Health Insurance Marketplace, and the Affordable Care Act

October 1 marks the beginning of open enrollment for those who do not have health insurance. Do you know what that means to you and your family? If you are not sure if you need to take part or not, start now by visiting HealthCare.gov.  You can find answers to many of your questions on the "Individuals" page at www.healthcare.gov/families/, such as what the Marketplace is, what the insurance covers, what your rights are, what to do if you are self-employed. If you already have health insurance, there are answers about what the Affordable Care Act already does for you.

Some facts that everyone needs to know:

• Pennsylvania residents will need to use HealthCare.gov to apply for coverage, compare available plans, and enroll. 
• Starting in 2014, health insurance plans can't refuse to cover you or charge you more just because you have a pre-existing health condition. (Unless you keep your previous individual insurance, which is considered "grandfathered" in and does not have to meet this requirement. See the site for more details.)
• Most health plans must cover a set of preventive services like shots and screening tests at no cost to you.
• If you run an income-generating business with no employees, then you're considered self-employed (not an employer) and can get coverage through the Marketplace.
• Some fraudsters may try to convince you to pay for help signing up.  The Marketplace has trained assisters in every state to help you at no cost. You should never be asked to pay for services or help. Double check any information that is confusing or sounds fishy. Call the Health Insurance Marketplace at 1-800-318-2596 if something doesn't sound right.

By learning more now, you can be ready when October 1 comes around!

Library News/letter

Do you receive the Pottsville Library's newsletter? Did you even know one exists? If you don't get it in the mail, you can take a look at it from the library's website. Just go to our "Stacks of News" page at www.pottsvillelibrary.org/stacks_of_news.htm and click on the top link for the latest issue. Issues are in PDF format, so they look exactly like the printed pages we mail out.

Our next "1st Monday" used book sale, hosted by the Friends of the Pottsville Library, will be on Tuesday, September 3 from 12 to 2 pm. If you can't make that book sale, there will be another Book and Bake Sale on Saturday, September 21 from 9 am to 1 pm.  Book sale proceeds go to the funds used by the Friends to support library needs, such as the library's wi-fi network and printers for staff. Bake sale proceeds benefit the Teen Advisory Board, so they can do awesome things with their annual Halloween Haunted House in the library's basement.

POW, the Pottsville Open Writers group, will be meeting at the library on September 14 at 11 am. Participants should write about "the most memorable moment of your life." The session will include discussion of what people wrote on that topic (poem, prose, limerick, whatever works for you!), and then a half hour when participants write a paragraph or a poem on another topic of the leader's choosing. All aspiring writers are encouraged to attend, even if you've never been to a meeting or written anything before!

And along those lines, the Pottsville Library wants to encourage any writer in or from Schuylkill County to consider taking part in our "Local Authors Showcase" on Small Business Saturday (November 30), from 11 am to 4 pm. Anyone from our area who has written a book may sign up for a spot in the library. The downtown Pottsville area businesses will be offering specials to people who want to do their holiday shopping locally, and we wanted to give our local authors a chance to take part in this tradition. For a registration form or for more information, contact the Pottsville Library by email at potpublib at pottsvillelibrary.org, or call the library at 570-622-8880. Registration must be made by October 1 so we can guarantee you a spot!

Let's Try This Again, Shall We?

It's been two years since we last posted on this blog. How time flies when the library is busy! But we'll try again to get this communication going. If there is something you want us to discuss, please let us know!

Upcoming events from the Reference Department:

Are you, your son, or your daughter planning on going to college? Trying to figure out how to pay for it? On Tuesday, September 17 at 6 p.m., a representative of PHEAA will be at the Pottsville Library to answer questions about finding financial aid for college. The program is free and open to anyone, adult or teenager, who is planning on attending college in the near future. Registration is not required, but you can contact the Reference Department at 570-622-8880 for more information about the program.

EBooks are coming! And more news from the Reference Department.

