Talking Book Topics November-December 2017
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Talking Book Topics September–October 2017 Volume 83, Number 6 Need help? Your local cooperating library is always the place to start. For general information and to order books, call 1-888-NLS-READ (1-888-657-7323) to be connected to your local cooperating library. To find your library, visit www.loc.gov/nls and select “Find Your Library.” To change your Talking Book Topics subscription, contact your local cooperating library. Get books fast from BARD Most books and magazines listed in Talking Book Topics are available to eligible readers for download on the NLS Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD) site. To use BARD, contact your local cooperating library or visit nlsbard.loc.gov for more information. The free BARD Mobile app is available from the App Store, Google Play, and Amazon’s Appstore. About Talking Book Topics Talking Book Topics, published in audio, large print, and online, is distributed free to people unable to read regular print and is available in an abridged form in braille. Talking Book Topics lists titles recently added to the NLS collection. The entire collection, with hundreds of thousands of titles, is available at www.loc.gov/nls. Select “Catalog Search” to view the collection. Talking Book Topics is also online at www.loc.gov/nls/tbt and in downloadable audio files from BARD. Overseas Service American citizens living abroad may enroll and request delivery to foreign addresses by contacting the NLS Overseas Librarian by phone at (202) 707-9261 or by email at [email protected]. Page 1 of 128 Music scores and instructional materials NLS music patrons can receive braille and large-print music scores and instructional recordings through the NLS Music Section. To learn more, email [email protected], call 1-800-424-8567 ext. 2, or visit www.loc.gov/nls/music/index.html. Publication feedback? Share your thoughts about this publication by writing us at: NLS Publications and Media Section Library of Congress Washington, DC 20542 or email us at [email protected]. Library of Congress, Washington 2017 Catalog Card Number 60-46157 ISSN 0039-9183 Contents Talking Book Topics September–October 2017 Contents In Brief Books for Adults Adult Fiction Adventure Animals and Wildlife Family Fantasy General Gothics Historical Fiction Human Relationships Humor Page 2 of 128 Legal Themes Medical Themes Mystery and Detective Occult and Horror Political Themes Psychological Themes Religious Themes Romance Science Fiction Spies and Espionage Suspense War Stories Westerns Adult Nonfiction Arts Astronomy Biography Business and Economics Computers Cooking Crime Diet and Nutrition Drama and Theater Family Folktales Gardening General Geography Government and Politics Hobbies and Crafts Page 3 of 128 Language Legal Issues Literature Marriage and Sex Medicine and Health Music Nature and the Environment Philosophy Poetry Psychology and Self-Help Religion Science and Technology Social Sciences Sports and Recreation Stage and Screen U.S. History World History Books for Children Children’s Fiction Adventure Animals Family Fantasy Friendship Growing Up Historical Fiction Holidays Humor Mystery Scary Stories Page 4 of 128 School Science Fiction Sports Stories Children's Nonfiction Animals Biography History Medicine and Health Nature and the Environment Science and Technology Sports and Recreation Foreign Language Books Español Audio Magazines In Brief Audio magazine about retirement savings available on BARD Published monthly, Kiplinger’s Retirement Report covers practical strategies to help grow retirement savings, how to make money last during retirement, maximization of Social Security and Medicare benefits, and other retirement- related topics. An audio version of Kiplinger’s Retirement Report produced by volunteers at the Florida Bureau of Braille and Talking Book Library in Daytona Page 5 of 128 Beach is now available for download from the NLS Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD) website and also for subscription through the NLS Magazine on Cartridge program under the magazine code KRR4.Contact your local cooperating braille and talking book library to change your Magazine on Cartridge subscription. Newsletter on new NLS initiatives launches NLS has many new things on the horizon in the next two years and in July a newsletter called “NLS on the Move” was launched to keep libraries and subscribers updated on the progress of four new pilot projects designed to create greater efficiencies for our network of cooperating libraries and get more NLS materials to more patrons faster: Duplication-on-Demand. To reduce wait times for talking books, NLS is testing a system that allows network libraries to duplicate talking-book files onto digital cartridges at their own state-based locations. Synthetic Speech. In-person voice recording is still our gold standard, but synthetic speech can help us make available material we couldn’t easily record and bring new, time-sensitive materials to patrons more quickly. Wireless Download. NLS