Small Business and Entrepreneur Resources at the Library

Despite the dreary reports we hear about the current state of the job market, more people are becoming increasingly clever at finding ways to generate income through freelancing, working as an independent contractor, or opening a small and/or home-based business.

Mark & Emily Turner Memorial Library has a section of materials dedicated to helping the small business owner get started with everything from information on Schedule C filing and maintaining corporate records to markets for writers/artists/musicians to searchable databases for grants and materials on writing grant proposals. Small business owners can even learn how to leverage social networking sites like Twitter and e-commerce sites like eBay.

Our Library Thing virtual bookshelf shows highlighted materials available for checkout to patrons or through interlibrary loan. Mark & Emily Turner Memorial Library is also one of two libraries in Maine to host access to the Foundation Center Directory Online, which holds information about corporate and private grantmakers. The IRS has provided packets of information for small business owners regarding applying for an EIN and many other helpful tax tips. Educator Shawn Savage also offers periodic live two-way teleconferences for entrepreneurs and small business owners about Schedule C and other necessary information.

Rod Thompson from Northern Maine Development Commission has provided electronic packets specific to entrepreneurs in Aroostook County.

To inquire about access to the Foundation Center grant database, conference times with IRS educator Shawn Savage, or any other services or materials from Turner Memorial Library's small business and career resource center, please email Lisa Neal Shaw at lisanealshaw @ presqueislelibrary.org or call (207) 764-2571.

NOTE TO PATRONS: Mark & Emily Turner Memorial Library welcomes requests for information and material renewals. To ensure that your request is received and processed, please email pimelibrarian@gmail.com, lisanealshaw@presqueislelibrary.org, diannaleighton@presqueislelibrary.org, or call (207) 764-2571.

Mark & Emily Turner Memorial Library Interior Design Survey

Press Release

Contact: Sonja Plummer Morgan Phone: (207) 764-2571

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 4 P.M. EDT, April 5, 2012

Library receives $25,000 donation for Interior Design

Presque Isle, ME, April 5, 2012: Mark & Emily Turner Memorial Library is pleased to announce a $25,000 donation from Mary Smith to the Library Board of Trustees Charitable Trust. This gift is to initiate interior design planning for facilitating the comfort and flow of library patrons. Mary's goal is to work with the community, its library staff, its trustees, and professional designers to bring the warm and vibrant colors of Aroostook County to the library's interior. This team will work together to invest the funds raised for library furnishings by the community, augmented by additional forthcoming donations, to offer patrons quality, comfortable, and beautiful furniture for reading, research, and community social interaction. The design team hopes to use Maine-made furniture.

Library Trustee Chair Nicole Cote expressed her appreciation,

“We are constantly amazed at the generosity and enthusiasm of Mary Smith and other contributors such as the Gauvins. Our heartfelt thanks go out to all those who have made donations to the library for their support. Such gifts are the very essence of community building, and will benefit our library patrons for years to come.”

Library Trustee Louise Hamlin also states,

“I would like to express heartfelt gratitude to Mary Smith and the Gauvins for their generous donations and continued involvement in the ongoing improvements to Mark & Emily Turner Memorial Library.”

The scope of the project encompasses the entire library. In addition to Mary Smith's planning donation, Ray and Sandy Gauvin have stepped up with generous funding pledges for a dedicated teen center on the third floor of the library. This gift follows the Gauvins' donation of a commissioned series of oil paintings by artist Chester Gage titled “Maple Sugaring” on permanent display at the library. The Gauvins share Mary's vision of a library that meets the usage needs of its patrons, respecting environmental impact and local beauty, and offering a warm and comfortable ambiance.

Mary Smith, the design team, and the Gauvins are working to create a library presence that will offer lasting beauty and value for the community of Presque Isle.

