What to Read to While Away the Summer Hours?

Okay, so vacation has not even begun and already someone is telling you to read something over the summer!! You are tired! You have been reading nothing but textbooks and information for your courses and research projects! You do not want to think about reading! I figure that will last about a week. Then, unless you are really busy with a stressful summer job, you will need to have something to do that requires just a little brain power. Doing, “Absolutely Nothing!” never feels as good as it sounds! So, here are some suggestions from a Librarian who has several hobbies—one of them being reading for pleasure.

	If you have not read Twilight, then get with the program. Everyone who is anyone has read it! It is an easy and entertaining read. The characters are engaging with lives that are so much more interesting than our own. You get lost in their world for a time. It is thoroughly enjoyable! If you think vampires are scary, then this will convince you that they are not all that way.
	I am reading a new non-fiction book, Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals. Two of the subject headings for it are: emotions in animals, and animal behavior. It is available in print as well as an Audio Book through NetLibrary. This is the first time that I ever started a book at the end. The afterward is titled: “Why Do I Still Work for the Industry?” That grabbed my attention, so I started reading there. The author, Temple Grandin, works for the meat industry. She discusses the fact that there are those who raise animals for food that are doing it the decent, humane way. In the end, she relays the fact that many cows have better lives than a supposedly pampered dog that is left alone all day. Dogs can suffer from separation anxiety when left on their own while the owner is at work. A good life for pets requires: health, freedom from physical and emotional pain, and lots of interaction and activities with humans. Read it to learn how to treat your pets and give them the best life possible.
	Are you serious? You have not read any of the Harry Potter books? Even if you have seen the movies, you are missing out. The book is always better! Take time this summer to read the first one, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is available at Steen Library. The Nacogdoches Public Library also carries print and audio book versions. Your local Public Library is likely to have a copy as well. It is the shortest at 309 pages. I promise you will be hooked! You will understand how Harry Potter became sopopular.
	One last suggestion is called The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. It would be a great “take on a week at the beach” as it is over 500 pages. However, it is so well written that it is hard to put it down! It is about a girl who loves books and is sent to live with an older couple during World War II. It does not sound too exciting, but it is! Try it out.

Have a Great Summer!

Do you have any summer book recommendations? Post a comment and share some of your favorite summer reads.

Tina Oswald toswald@sfasu.edu rm. 202f 936.468.1861 Subjects - Elementary Education, and Secondary Education/Educational Leadership

SFA Internet Books

Did you know that Steen Library subscribes to a collection of internet books called NetLibrary? There are almost 30,000 books in this collection. Compared to our general collection of almost half a million monographs, it's a small collection, but still large enough to add significant value. In doing a routine subject or keyword search in our catalog, it's not unusual for one or more of the retrieved titles to be part of the NetLibrary Collection. The oldest titles in the collection are about twelve years old, but most of the books in the collection were published in this decade. While some of the titles are duplicated in our print collection, many are not.

These electronic books are perfect for distance education students. I've never tried to read one of these books from cover to cover, but most books checked out from our general collection, excluding, children's books and novels, are not read cover to cover. One or two chapters in the book is probably all that the average student uses. In one sense, electronic books are more useful than print books. One can do keyword searching of the full text of the book. This allows the user to find the paragraphs in the book containing a particular word or phrase.

The user can print pages from the book, but each page requires a separate print command. In other words you cannot do a print all or print pages 1-50. Another drawback to the collection is that most of these books allow only one SFASU user at a time.

Faculty members who want to make assignments using these books should be aware of the limitations, ask the librarian to write specific instructions for the students, tell the students about the one user at a time limitation, and allow enough time for the assignment given the size of the class.

NetLibrary is listed on our Databases A-Z list linked from the library homepage. After getting into NetLibrary, select title or subject keyword search on your topic to see if there are books in the collection that may meet your needs. If you are off campus, be sure to begin by logging in to your mySFA account, click on myCourses, and then link to the library homepage.

The first time you use NetLibrary, you may want to set up a login for the collection. This will make it easier to use the collection off campus. For class use, you might want to set up a class login and password.

As I mentioned earlier, most of the NetLibrary books are included in the Steen Library catalog. You'll occasionally retrieve one of these titles in a routine search.

Bernice Wright bwright@sfasu.edu rm. 202j 936.468.1528 Subjects - Agriculture, Forestry, Human Sciences, Human Services, Speech/Communication