Remembering Violence Before an Election in Schuylkill County

The primary this week is a good reminder of how far we have come in this county. 80 years ago, things were not so civilized.

The Kelayres Massacre took place on November 5, 1934 when one party, the Democrats, decided to have a parade celebrating the coming general election. The leader of the Republican party in town took exception to that, and members of his family opened fire on the unarmed parade marchers. Five people died as a result of the gunfire, and the next day the Republicans were defeated in elections across the state. 

You can find more information about this violent event from newspaper articles written at the time. The Pottsville Library has collected some of the articles from the Pottsville Republican newspaper and put them into our Vertical File collection for easier access.

There are also two books coming out this year that will discuss the topic. Keystone Tombstones is a series that looks at famous graves in Pennsylvania, and volume three (read the newspaper article about it here) will include photos of some of the graves of those involved.

A quick search of the Internet revealed that another book coming out this fall will focus on the massacre and the political environment at the time. The Kelayres Massacre: Politics and Murder in Pennsylvania's Coal Country, by Stephanie Hoover, is expected to be released in September. We'll be looking to add the title to our collection when it comes out.

Curious about who else is buried in Pennsylvania? We have the first two volumes of Keystone Tombstones in the Reference Collection of the library. Some of the people you'll find in Volume One include Harry Kalas, Jayne Mansfield, The Molly Maguires, and Jim Thorpe. Volume Two continues with people like Richie Ashburn, Jim Croce, Milton Hershey, and Fred Rogers. We've also ordered a copy of Keystone Tombstones Civil War, which will be added to the Reference Collection as soon as it comes in.

Who Controls Your Information?

Two observances this week are trying to raise awareness of who knows what about you and who controls your information.

Choose Privacy Week is an annual observance running May 1-7. Sponsored by the American Library Association, the intent is to draw library users (and everyone else) into a conversation about privacy rights in the digital age. Just about all public libraries have privacy policies in place to protect those who borrow books and everything else from our collections. We don't tell other people what you check out, what you were looking at on the computer, or what you asked at the Reference Desk. But libraries can only protect so much, it's up to the library users to further protect themselves outside of the library building. Things like using the privacy controls in Facebook, or using a search service like DuckDuckGo.com or Startpage.com to search the Internet more privately. Have you noticed that once you look online for, say, a new pair of shoes, you start seeing ads from businesses selling those kinds of shoes? That's because businesses track your searching and shopping habits while you are using the Internet. Some browsers have an option in their "Privacy" tools that theoretically tell web sites not to track what you are doing, but that is not a guaranteed way to avoid being tracked. The site can still choose to ignore the request and you won't always know if the site tracks you or not. Some internet security programs have additional Do Not Track (DNT) methods, and you can read about them here. It is a problem, and will remain a problem for a while because so many companies are making so much money off of your data: who you are, how much money you spend on what kinds of items, where you live, etc.

May 6th is also International Day Against DRM. What is DRM? DRM determines what kind of software you need (or what kind of device) in order to read the ebook you wanted to purchase. DRM controls how many devices can hold that ebook, and prevents you from loaning that ebook to a friend to read. DRM also helps publishers control how many times a book can be read: some publishers license ebooks to public libraries, but limit those books to 26 uses and then the file is automatically deleted. Some might argue that DRM is a method to protect copyright, but it's really a method to control what you can do with the item you just paid for. It can also create a problem by denying you access to your own equipment: some people might remember when Sony used DRM on music CDs that ended up crashing listeners' computers. There is a list of Frequently Asked Questions about DRM that you can read for more examples. DRM isn't just on ebooks, however: it's also on the DVDs you purchase, the files you stream from video companies, the iPad you use.  Want to find DRM free materials? This list is a good place to start.

Have more questions about your privacy? You can find out more on sites like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, and USA.gov's "Protect Your Privacy Online" page. Or contact the Pottsville Library Reference Department, and we'll help you find answers to your questions.

April is National Poetry Month!

Today begins National Poetry Month, a time to celebrate poems and poets past and present. There are a number of ways you can take part!

The Academy of American Poets has two web pages to help get you started. What Is National Poetry Month? answers some of the questions you might have about NPM specifically, such as who started it, why April, and how groups can get involved. 30 Ways to Celebrate gives some ways you or your group can take part in the celebration, such as using chalk to write a poem on the sidewalk, some classic poems to read and share, how to start a poetry group, and more.

You can find many, many poems and poets at the Poetry Foundation website, including a variety of poems specific to a season, occasion, or even region (like poems by poets from the Mid-Atlantic region).

If you are trying to find out more about a particular poet, you might try using your Pottsville Library card in the POWER Library Network, and explore the Contemporary Authors database there.

