Monthly Archives: August 2017

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On our Childhood Libraries…

Recently a college friend of mine sent around this article, written by a fellow alumnae, author J. Courtney Sullivan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/books/childrens-library-collection.html?mcubz=3

The article focused on Sullivan’s quest to rebuild her childhood book collection as an adult, and the memories that each of those books held for her now.  Some were of reading with her dad:

When I received the “Stickybear” books by Richard Hefter and saw the familiar endpapers covered in strawberries, I recalled how my dad would read the strawberries as part of the text. Example: “The end. Strawberry strawberry strawberry strawberry strawberry.”

While others helped her realize how differently younger readers absorb and learn to love literature:

Childhood is where a love of reading is forged through the tactile. The stories themselves matter, of course. Sometimes I think about Beverly Cleary’s “Ramona,” with her tubes of toothpaste, her bites of apple. Nothing I’ve read since, no single image, stands out as these do. But in adulthood, it’s always the text I admire. In childhood, the book as object matters most.

It’s a lovely article, and the quest itself upon which Sullivan embarks may be familiar to many of you–she notes that a number of book sellers with whom she dealt were curious about all the early-to-mid 1980’s picture books that were suddenly enjoying a resurgence in popularity.

And, of course, it got me thinking about the books that defined my own childhood.   I realized, pretty quickly, that most of the books that defined my growing-up years were ones that I shared with others–usually, they were books read to my by my Father, or my teachers, or books that I learned to read myself (see below).  I always had trouble as a kid with the thin line between fiction and reality (I still do, let’s be honest here), and it was (is) a source of constant frustration for me that I was the only person who knew the members of the Baby-Sitters’ Club, or who had wandered around Gormenghast castle with Steerpike, or bought fancy shoes with Polly from An Old Fashioned Girl (let it not be said that I didn’t have eclectic tastes as a young-in’!).  So in picking books that were important to me, I realized that I was also picking moments in my childhood that were significant, or people, or places.

In that sense, nothing has changed for me.  Some of my favorite literary memories are from reading specific books in specific places (I first read ‘Salem’s Lot in the Belfast Botanical Gardens, and Oscar and Lucinda in Harvard Square one blustery autumn week).  And the specific people with whom I shared them.  So here are some of the first titles that leapt to my mind upon reading Sullivan’s article:

But No Elephants: For some reason, I was obsessed with this book as a little kid, and made my parents read the adventures of Grandma Tildy and her willingness to take any animal–except for pachyderms–so often that by the time I was about two, I had the whole book memorized, including when to turn the pages.  It then became my parents’ favorite parlor trick to set me up on the couch when company was over and tell them I could already read.  I rediscovered this book when I was a bit older, and still found plenty to appreciate here–especially the brave little(ish) elephant who proves his worth to his new family when Grandma Tildy finally relents enough to take him in.

Ramona the Pest: My second grade teacher was so good at reading stories out loud that we would do any math exercise, any spelling test voluntarily in order to make time for reading at the end of the day.  We made it through most of Beverly Cleary’s Ramona books by the end of the year, but this one I remember most vividly because, in it, Ramona learns how to tell time.  Or learns that she doesn’t know how to tell time.  And it wasn’t until that scene that I realized that I didn’t know how to properly tell time either!  Digital clocks were just becoming a think (I’m old, I know, it’s fine), and so I had been able to avoid analog time-telling up to this point.  It’s a rare day when I put on my watch that I don’t think fleetingly of Ramona heading off to school, and of my teacher who brought her stories to life for us.  (Note: this was absolutely not the cover of the book we had.  Our class book was printed in the 1960’s, so I think it was avocado green or something….)

There’s  A Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom: I’ve told about my love of Louis Sachar’s wild imagination a few times before.  But this book was the first “realistic” one that I read.  Or, specifically, that my Father read to me.  We had a nighttime reading ritual of a chapter a night, and I loved this book…right up until the last chapter.  Essentially, the main character, a boy who everyone considers ‘unmanageable’, has quite the imagination, and creates beautiful, elaborate stories with his figurine collection.  He finds the courage and tools to begin socializing with his peers after working with his school’s counselor.  And he sends her a gift in the end.  And because my imagination was as good, if not more tenacious than his, I cared way more about his figurines than his actual friends.  And I lost it.  Ugly crying everywhere.  Luckily, I have a Father who gets it, and he and I set about re-writing the ending to the book, so that, in our world, at least, it ended properly.  And it’s a trick I’ve used to endure books with “bad” endings ever since (and here, “bad” is defined absolutely, positively subjectively).