Axis 360 Ebooks Just for Our Patrons

In 2011, library card holders from Mark & Emily Turner Memorial Library downloaded 1,049 ebooks from Maine InfoNet. InfoNet is the statewide consortium of Maine libraries who have entered into an agreement to share access to library ebooks through Overdrive, the vendor who supplies the access to these books. Rarely a day goes by in the typical public library now when a question about accessing library books on an ereader does not come up. Demand for library ebooks is on the rise: December of 2011 was the highest month for number of downloads and number of new patrons registered to download - not just at Mark & Emily Turner Memorial Library, but statewide. In fact, the statewide registration of new ebook patrons was up 60% over the next highest month of November. Patrons of Turner Memorial Library want access to ebooks, but because the demand is so high statewide, they often have to wait for the books they want to become available. In response to this demand, we are now pleased to be able to offer ebooks
purchased and available especially and uniquely for patrons of Mark & Emily Turner Memorial Library. Axis 360 is a program that will allow our staff to purchase ebooks based on our patrons’ needs and wants, add them to our own library catalog, and cut down the wait times for our patrons for library ebooks. Our library ebooks can be viewed two ways: Through a link on our website to a “wall” of books that looks very much like browsing a traditional bookshelf, and through our library catalog in the same way as any other book. These books are viewed on a
free reader app called Blio, which displays the books in the same beautiful way that the writer and publisher intended, and which is the first reader app to be 100% compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). These books will currently run on any Windows PC
and on iOS and Android mobile devices. Axis 360 will soon be available for Nook, Kobo, Sony, Mac desktops, WebOS, and they are in talks with Amazon for Kindle compatibility. Meanwhile, Turner Memorial Library will continue its membership with InfoNet to allow our patrons with Kindles ongoing access to library ebooks. The landscape of publishing and books is changing rapidly, and new developments arise almost daily. The library staff are working to ensure
that our patrons maintain access to as many items as possible in the ways that are most convenient to those patrons.

To access our "Magic Wall" of ebooks, go to http://pimelib.axis360.baker-taylor.com/default.aspx . You will need a library card, a Blio account (free) & the Blio reader app (also free). To begin downloading these ebooks, first sign up for a free Blio account at www.blio.com.

Next, download the free Blio app to your iOs, Android, or Windows PC device. Third, make sure you have a Mark & Emily Turner Memorial Library library card. Then, visit our Magic Wall of library ebooks above. When you check out an ebook, you will be asked to enter your library barcode number and a five-digit PIN of your choosing. If you are a first time visitor to the Wall, it will ask you to create a free account, which will include your email address, a username of your choosing, and the PIN of your choosing. PLEASE NOTE that when you enter your library barcode number, you MUST put five zeros at the beginning. For example, a library barcode of xxxx would be typed in as 00000xxxx. When you check out your ebook, you will be asked to
enter your Blio account login (email and password to your Blio account). Your ebooks are sent to your Blio reader app, and the books will load into your Blio library the next time you open it. PLEASE NOTE that Baker & Taylor is working to make these books available for iMac, WebOS,
NOOK, Sony, Kobo, and Kindle. Users of these devices may still download ebooks from Maine InfoNet.

If you have questions about our ebooks and your devices, please call (207) 764-2571 during business hours or contact us any time via Facebook under Presque Isle Librarians or by emailing lisanealshaw@presqueislelibrary.org, diannaleighton@presqueislelibrary.org, or pimelibrarian@gmail.com.

An Author You Can't Refuse

“Inmates are free to roam the prison [at Otisville], but aren’t allowed to enter other housing units. Otherwise, a con can slip into a unit, pipe someone over the head, and split.

When Christmas came around, the Italians needed a hack to look the other way while we all snuck into one unit to get together for dinner. Everyone knew I got along with Officer Hardy.

‘See if he’ll let us do Christmas dinner by you,’ said Gussy.

By now, I did my own thing, kept some distance from the Mob. But these were good guys who looked after me when I arrived.

I talked to Hardy.

‘Okay, Ferrante, but not too many guys, I don’t need a problem.’

On Christmas Day, we took over the rec room in my unit. We pushed together the Ping-Pong tables and threw sheets over them for tablecloths.

Earlier in the week, Patty Paresi stole two buckets from the paint shop. With a homemade heating rod called a ‘stinger,’ we boiled five pounds of macaroni in one bucket, a fish sauce in the other. Ralphy the Bandit made garlic bread and caponata. We even had a plate of finocchio and olive oil.

I gave Hardy A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. His nose was an inch off the page as a dozen Italians from other units trickled in during the 6:00 p.m. move.”

Unlocked: A Journey from Prison to Proust is the autobiography of Louis Ferrante, a former loanshark and soldier in the Gambino crime family, at that time under the leadership of the late John Gotti. Lou’s story is remarkable for many reasons, from the hair-raising stories of life on the street - told with a mix of gritty detail and warm humor - to the evolution of his writing and diction itself throughout the book. But like a Godfather version of Pilgrim’s Progress, Lou encounters as diverse and colorful an array of friends and acquaintances who would all play some part in setting his life course from the City of Destruction through the Valley of of the Shadow of Death and on into the Celestial City, to redemption and a life that motivates, encourages and saves through the most valuable commodity he had ever touched.

