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All Bucks County Free Library Branches are Open.
To find answers to common questions about library services during the COVID-19 Pandemic, please take a look at our FAQ: buckslib.org/covidfaq

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Established 1956

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Archives for April 2020

My Family’s Favorite Free At-Home Activities and Resources for Creative Learning.

Well, we’ve been at this for a few weeks now. Maybe you started your “school at home” experiment (I won’t call it homeschool because that is truly not what we are doing right now) with enthusiasm and color-coded schedules. Maybe you started slowly and anxiously and worked your way into a good routine. Maybe you’re just slogging through, reinventing the wheel each day. Maybe, like me and my family, you’re somewhere in between. It’s all OK. 

I wanted to write something acknowledging how hard this has been. How weird it is. How there have been tears, slammed doors, and stomped feet (and not just the kids!). But I suspect you’ve read it all before. Besides, my family’s experience is not, cannot be, will never be, your family’s experience. Maybe you are working. Maybe you aren’t. Maybe you have one kid, maybe you have five. Maybe you have another adult helping you work through it. Maybe not. Hopefully, everyone you love is healthy. But maybe not.

[Read more…] about My Family’s Favorite Free At-Home Activities and Resources for Creative Learning.

You Can Access Our WiFi Outside Our Buildings and in Our Parking Lots

Our buildings may be closed, but our WiFi is still on, and you can use it for free in our branch parking lots and outside our buildings. Look for painted WiFi symbols showing the best spots to park to access the signal. For branches where the signal does not reach the parking lot, you can see areas outside the buildings where you can connect here.

Please practice social distancing while using our WiFi and remember, it’s a public network.

Instantly Available Titles for Your Virtual Book Club

Virtual books clubs have grown in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. While book clubs have long been popular, during this difficult time, more and more people have turned to book clubs to share quotes from favorite reads, discuss important issues or even dish on their favorite beach reads.

If your book club has moved online or if you are looking to start a virtual book club, check out these eBook titles that include romance, literary fiction, historical fiction, mystery, and fantasy. Since all are available in Hoopla, each member of your book club can check the same book out at the same time, whether your book club numbers five members or twenty! Remember, with Hoopla, you never have to wait for a title as all titles are available immediately (no holds and no waiting).

[Read more…] about Instantly Available Titles for Your Virtual Book Club

Welcome to Remote Help Desk: Assistance for Your Technology and Computer Problems

Do you want to learn how to do something on your computer, tablet, or device? Need help downloading or streaming e-books, music, movies, and other digital content? Is your computer running slow or are you worried that your device might have spyware? Even though our buildings are closed, we can help you remotely with Remote Help Desk.

Our skilled staff members can assist you with your technology questions and problems over the phone and with remote software.

Get started by scheduling an appointment for Technology Learning Services or Computer Support Services and a staff member will contact you.

Explore Your Family History at Home

Whether you are curious about genealogy research, have a family history puzzle to solve, or hit road blocks in your own research, BCFL offers a plethora of e-resources for you to utilize while at home.

Background

In addition to my role as a BCFL branch staff member, I’m pursuing genealogical certification and recently published my debut novel of which genealogy was key. I’ve been researching family history for roughly 15 years, and have discovered details that both shocked and inspired me. From my widowed second great-grandmother (an Irish immigrant/factory worker) providing for her remaining three children at the turn of the 20th century, to finding out about Scottish Highland ancestors I never knew I had (this OUTLANDER fan was pleased to find M(a)cKenzies and Frasers in my direct lineage), I often wonder about what they endured and how I would respond if I encountered the same struggles. They are more than names and faces, and in tracing their stories I build upon my own.

BCFL E-Resources

The following e-resources may prove invaluable tools regardless of where you are on your family history path! Let’s start with resources available to you as a BCFL cardholder. Select our e-Library – Research and Online Learning section to access the following tools.

[Read more…] about Explore Your Family History at Home

Announcing More Hoopla Borrows For You!

With our buildings closed, you are using our e-library and borrowing more e-content than ever before. Now you can borrow even more! We’ve temporarily increased your monthly Hoopla borrows from 10 to 12 items. Combine that with Hoopla Bonus Borrows that don’t count toward your monthly limit, and you’ve got plenty of eBooks, eAudiobooks, eComics, streaming music, movies, and TV shows to keep you entertained during this “new normal” period.