In the near future, we will be adding several ebooks to the reference collection of the Pottsville Free Public Library. These ebooks will be available through the library's catalog, and will be available to use on any computer by anyone with a Pottsville Library card. Subjects include science experiments for students; several encyclopedias dealing with poisons, phobias, alcoholism, and drug abuse; and histories of Afghanistan and Egypt. Stay tuned for more details!

Also coming this fall, an updated index to obituaries in the local newspapers. We're up to 143,000 names from the Pottsville Republican, nearly 20,000 more than last year! Look for the updated index on the library's genealogy page in September or October.

The Library's 100th anniversary is being celebrated in a few ways. Don't forget to mark your calendars for Saturday, November 5, when we will host the "Inspired by a Book" exhibit, and a presentation by Sally Wiener Grotta about Pennsylvania artisans.

Snow Days

It seems like we've been getting lots of little snow storms, rather than one or two big storms, in addition to the really cold weather. Makes you glad you don't live closer to Philadelphia or New York! Here are some of the newer books we've added to our collection related to the climate:

The View From Lazy Point: A natural year in an unnatural world, by Carl Safina (508 Sa17)

The Climate War: True believers, power brokers, and the fight to save the earth, by Eric Pooley (363.738 P789)

Eaarth: Making a life on a tough new planet, by Bill McKibben (363.738 M21)

(No, I didn't spell it wrong; the cover really has the planet's name spelled with two A's.)

How to Cool the Planet: geoengineering and the audacious quest to fix Earth's climate, by Jeff Goodell (551.6 G61)

(Okay, so "cooling" may not be a popular topic after the bitter cold we've had.)

Diet for a Hot Planet: The climate crisis at the end of your fork and what you can do about it, by Anna Lappe (338.19 L318)

Everyone's Talking About E-Books

With all the hype surrounding the Amazon Kindle, the Barnes and Noble Nook, and the Sony e-Reader, it's obvious that e-books are here to stay. But what if you don't have the cash to drop on a reader or the books themselves?

What if we told you that you could read "Drawings and Studies by Michelangelo", "Essential Computer Skills for Working Women", "Little Women", "Dracula", and hundreds of thousands of other books for free, from your computer? Most of the websites below offer multiple formats, versions for mobile phones, and versions that are easier for Text to Speech software. You can even find some free audio books on these sites.

Here are some of the best we've found so far:

E-Books Directory -- "A daily growing list of freely downloadable ebooks, documents and lecture notes found all over the internet." Promote your own e-book, add comments to others, or just browse the directory. Some topics, like Children's Books, include audio books as well as standard e-books.

Online Books Page -- "Listing over 900,000 free books on the web." This site pulls together e-books from other websites to give you a single point to find titles. Includes prize winning books like Newbery Books and winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature or Pulitzer Prize in Letters; a section on books banned through the ages; and a celebration of women writers. Also includes a single point to find professional and academic journals with freely accessible archives online.

POWER Library's netLibrary allows you to read books both new and old on your computer screen. From the main POWER Library page, just click on the resource you want to use. Home users will need to type in your Pottsville library card number in order to use these databases.

Project Gutenberg -- 33,000 free books and counting from the first producer of free electronic books (e-books).

Read Easily -- This site provides books in formats where you can control the size of the text and color for those who need high-contrast pages, and the books are easily read by Text to Speech software for those who are blind or visually impaired.

For more sites that have free e-books, visit the Texas State Library and Archive Commission's Library Development blog post, "Free E-Books Are Here!" (Nov. 3, 2010)

Depository Library Survey

Do you use the Pottsville Free Public Library to access federal government resources? If so, the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) wants to hear your opinion!

The 16-question survey focuses on depository access, services, and collections. Results of the survey will contribute to the extensive efforts by the Government Printing Office (GPO) to address the value of FDLP membership.

The survey will be administered using Survey Monkey and it will run through the end of December. Access the survey at <http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HSLCRRB> . All answers are kept confidential.

The Pottsville Free Public Library has been a member of the FDLP since 1967, and we provide access to both United States and Pennsylvania agency publications in print and online.