How about you?  What books, moments, places, and people make up your early literary history?

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Look for the Helpers

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping. To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world.” — Fred Rogers

Those of us who live in and work in and around Downtown Peabody know what floods look like.  Being partially below sea level (and with an average elevation of 17 feet) will do that.

But that flooding is nothing compared to what our friends in Texas are enduring right now as a result of Hurricane Harvey, and it’s not getting better.  So for those of you who listen to Mr. Rogers (quoted above), and would like to know how to be an effective Helper, we have some resources for you.

First of all, because we are a Library that cares about Libraries, the Texas Library Association and Texas State Library and Archives Commission are working together to coordinate a response to damage caused to libraries and archives across the Houston and gulf coast region.  They have issued a joint statement saying, essentially, that it’s too early yet to know what libraries and archives affected by Hurricane Harvey, but that TLA has its Disaster Relief Fund available and TSLAC is considering how it can make resources available as well. As damage is assessed, they will provide more information on the availability of these resources.  

At this point, people are asked not to send material donations, such as books.  Right now, there is no way to know what is needed, and no where at all to store donations.  Anyone wishing to help financially are encouraged to donate online to the TLA Disaster Relief Fund.

For those looking for other ways to help, please check out this enormously useful article from Texas Monthly that lists all the charities, organizations, and institutions working on the ground in affected areas to help people and animals.  You can access this article here.

If you work or live in the Boston Area, Mayor Marty Walsh has announced a drive called “Help for Houston”.   The collection effort starts today, Tuesday, August 29, and lasts through Thursday, August 31. The Mayor is asking residents to contribute items to those impacted by Hurricane Harvey in Texas.  They are collection food, infant formula, blankets, and a number of other items at collection centers in and around the City.  Check out the City’s website for full details and collection sites.

If you are not in a position to donate at this moment, please know that help will be needed in Texas for a long time to come, and we’ll be sure to keep you updated on ways you can help in the coming days and weeks.

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International Dublin Literary Award Winner!

We’re a bit behind on this update, dear readers, but we nevertheless are delight to announce that José Eduardo Agualusa is the winner of the 2017 International Dublin Literary award for his novel A General Theory of Oblivion.

From http://www.dublinliteraryaward.ie/

As we discussed back in May, the International Dublin Literary Award is funded entirely by the City of Dublin, Ireland, and is awarded each year for a novel written in English or translated into English.  It’s among the richest literary prizes in the world–and it also one of our favorites, because all the books are nominated by Libraries from around the world!  The diversity of reading habits, culture, and geography makes this award a genuinely unpredictable, eclectic, and rewarding one, and so it was with great excitement that we received the news about Mr. Agualusa’s win for A General Theory of Oblivion, along with Daniel Hahn, who translated the work into English.

Agualusa’s novel recounts the story of an Ludo, a Portuguese woman living in Angola, who locks herself into her apartment during the Angolan War of Independence, just before independence from Portugal.  She attempts to cut herself off from the external world, growing vegetables in her apartment and luring in pigeons.  Her only knowledge of the outside world comes from the snippets of conversation she overhears from her neighbors and the radio.  Three decades pass this way, until until she meets a young boy who informs her of the radical changes which have occurred in the country in the intervening years.

Critics praised Agualusa for his subject matter, with The Scotsman stating that he was responsible for opening up “the world of Portuguese-speaking Africa to the English-speaking community.” He attracted further critical praise for the manner in which he condensed a cryptic and complicated conflict into something that everyday readers can digest, understand, and feel.  His work has also drawn comparisons to Emma Donoghue’s Room because it so deftly creates an entire world in a tiny, confined space.

You can read Agualusa’s acceptance speech here, via the Dublin Literary Award website, but I would like to point out a specific excerpt from the speech here, because it warmed the cockles of my Library-loving heart:

I was glad to learn that a book of mine was chosen for this prize for many reasons, but particularly because of the selection process – because the books are chosen by public libraries – and because the whole award process is run by Dublin City Public Libraries. I became a writer in public libraries. Not only because if I hadn’t had access to books in some of these libraries, as a child, I never would have started writing, but because to a great extent my first book was actually written in a public library.