• Sonny, the Colombo family geisha house owner who ran a fraudulent credit scam from under his wig ( a federal crime);
• The prison guards who tossed him in the hole after an apple throwing incident and gave him time to think about his life and develop the urge to read;
• Fat George, who “had half the Bible tattooed on his body” and access to some books;
• “The broad at the bookstore”;
• Fred, the “small balding man with a fast walk, like a white George Jefferson” who headed the Education Department at Lewisburg [federal prison];
• Jimmy, former head of the notorious Westies Irish mob out of Hell’s Kitchen, once described as a “sadistic thug” renowned for dismembering his hits post-mortem who thought Lou was being wasted working in the kitchen at Lewisburg and “pulled some strings”: “I got you a job at Education,” he said. “Now you can read all you want”; and
  
• Richard Messina, corporate attorney and convict whom Lou first encountered in the yard reading A. Scott Berg’s Lindbergh …

These are just some of the unlikely people who pulled Lou out of the swamp of street crime to the socially esteemed roles of educator, writer and academic. And it started not with stolen electronics, cash, drugs, leather coats or cars - it started with books. These are the first three books Lou was handed in prison:

Napoleon - Vincent Cronin
















Mein Kampf















Caesar's Gallic Wars









"Get them books yet?" [Fat George] asked.

"Yeah, who picked 'em?"

"The broad at the store."

"Whaddyu tell 'er?"

"That you were short and bossy."

Louis Ferrante went on to tutor fellow inmates in Shakespeare, world history and literature. He served an eight-years sentence, and has since left both prison and the Mafia life. He is now an author, motivational speaker, and has appeared on The Daily Show. Lou has also published Mob Rules: What the Mafia Can Teach the Legitimate Businessman. Louis sends along these personal recommendations for our library readers:

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

The Count of Monte-Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

The Story of My Life by Helen Keller

Nelson Mandela: The Struggle is My Life

A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King

The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini


Author Louis Ferrante (image used with permission)

Reading Recommendations from Melanie

Melanie’s Recommended Books

Tremendous thanks to library volunteer Melanie for her book recommendations. One of the many great things about our library volunteers is that they each bring a unique set of experiences, tastes and interests that patrons and staff alike can draw on for an expert opinion. Melanie's husband is a tattoo artist and she herself is an amazing work of art. If you're looking for something interesting to read this summer, take a look at Melanie's outstanding suggestions below.

Stiff by Mary Roach

Down East Detective by Karen Lemke

Deviant by Harold Schechter

Delores Claiborne, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon,

and The Long Walk by Stephen King

Intensity and Fear Nothing by Dean Koontz

Rumble Fish and The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Superfudge by Judy Blume

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews

Go Ask Alice by Anonymous

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

Lost on a Mountain in Maine by Joseph B. Egan

New York City Tattoo: The Oral History of an Urban Art

by Michael McCabe

Overdrive Update for Library Books on Kindle

Overdrive has notified libraries of the following information regarding the imminent availability of Kindle-compatible e-books through libraries, and we are in turn passing this information on to you:

"Many of you will receive inquiries about this new program, so here is a brief introduction to what can be expected when this launches:

• The Kindle Library Lending program will integrate into your existing OverDrive-powered 'Virtual Branch' website.
  
• Your existing collection of downloadable eBooks will be available to Kindle customers. As you add new eBooks to your collection, those titles will also be available for lending to Kindle and Kindle reading apps. Your library will NOT need to purchase any additional units or formats to have Kindle compatibility. This will work for your existing eBook titles.
  
• A user will be able to browse for titles on any desktop or mobile operating system, check out a title with a library card, and then select Kindle as the delivery destination. The borrowed title can then be enjoyed using any Kindle device and all of Amazon's free Kindle reading apps.
  
• The Kindle eBook titles borrowed from a library will carry the same rules and policies as all our other eBooks.
  
• The Kindle Library Lending program will support publishers' existing lending models.
  
• Your users' confidential information will be protected.
  
• The Kindle Library Lending program is only available for libraries, schools, and colleges in the United States."

Thank you to Overdrive, Amazon, and everyone who has made this possible - most particularly YOU the library patron.

For any questions about library e-books and e-readers, please feel free to contact staff at Mark & Emily Turner Memorial Library in Presque Isle, Maine. Our full ist of contact information is here:

http://www.presqueislelibrary.org/contact/