If you enjoy short, funny poems, why not attend the Pottsville Open Writers (POW!) meeting this Saturday, April 5? The topic for the day is "a funny short story or poem". Everyone shares what they came up with, then there is another writing assignment during the meeting on a topic chosen by that day's leader. POW meetings are open to anyone age 18 and older, new members are always welcome, and there is no fee to join! POW meets on the second floor of the Pottsville Library from 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.

And, in hopes we've seen the last of the winter weather, a haiku from the Reference Desk:

Winter is now gone
Cool wind blows across blue sky
Slowly Spring arrives.

Annual Update to Obituary Index

Great news for genealogy researchers: the annual update to the Pottsville Republican obituary index has been put up on our genealogy page! You can find the index here:  http://www.pottsvillelibrary.org/genie.htm#news .  The list is now more than 3,700 pages long and includes more than 178,000 names. It covers 1884-1894, 1950-mid1982, 2008-2013, and any names we find as we answer requests for copies of obituaries, plus names and dates provided by other genealogy researchers. As you can see, we have a long way to go, but every name we add (and we add names on an almost daily basis) helps it grow.

Take Part in Read an E-Book Week, March 2-8, 2014

E-books: they seem to be everywhere, talked about by everyone, argued about, loved, hated, cheered, ignored. If you haven't tried reading e-books yet because you don't want to spend the money on a tablet or e-reader, we have some great news for you: you can read e-books on your computer, laptop or smartphone. Here are some great places to find free e-books, most of which can be downloaded and read without any special software or devices.

Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org) is the original source for free e-books on the Internet. (I read my first e-book, "Herland", from this site more than 20 years ago!) These are all books that were previously published and are now in the public domain. Great place to find the classics, most of which can be downloaded for use on most devices and computers. (Parents, keep this site in mind for your kid's summer reading assignments!)

The Online Books Page hosted by the University of Pennsylvania (onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu) has gathered together the records for more than one million free e-books from all over the Internet. Here you will find non-English language e-books, banned books, featured women writers, and other collections. Where else could you stumble on Haunted Houses: Tales of the Supernatural, With Some Account of Hereditary Curses and Family Legends (London: Chapman and Hall, 1907), by Charles G. Harper?

Read Easily Online Library (www.readeasily.com) focuses on providing more display options for e-books. The site allows you to change the font size, as well as font color and background color, with the options based on research for what works best for those who are partially sighted and old age readers. The files are also formatted to work with text-to-speech software for the blind and visually impaired.

Amazon, Barnes & Noble, DigiLibraries, Feedbooks, and Smashwords are all sources for more free e-books, both classic and current, as well as e-books you can purchase. If you are looking for e-books written by Schuylkill County authors, these sites are the best places to check.


So, if you've been one of those who have ignored e-books, thinking there was nothing you wanted to spend money on, this is the time to give e-books a chance. And if you are a fan of e-books, and we left out one of your favorite sources for reading, please share that site with us!

Celebrating African American History Month!

There are so many ways to celebrate African American History month, so many reasons to celebrate it, and so many people to celebrate, it can be a little overwhelming where to start. Whether you are cheering on Elana Meyers and Lauryn Williams in the women's bobsled event at the Winter Olympics, or you've been following speedskater Shani Davis over the years; whether you were alive when the Civil Rights Act was passed 50 years ago; whether you listen to music, read history, or watch films; all of these are reasons to celebrate this month.

One of the great places to start learning more is at the African American History website created by the Library of Congress, National Gallery of Art, and several other federal agencies. From here you can learn more about the Underground Railroad through the National Park Service's Network to Freedom. Or visit the Exhibitions and Collections section to view some of the art and learn about some of the artists featured in the National Gallery of Art.

If you have a Pottsville Library card, you can use it to access some of the ebooks in the Reference Collection. From the library's homepage at www.pottsvillelibrary.org, click on Infobase eBooks to read "African Americans in the Military", or "Encyclopedia of Free Blacks and People of Color in the Americas".

Your Pottsville Library card also gives you access to the POWER Library Network. Need to find an African American author born in Pennsylvania? Contemporary Authors allows you to search by ethnicity, gender, and birth place. Need to find articles about civil rights, published within the last ten years? MasterFILE Main Edition allows you to search by subject and narrow it to just those dates you need, and only those articles that are available full text (so you can read the entire article on your computer screen). And SIRS Discoverer has some great resources for elementary and middle school school students who have a homework assignment due tomorrow!

And, if you have to come in to the library, we have a number of great reference, circulating, and children's books about African Americans in history and today. Library staff will help you get started in finding out more about this important group in our nation's history.

Winter Weather and Library Hours

The last few weeks have been brutal, haven't they? Snow storm after snow storm, with some ice mixed in there. Lovely. The Pottsville Library does try to remain open as much as possible, but we do sometimes close  for the safety of our staff and users. If you are hoping to come in to the library, and the weather is bad, please check our Facebook page to see if we're closed or closing early, or give us a call before you head out. We want everyone to stay safe this season!