If literature develops our empathy muscles, makes us better people, then you might think of public libraries as weapons of massive construction: powerful tools for personal development and the development of societies.

According to The Guardian, Agualusa plans to use his winnings to build a library in his adopted home on the Island of Mozambique.  From the article:

“What we really need is a public library, because people don’t have access to books, so if I can do something to help that, it will be great,” Agualusa says. “We have already found a place and I can put my own personal library in there and open it to the people of the island. It’s been a dream for a long time.”

José Eduardo Agualusa, from The Guardian

From Libraries, back to Libraries–so congratulations, and Thank You to José Eduardo Agualusa!

If you’d like to read A General Theory of Oblivion, come in or call, and talk to a member of your friendly Reference Staff, who can order you a copy through the Commonwealth Catalog!

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Five Book Friday!

And a very happy Friday to you, dear readers!

There are only a precious handful of days left before “summer” is “officially over”…theoretically and emotionally, if not actually meteorologically.  So we’ll keep it simple today, and simply hope that you have the opportunity to enjoy every last delightful, carefree, memorable moment of summer.  And that you wear sunscreen.  And bring a hat.  And a book–perhaps like one of the ones listed here!

 

See What I Have Done: A huge hit in the UK and Australia, Sarah Schmidt’s  fictionalized study of the Lizzie Borden trial has already caused a lot of feelings among the Library staff.  When her father and step-mother are found brutally murdered on a summer morning in 1892, Lizzie Borden – thirty two years old and still living at home – immediately becomes a suspect. But after a notorious trial, she is found innocent, and no one is ever convicted of the crime.  Meanwhile, others in the claustrophobic Borden household have their own motives and their own stories to tell: Lizzie’s unmarried older sister, a put-upon Irish housemaid, and a boy hired by Lizzie’s uncle to take care of a problem.  Schmidt uses this well-known, but still under-studied trial to ask questions about violence, feminism, and history that has been gaining attention around the world–and been compared to Shirley Jackson, which is some incredible praise.  The Guardian weighed in, as well, noting that “Schmidt’s unusual combination of narrative suppression and splurge makes for a surprising, nastily effective debut.”

Emma in the Night: Wendy Walker’s twisty, dark psychological thriller is sure to have fans of Ruth Ware and Paula Hawkins delighted, and fulfill all your desires for a creepy, jaw-clenching investigation.  One night three years ago, the Tanner sisters disappeared: fifteen-year-old Cass and seventeen-year-old Emma. Three years later, Cass returns, without her sister Emma. Her story is one of kidnapping and betrayal, of a mysterious island where the two were held. But to forensic psychiatrist Dr. Abby Winter, something doesn’t add up. Looking deep within this dysfunctional family Dr. Winter uncovers a life where boundaries were violated and a narcissistic parent held sway–and where one sister’s return might just be the beginning of the crime.  Though Walker’s story is a good-time thriller, she also considers very seriously the effects of mental illness and personalities disorders within families, making this book all the more gripping and unsettling for it’s close description of real-life troubles.  Publisher’s Weekly agrees noting in their starred review of this novel, “In this searing psychological thriller…Walker’s portrayal of the ways in which a narcissistic, self-involved mother can affect her children deepens the plot as it builds to a shocking finale.”

Yesterday: Hailed as “the thriller of the summer”, Felicia Yap’s book is another novel of dark psychological suspense, but this book looks to a future where memory itself is a precious commodity, and class is defined by who gets to remember.  Those on the top are permitted two days worth of memory, while most are afforded only one.   The only way to understand your spouse or your child or your mother is to jog your brain with daily e-diaries. And then imagine someone is murdered. How do you find a killer when all who are involved have their memories constantly reset? Claire and Mark are a surprising mixed-marriage that on the surface seems brilliant. Claire is a conscientious Mono housewife, Mark a novelist-turned-MP Duo on the political rise. But when a woman turns up dead, and she is then revealed to be Mark’s mistress, their perfectly constructed life begins to fall apart.  Yap’s debut changes perspectives with a rare deftness that makes this story richer, rather than more confusing, and she challenges convention and genres with impressive confidence.  Newsweek declared this book “A 2017 literary event”, which, considering how saturated the market on psychological dramas becomes every summer, it quite an impressive statement.

Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music:  American culture has a soundtrack–from every film, every documentary, every memory that is mass-produced, there is a score to accompany it.  And those songs, almost always, have to do with the body and with sex.  In this fascinating study, Ann Powers explores how popular music became America’s primary erotic art form. Powers takes us from nineteenth-century New Orleans through dance-crazed Jazz Age New York to the teen scream years of mid-twentieth century rock-and-roll to the cutting-edge adventures of today’s web-based pop stars.  In her dizzying tour through American music and gender history, she continually demonstrates how eroticism—not merely sex, but love, bodily freedom, and liberating joy—became entwined within the rhythms and melodies of American song. This cohesion, she reveals, touches the heart of America’s anxieties and hopes about race, feminism, marriage, youth, and freedom, making for a book that will have all fans of pop culture, music, gender, history, and art, sitting up to take notice, and has critics, academics, and artists singing it’s praises.  One such outlet is Library Journal, which gave this book a starred review, noting “With precision and wit, and across multiple musical genres, Powers contextualizes the complicated interplay of gender, sex, and race inherent in popular music within and against the backdrop of America’s puritanical founding.”

Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World: In the wake of the September 11 attacks and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Suzy Hansen, who grew up in an insular conservative town in New Jersey, was enjoying early success as a journalist for a high-profile New York newspaper. Increasingly, though, the disconnect between the chaos of world events and the response at home took on pressing urgency for her. Seeking to understand the Muslim world that had been reduced to scaremongering headlines, she moved to Istanbul.  Hansen arrived in Istanbul with romantic ideas about a mythical city perched between East and West, and with a naive sense of the Islamic world beyond. Over the course of her many years of living in Turkey and traveling in Greece, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Iran, she learned a great deal about these countries and their cultures and histories and politics. But the greatest, most unsettling surprise would be what she learned about her own country–and herself, an American abroad in the era of American decline.  Her memoir is an insightful, deeply moving, and strangely bittersweet tale, not of violence or prejudice, but of heartbreak, pain, and self-discovery, not only for her, but for the nations she considers, as well.  This book is earning not only glowing, but passionate reviews from across the world, with Booklist declaring that “”Hansen’s must-read book makes the argument that Americans, specifically white Americans, are decades overdue in examining and accepting their country’s imperial identity . . . Hansen builds her winning argument by combining personal examination and observation with geopolitical history lessons. She is a fearless patriot, and this is a book for the brave.”

 

Until next week, beloved patrons–happy reading!

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Summer Staff Selections!

We truly enjoyed our series featuring some of the Peabody Library Staff’s Summer Reading Selections–so much so that recommendations are still coming in!  So, while there are still a few days of summer left (officially), we thought we’d bring you another list of books personally recommended by our staff!

We are a staff of diverse reading/listening/viewing habits, which makes these posts so much fun.  There is such a wide range of books and media that our staff enjoy that there is bound to be something in here to help make your summer that much more entertaining!  And so, without further ado, here is our fifth round of Staff Selections:

From the Upstairs Offices:

Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah Maclean

A lady does not smoke cheroot. She does not ride astride. She does not fence or attend duels. She does not fire a pistol, and she never gambles at a gentlemen’s club…Lady Calpurnia Hartwell has always followed the rules, rules that have left her unmarried—and more than a little unsatisfied. And so she’s vowed to break the rules and live the life of pleasure she’s been missing.  But to dance every dance, to steal a midnight kiss—to do those things, Callie will need a willing partner. Someone who knows everything about rule-breaking. Someone like Gabriel St. John, the Marquess of Ralston—charming and devastatingly handsome, his wicked reputation matched only by his sinful smile.  If she’s not careful, she’ll break the most important rule of all—the one that says that pleasure-seekers should never fall hopelessly, desperately in love . . .

From the West Branch:

Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in their Massachusetts town. Gillian and Sally have endured that fate as well: as children, the sisters were forever outsiders, taunted, talked about, pointed at. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, with their musty house and their exotic conconctions and their crowd of black cats. But all Gillian and Sally wanted was to escape.  One will do so by marrying, the other by running away. But the bonds they share will bring them back—almost as if by magic… This is a story that unfolds likes a modern-day fairy tale, immersing readers in the rich smells, tastes, and deep emotions of Hoffman’s incredible world, and unforgettable characters.