is exploring wireless transmission of talking-book files directly to simple devices in patrons’ homes, which would then load the files onto blank cartridges for use in NLS’s players. Braille eReader. Braille eReaders can turn a digital file instantaneously into braille for tactile reading. NLS—working with the renowned Perkins Library in Massachusetts—is studying the viability of providing eReaders to our patrons. The following is a reprint of the first four newsletter issues: NLS on the Move July 13, 2017 We’re glad to share this introductory issue of our On the Move bulletin. We’ll use it to give you the latest updates on NLS initiatives—updates that you can reuse in Page 6 of 128 your own communications. Look for On the Move toward the end of every month. —Karen Keninger, Director A new front door on the Web The NLS website at www.loc.gov/nls opened its new front door on Sunday, July 9, when our long-awaited revamping of it went live. Most major URLs important to longstanding users within the website have not changed, or have been made painless by internal redirects. New, more explicit, navigation will lead first-time visitors to what they need to find quickly. Three reasons make this the right moment for a new NLS website. First, we are undertaking several major pilots during 2017 and 2018 whose results, we hope, will help us widen our audiences and improve our services to cooperating net- work libraries, and, through them, to our end-user patrons. Second, we want to address a vast audience that has been, in the past, somewhat neglected by our website: visitors who do not use screen readers, but for whom features like monitor contrast tools and font-size adjustments are helpful. Third, a new generation of patrons makes a fresh website crucial. A website in 2017 must be meaningful to longstanding patrons—but also to younger users and others who reach us on mobile devices, to a new generation of veterans and those with physical disabilities who don’t yet see themselves as seniors, and to new organizations who want to help us share the message of our services with their staff and patrons. And if those three reasons weren’t enough, the NLS offices in Washington, D.C., have been undergoing a major renovation this year—so it’s good timing to have a virtual renovation on the web in parallel with our architectural renovation. Websites in 2017 are never truly “done,” and ours is no different. We’ll be iterating on improvements over the next few weeks, so please make your voices heard if there are problems you encounter, fixes that are necessary, or suggestions you would like to make. You’ll find a link right on the homepage asking for your feedback. Make use of it—that’s what it’s for! July 27, 2017 Libraries begin testing duplication-on-demand NLS has now completed initial development and is staging all the materials necessary for its duplication-on-demand pilot, working with six libraries from our cooperating network, in Arkansas, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, North Dakota, and Virginia (where two libraries are participating). The libraries in the pilot all have WebREADS as their integrated library system (ILS)—a prerequisite for participation in the pilot. But the long-term aspiration is for the duplication- Page 7 of 128 on-demand functionality to be available in other library automation systems, including CUL and KLAS, permitting users of those systems to participate. Why do we need this? When the distribution of digital talking-book files on cartridges commenced, it was implemented in a way that mirrored the system used for books on cassette: one book per cartridge, which circulated to patrons and was stored until required. Duplication-on-demand allows the cooperating network libraries across the country to create customized cartridges at their own location, containing books based on the specific requests of the patrons whom they serve. And it makes all the titles in the NLS collection available all the time for all patrons without requiring libraries to stock physical copies of books or to anticipate demand. “Ease of circulation is the key theme here, and also the long term goal,” says Michael Katzmann, chief of the Materials Development Division at NLS. “Think of it not just as a more convenient duplication system, but as groundwork for an electronic, Internet-based service to come. That’s where all circulation is headed. If our pilot shows the success we expect, we would urge all of our network libraries—not just those using WebREADS—to talk to their ILS providers so we can roll out the service more widely.” Duplication-on-demand helps with several key problems faced by our network libraries: current centralized duplication of talking-book cartridges requires network libraries to estimate demand and then to store cartridges not circulating; excess inventory must eventually be recycled; and centralized selection of what goes on a cartridge prevents customization for patrons and limits circulation to the copies already available—which may not include older titles recently converted to digital cartridge format.