THE INDIANHEAD ROCK

Between Pottsville and Schuylkill Haven, on Route 61 between the Mount Carbon exit and Cressona Mall, there is a large painted red and white object, which has been a landmark since well before Pottsville was planned. It’s easily visible up on the steep hillside. It’s on private land and it is not recommended that anyone attempt to actually go up there.

In his book Black Rock: Mining Folklore of the Pennsylvania Dutch, (call number 398 K844) the author George Korson vaguely attempts to link the Indianhead Rock with a series of settler murders in the 1780s, committed according to legend by local indigenous residents.

What we know for certain about the rock is that in 1923 the Pottsville Chapter of the Afternoon Delphian Society, at that time under the leadership of Mrs. H. O. Bechtel, adopted the rock as a significant local landmark. The bushes surrounding the rock were cleared and a sign was erected on what was at that time Route 122 pointing out the existence of the rock high above the road. When the road was expanded the sign was removed, but the bushes mysteriously continued to be trimmed.

The rock has always been red, but it has been painted even redder over the years and the portion of the rock which might represent the feathered bonnet surrounding the face was painted white. There is no mention anywhere as to when the flag was erected just above the rock.

In addition to the book, there was an article written by Walter S. Farquhar in his regular column Editorial Musings, on April 9, 1956 in the Pottsville Republican. The article is titled “The Old Indian Profile.” He makes a big deal pointing out that there is no historical significance to the rock, except for its original booster, Mrs. Bechtel, and a series of intrepid painters are named. This article can be found in the Vertical File collection.

Follow this link for a picture of the rock formation:

http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WME2N

Spring Cleaning

Even libraries have to clean things up sometimes. Right now we're trying to clean up our website! While we have updated the information on the pages, the site itself is looking a bit dated. So we're trying to clean things up, spruce them up, and generally make our site more usable for our library patrons. If there's something you'd like to see on our site, please send us an email at potref@pottsvillelibrary.org and let us know!

April at the Pottsville Library

April means art month at the Pottsville Free Public Library! All this month, members of the Schuylkill County Allied Artists will be displaying their works around the library. Most of the artwork will be available to purchase, so here's your chance to add some original art from local artists to your collection.

Don't forget to join us for National Library Week, which is observed April 11th - 17th.

And later this month, we will be part of the 4th Annual Block of Art, which takes place in downtown Pottsville from April 23rd - 25th. Stores and galleries will be open to show local artists and celebrate the best Schuylkill County has to offer.

Need some help getting started on your own creative projects? Check out our collection of magazines and books for projects from wood to wool, cotton to cameras, or printing to painting, and get inspired to create your own art.

Happy art month to all!

netLibrary Book of the Month - Update and Apology

In the past we have pointed out the book-of-the-month in netLibrary (part of the POWER Library). A recent question had us trying to go back to a title from a previous month, and we discovered we could no longer access that title. Whoops! We didn't realize access was limited to just that month.

So we have deleted the previous netLibrary book-of-the-month posts from our blog. This doesn't mean that this feature is no longer available from netLibrary. If a title is really juicy we'll still blog about it. Just be aware that you may not be able to use that title after the end of the current month (so read quickly and take notes!).

There are still lots of titles in netLibrary that are available all year long, so we encourage you to visit it anyway. Just go to our website at www.pottsvillelibrary.org, click on the POWER Library icon, and enter your Pottsville library card number. Select netLibrary, and away you go!

Changes to POWER Library Line-up

The state budget crunch meant changes had to be made to the databases available through the POWER Library. These resources are available to anyone with a library card for their local Pennsylvania public library. If you have a Pottsville Library card, you can access these materials through our website at www.pottsvillelibrary.org. Just click on "POWER Library", enter your library card number, and then select the resource you want to use.

Some things haven't changed: the Auto Repair Reference Center, AP Images, Biography Reference Bank, Contemporary Authors, NoveList, SIRS Discoverer, netLibrary, and Consumer Health Complete are still available to Pennsylvania residents. (Some will go away in July, but we'll talk about those later.)

Gone are most of the EBSCO databases, such as MasterFILE Premier, MAS Online Plus, and a variety of other related magazine indexes. Also gone are the Oxford titles, such as the Grove Art and Grove Music resources, and the huge collection of Oxford Reference materials. The Poem Finder (and speech, short story, and other literature finder) was another budget victim.

To replace some of these lost treasures, residents now have access to several new titles. If you have any questions about using any of these resources, please contact the Pottsville Reference Department at potref@pottsvillelibrary.org or call us at 570-622-8880.

ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry -- articles about companies, executives, products, trends, and related topics. Most articles are full-text, so you can read them right from your computer.

InfoTrac Newsstand -- articles from over 1000 newspapers, including the Harrisburg Patriot-News, the Reading Eagle, and the Pottsville Republican-Herald. Full-text will vary with each title in the database.

OmniFile Mega -- articles from over 2500 magazines and journals, and citations and abstracts from 4000 journals. Appropriate for high school students and adults.

OmniFile Select -- all articles are full-text, from a wide variety of magazines and journals. Appropriate for high school students and adults.

Readers' Guide Select -- abstracts and full text articles from 200 magazines, appropriate for middle-school students and older.

Science Full Text Select -- full text articles from 360 science journals, appropriate for high school students and adults.

The Library is now on Facebook!

Yes, we've taken that next step in Library 2.0 and set up our Facebook page. Become a fan and find out what's happening at the library. Eventually we'll be adding photos, events, and maybe even videos, and we'll also post weather-related closures if they happen. Just search for "Pottsville Library" next time you're in Facebook and join us!

Upgrades and Updates

Every computer system needs periodic updates and upgrades, and library systems are no different. The Pottsville Free Public Library is in the process of upgrading both our circulation system (how books get checked out) and our catalog system (how you know what books we have). Please have patience with us and our systems during this transition period. Thank you!