Pleasures of the Damned by Charles Bukowski

To his legions of fans, Charles Bukowski was—and remains—the quintessential counterculture icon. A hard-drinking wild man of literature and a stubborn outsider to the poetry world, he wrote unflinchingly about booze, work, and women, in raw, street-tough poems whose truth has struck a chord with generations of readers.  Edited by John Martin, the legendary publisher of Black Sparrow Press and a close friend of Bukowski’s, this book is a selection of the best works from Bukowski’s long poetic career, including the last of his never-before-collected poems. Celebrating the full range of the poet’s extra-ordinary and surprising sensibility, and his uncompromising linguistic brilliance, these poems cover a rich lifetime of experiences, and an astonishing poetic treasure trove.

From the Children’s Room:

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

In the summer of 1977, The Blyton Summer Detective Club solved their final mystery and unmasked the elusive Sleepy Lake monster–another low-life fortune hunter trying to get his dirty hands on the legendary riches hidden in Deboën Mansion. And he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids. In 1990, the former detectives have grown up and apart, each haunted by disturbing memories of their final night in the old haunted house. There are too many strange, half-remembered encounters and events that cannot be dismissed or explained away by a guy in a mask. And Andy, the once intrepid tomboy now wanted in two states, is tired of running from her demons. She needs answers. To find them she will need Kerri, the one-time kid genius and budding biologist, now drinking her ghosts away in New York with Tim, an excitable Weimaraner descended from the original canine member of the club. They will also have to get Nate, the horror nerd currently residing in an asylum in Arkham, Massachusetts. Luckily Nate has not lost contact with Peter, the handsome jock turned movie star who was once their team leader . . . which is remarkable, considering Peter has been dead for years. The time has come to get the team back together, face their fears, and find out what actually happened all those years ago at Sleepy Lake. It’s their only chance to end the nightmares and, perhaps, save the world.

Happy Summer, Dear Readers!
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Well, that was fun!

We sincerely hope everyone had a chance to enjoy yesterday’s eclipse.  While the event itself was rare enough in and of itself, it was also pretty remarkable to have an event that unambiguously brought everyone in this country together…and gave them a reason to look up and to marvel.  I was lucky enough to spend the height of the eclipse in a parking lot with a group of strangers who were all sharing their eclipse glasses, talking about the fact that the world was a weird kind of hazy orange-ish color, and, best of all, that we were grateful for each other’s presence at that moment in time.

If you weren’t able to watch the eclipse, then allow me to share with you some of the sensational images that NASA captured of the event:

Here’s the shadow of the Moon as seen from space:

From http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-eclipse-2017-umbra-viewed-from-space-2

This composite image shows the progression of a partial solar eclipse over Ross Lake, in Northern Cascades National Park, Washington on Monday, Aug. 21, 2017:

A total solar eclipse swept across a narrow portion of the contiguous United States from Lincoln Beach, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina. A partial solar eclipse was visible across the entire North American continent along with parts of South America, Africa, and Europe. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

And here’s the show itself:

http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-prepares-for-aug-21-total-solar-eclipse-with-live-coverage-safety-information

And, if you, like me, took some very well-intentioned, but generally unimpressive photos of the eclipse, then you can commiserate with these photos that The Guardian collected of people’s “Underwhelming Photos of the Eclipse”.

From The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gallery/2017/aug/21/bad-solar-eclipse-photos-gallery

On the day that we were reminded how small we are in the cosmos, and how great are the forces balanced around us, it’s kind of nice to know that even if our attempts didn’t amount to much, that we all collectively strove to capture some wonder and some beauty together yesterday.

So thanks to the Sun for a great show, for bringing us together, and for reminding us of our place in the Grand Scheme of Things.  And if you’re interested, we’ll be back in this position again in 2024!  But just so you know, eclipse glasses have a short shelf life, so don’t save them for next time!  If you’re looking to get rid of those eclipse glasses, here’s what to do:

  1. Take the protective lenses (the black filmy stuff) off, then put them in the recycling bin
  2. Keep an eye on the Astronomers Without Borders website–they are looking to redistribute those glasses, and yours could do some real good!  We’ll let you know when their plan is announced.