This change is in effect until September 1, 2020, at which time Hoopla borrowing limits will revert to 10 items per month.

If you have experienced long hold times on OverDrive, check out the titles in cloudLibrary or Hoopla. Remember, Hoopla titles are available immediately with no hold or wait times.

Get an e-Card Today to Instantly Access Our Digital Resources!

Want to use our e-library, but don’t have a library card? If you’re a Bucks County resident, you can get an e-card and instantly access our digital resources including:

  • e-books and e-magazines
  • audiobooks
  • newspapers like the New York Times, The Inquirer, Bucks County Courier Times, and the Intelligencer
  • e-comic books and graphic novels
  • streaming music, movies, and TV shows
  • online databases for educational and personal enrichment like Ancestry, LinkedIn Learning/Lynda.com, Consumer Reports Online, Morningstar Investment Research, Brainfuse, and Learning Express

These resources are available free, 24/7, to anyone with a Bucks County library card.

Our e-Card gives you access to our e-Library only. Once the library reopens, you can visit your nearest Bucks County library and apply for a traditional card, which allows you to also borrow physical library material, including books, DVDs, board games, toys, and more.

Apply for an e-Card here.

Let’s Play School: Spotlight on Explore My World

Children completing three of these activities can earn the Explore My World badge from Let’s Play School. When the library reopens, stop by your branch so that your child can pick up their patch!

  • Go on a Color Hunt! Make a list of all the colors of the rainbow, then have your child find as many things of a certain color as they can. Help your child find different textures within these colors: a soft blue pillow or the bumpy skin of an orange, for example. See which color they find the most.
  • Go on a virtual walk through a museum. Try the Boston Children’s Museum — it’s brand new.
  • Have your child look outside and see what kinds of animals they can see or think about animals that might live in your neighborhood. Using Hoopla, find some books on that animal and learn more about them.
  • Do a sink or float challenge. Have your child choose several items from the house and guess if they will sink or float in water. Ask them if they can guess why.
  • Do shape building! Using familiar items from around your house, such as toilet paper and paper towel tubes, books, shoes, and string, have your child create the shapes they know.

Books of the Times: What to Read During a Pandemic

What to read during a pandemic? Some readers turn to books that are optimistic. Others turn to books about plagues, pandemics, and disasters to try to make sense of what they are experiencing — if you’re in this category, check out these fiction and nonfiction titles, all available as eContent in cloudLibrary.

Pandemics in Nonfiction

Deadliest Enemy by Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker: We are facing an overwhelming army of deadly, invisible enemies. We need a plan — before it’s too late. (eBook and eAudiobook)

And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts: Shilts’ expose revealed why AIDS was allowed to spread unchecked during the early 80’s. A modern classic, it changed and framed how AIDS was discussed in the following years and remains one of the essential books of our time. (eBook)

Get Well Soon by Jennifer Wright: A witty, irreverent tour of history’s worst plagues—from the Antonine Plague, to leprosy, to polio—and a celebration of the heroes who fought them. (eBook and eAudiobook)

Influenza by Jeremy Brown: Highlights that influenza is still a real and present threat and demonstrates the power and limitations of modern medicine. (eBook and eAudiobook)

Superbugs by Matt McCarthy: An informative book that will change your perspective on medicine, microbes and the future.

See all titles in this category.

Pandemics in Fiction

Cold Storage by David Koepp: When Pentagon bioterror operative Roberto Diaz was sent to investigate a suspected biochemical attack, he found something far worse: a highly mutative organism capable of extinction-level destruction. Now, after decades of festering in a forgotten sub-basement, the specimen has found its way out and only Diaz knows how to stop it. (eBook and eAudiobook)

A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: A gripping fictionalized account of the plague that racked seventeenth-century London. (eBook and eAudiobook)

Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson: It’s late summer 1793, and the streets of Philadelphia are abuzz with mosquitoes and rumors of fever. Down near the docks, many have taken ill, and the fatalities are mounting. (eBook and eAudiobook)

The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton: A captivating thriller about a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism, which threatens to annihilate human life. (eBook)

The Companions by Katie M. Flynn: A debut novel set in an unsettling near future. After the wake of a highly contagious virus, the dead can be uploaded to machines and kept in service by the living. Wealthy participants choose to upload their consciousness before dying, so they can stay in the custody of their families. The less fortunate are rented out to strangers upon their death. (eBook and eAudiobook)

All cloudLibrary titles in this category.