! Visit HCPL’s digital collection or download the Libby app to borrow the featured title The Art of Taking It Easy by Dr. Brian King with no waitlists or holds.

If you share your thoughts on social media using #biglibraryread, you will be entered for a chance to win a tablet and a book signed by the author

The Art of Taking It Easy

From a psychologist and stand-up comedian comes a practical, yet laugh-out-loud guide to embracing humor to reduce stress and live a happier, fuller life.

Dr. Brian King got a degree in psychology before becoming a world-touring comic and the host of humor therapy seminars attended by more than ten thousand people each year. In this brilliant guide he presents hands-on techniques for managing stress by rewiring our brains to approach potentially difficult situations through a lens of positivity. To do so, Dr. King explores what stress is, where it comes from, and what it does to our bodies and brains. He delves deep into how to address everyday stress—as well as anxiety, insecurities, repression, and negativity—and gives insight into resulting ailments such as anxiety disorders, depression, hypertension, obesity, substance abuse disorders, and more. Dr. King’s techniques are chemical and cost free, and embrace humor, resilience, relaxation, optimism, gratitude, and acceptance. Instead of a dry medical approach to dealing with stress, this unique volume is filled with life-changing tips and instructions presented with humor and a wealth of memorable, smile-inducing anecdotes.

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eBooks and audio books for Black History month and beyond

eBooks and audio books / Jessica Stroud / February 23, 2021

February is Black History Month–truly, 28 days of the year are not enough to properly recognize and appreciate the authors and books that tell the stories of Black Americans. Following are eBooks and audio books available from HCPL’s OverDrive/Libby collection that reveal, inform and celebrate Black Americans.

Browse all available titles

Biographies/Autobiographies

Juvenile Nonfiction

Juvenile Fiction

Harrison County Public Library also offers the Advancing Racial Equity Collection, which was funded by the Indiana Humanities Advancing Racial Equity Collection Development Grant. Click here to read more about the collection and to access these titles.

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Together We Read: Love Lettering

eBooks and audio books / Jessica Stroud / February 12, 2021

HCPL joins nearly 16,000 public libraries and tens of thousands of readers across the United States in offering the latest Together We Read: US digital book club selection. From February 10 to 24, HCPL patrons can enjoy author Kate Clayborn’s witty romance ebook and audiobook, Love Lettering, for free with no waitlists or holds. Readers can access the digital book by downloading the Libby app or visiting HCPL’s OverDrive collection, and then participate in an online discussion.

The Together We Read: US digital book club connects readers through U.S. public libraries with the same ebook for two weeks and only requires a Harrison County Public Library card to get started. This free program is facilitated by OverDrive.

In Love Lettering, Meg Mackworth’s hand-lettering skill has made her famous by designing custom journals for her New York City clientele. She has another skill too: reading signs that other people miss. Knowing the upcoming marriage of Reid Sutherland and his polished fiancée was doomed to fail is one thing but weaving a secret word of warning into their wedding program is another. A year later, Reid has tracked Meg down to find out how she knew that his meticulously planned future was about to implode. As they gradually open up to each other, both try to ignore a deepening connection between them. But the signs are there—irresistible, indisputable, urging Meg to heed the messages Reid is sending her, before it’s too late.

Love Lettering is published by Kensington Books. The ebook and audiobook can be read on all major computers and devices, including iPhone®, iPad®, Android™ phones and tablets and Chromebook™ without waitlists or holds. Through Libby, readers can also “send to Kindle®”. The title will automatically expire at the end of the lending period, and there are no late fees.

More information about Together We Read: US can be found here.

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New at HCPL: Advancing Racial Equity Collection

eBooks and audio books, New books and other materials / Jessica Stroud / December 1, 2020

The Harrison County Public Library is a recent recipient of the Indiana Humanities Advancing Racial Equity Collection Development Grant, which allowed the library to add titles to the OverDrive collection and physical library collection. Indiana Humanities said of the project, “Our goal is to help Hoosiers think, read and talk about racial injustice and systemic racism and to support libraries as key public humanities organizations in this work.” This project is made possible by a grant from Lilly Endowment.

You can access OverDrive from your web browser by clicking here. If you would prefer to access these titles from the Libby app on your mobile device, you can download Libby from the Apple App Store and Google Play. To log in, select Harrison County Public Library and enter your HCPL card number and PIN. If you need assistance with your PIN, please call your HCPL branch or send an email that includes your name and card number to [email protected].

These titles are from OverDrive and Libby
Click on a title to view in OverDrive

These physical items have been added to the library collection.
Click a title to access in the HCPL Enterprise catalog

Black History Activators
I am Alfonso Jones
Polite Protest

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Join in the Big Library Read: Reverie

eBooks and audio books / Jessica Stroud / November 2, 2020

The current Big Library Read available from OverDrive is Reverie by Ryan La Sala. Join the discussion & borrow the featured title from our digital collection.

? Click here to join the discussion. A discussion guide is available here.

Inception meets The Magicians in this wildly imaginative story about what happens when the secret worlds people hide within themselves come to light.

All Kane Montgomery knows for certain is that the police found him half-dead in the river. He can’t remember anything since an accident robbed him of his memories a few weeks ago. And the world feels different—reality itself seems different.

So when three of his classmates claim to be his friends and the only people who can tell him what’s truly going on, he doesn’t know what to believe or who he can trust. But as he and the others are dragged into unimaginable worlds that materialize out of nowhere—the gym warps into a subterranean temple, a historical home nearby blooms into a Victorian romance rife with scandal and sorcery—Kane realizes that nothing in his life is an accident, and only he can stop their world from unraveling.

Author Event: Don’t miss a live, virtual event with author Ryan La Sala on November 10 at 2pm ET. Click here to register today!

Professional Book Nerds

Bonus Big Library Read episode with RYAN LA SALA!

The author of Reverie and overall wonderful human joins Adam back in January

Click here to read a letter from the author.

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