And in the meantime, in case you aren’t ready to put your eclipse-o-mania away just yet, here is a selection of books that you can check out to keep you going (maybe not until 2024, but we’ll certainly keep trying!):

Every Soul a Star: This story, about three people among thousands who gather at Moon Shadow, an isolated campground in right in the path of totality to witness a solar eclipse.  Each of these three young people, Ally, Bree, and Jack, are dealing with their own burdens, from the experience of being overweight to social awkwardness, from the insecurity that comes with popularity to the fear of growing up and moving on–but during the eclipse, they will begin to forge friendships that will slowly change their lives.  Wendy Mass does a brilliant job shifting narrative voices in this book, alternating between Ally’s, Bree’s, and Jack’s experiences to form a powerful story about the strength human bonds, even in the face of massive, cosmic changes.  Like I said, my favorite part of the eclipse was hanging out with strangers who suddenly became friends, and this book revels in that feeling from the very first chapter.

Shooting the Sun: Anyone who tried to take a picture of the sun, balancing your eclipse glasses precariously over the lens, only to get a weird, grainy blur of red and black, will be glad to hear that people have been trying to capture eclipses on film for centuries.  Max Byrd takes this premise to create a fascinating, twisty, historically detailed story of cosmic wonders and human treachery. Charles Babbage, a British genius (and famous eccentric) has sponsored an expedition into the American wilderness in order to photograph an eclipse that Babbage’s Difference Engine has predicted.  On the expedition are four men and one remarkable woman, Mary Somerville, who is determined to prove Babbage’s predictions true.  But no computer can predict the vagaries of the human heart, or the darkness of the human mind, and Mary will soon find that the eclipse poses a much smaller risk to her than the other people in this expedition…This is a terrific blend of history, science, and intrigue, that is sure to appeal to history buffs…as well as any of you intrepid eclipse-chasers who books tickets to the path of totality to witness the full eclipse for yourself!

Eyes to See: Ok, so this book isn’t about eclipses, I admit it–it’s a supernatural, urban thriller.  But in this series’ debut, our hero, Jeremiah Hunt, sacrifices his normal sight, not quite by staring at an eclipse, but in order to see the world of ghosts and dark powers in order to find malevolent power that stole his daughter, and a series about a man who describes his world through his other sense, whose sense of loss (both of his family and his eyesight) is unforgettable.  Nassise does a brilliant job with the noir tone in this book, but by sending the hero on a quest for his daughter (rather than some sort of femme fatale), he gives this whole quest a totally different, urgent, and believable feel.  This is a book about the nightmares that lurk just beyond what the rest of us are able to see–but it’s also about someone who has looked at what he was forbidden to…so if you spent way too much time yesterday trying not to look up at the eclipse, or telling other people not to look up at the eclipse, this title might be for you.

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Access The New York Times Online! (Yes, you can do that with your Library Card)

In our quest to bring you ever better service, and even more nifty digital tools, we are proud to announce, beloved patrons, that you can now access The New York Times online with your library card!

You will need to have a current Peabody Library Card in order to access the NYT, but if you have that, the process is quite easy:

You can click on the banner on our homepage, which looks identical to the image above.  Alternatively, you can click on this link to get started.  Alternatively (again), you can click on the “eLibrary” section of our homepage, select “Articles/Databases”, and, finally, select “New York Times”

Any of these options will take you to a registration/login screen, where you will be asked to enter your Library barcode and “online catalog password”, which is the pin number you use to log into your Library Account.  If you aren’t sure what you pin is, give us a call at the Library and we can sort you out.
(Again, you can click on these images to enlarge them)

Click “Login”

You will be taken to a screen that has an offer code.  Mine is below, but that code won’t work for you:

Click “Redeem”

This will take you to a screen where you can complete your NYT account:

Enter your email address and create a password.  When you click “Sign Up”, you may see one of those pop-up windows where you have to prove you’re not a robot by clicking on picture, like this one below:

Once you’ve proven your humanity, you will be taken to a welcome screen from which you can access the New York Times.  An email confirmation will also be sent to the email you provided.

*An Important Addendum*:  When you redeem your offer code, you will see a message that says your account is only good for three days, like this one below:

Please know that this 72-hour window applies only to the amount of time you can access the portal without having to log back into your account.  Once the 72 hours expires, you can access it again by re-entering your Library Card Number and password.  When you see the registration screen, click “Log In”, where you can enter your email and password.  You will then be given another 72 pass. This allows the good people at The New York Times to monitor usage of the service.  Our apologies to anyone who may have found this part of the process confusing or misleading.

If you have any questions, or need some help with the set-up process, please give us a call or stop in and chat with one of your friendly Information Librarians.

We hope you enjoy this new digital resource!  Please let us know if there is anything else we can do to serve you best!