Online Resources

During these challenging times, we still want to continue to be a resource for our community. We have put together helpful information and links for online resources that are now available from e-books to live classes. We hope these will help as we all continue to practice social distancing and online learning. Check back often as we will add more as we receive them.

Success... it's what you do with what you've got.

– Leroy Van Dyke

MCLINC

Check out this instructional video for our online catalog. You can learn how to create a list of items to be placed on hold at a later date.

Pennsylvania Higher Education Agency

Pennsylvania Higher Education Agency (PHEAA) will be offering a live webinar on April 30 from 6:00-7:00pm.

Please join representatives from the Pennsylvania Higher Education Agency. They will be providing an overview of how to apply for all types of financial aid, including completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which is required to determine eligibility for most student aid programs such as the Pennsylvania State Grant, Federal Pell Grant, institutional offers, and federal student and parent loans. This will also be a great opportunity to have PHEAA representatives answer questions you may have.

Nothing In The Rulebook

While we of course advocate supporting your local independent book store – and independent publishing houses – and would urge you to purchase copies of your books where you can afford to, below you can find a collection of 45 websites where you can download tens of thousands of books, plays and texts for free. Oh, and these sites are also all completely legal, of course!

Pennsylvania Libraries

The Peters Township Community Library has created a really cool Harry Potter themed escape room for their patrons to use during this unprecedented shut down. After they released the escape room, the information went viral and they have had tens of thousands of users in just a week or two of going live. It has also been featured in a number of national online journals and even highlighted internationally in Australia and the United Kingdom. Sydney Krawiec graciously agreed to share how she developed the escape room in a webinar which is part of the Pennsylvania Library Association Blue Jeans account. The webinar can be found via the button below.

World Book

For over 100 years, our missions have been aligned. To further support you and your remote learning efforts, World Book is providing all of our valued educators with access to additional Pre-K to grade 12 learning resources through April 30, 2020. To gain access to these additional complimentary resources, please click the button below.

We created an easy-to-use guide to support you, your team, parents, grandparents, caregivers, or anyone using our resources remotely. To further support virtual learning, next week World Book will be launching Wizard, an adaptive learning resource for math, science, social studies, and language arts. This resource can help augment teacher and parent efforts by: Ensuring that kids retain content taught earlier this school year, and
Providing teachers and parents the opportunity to assign new learning topics and to monitor students’ progress on each topic, ensuring that they are learning and mastering standards-based content.

When you click to gain access to the additional complimentary resources, you will automatically have access to Wizard when it becomes available next week, without any further action.

RBDigital

Patrons without library cards can now register for access to RBdigital by using 17942020 as their access code when they register. Just click the image below or here to register.

OverDrive

If you don't have a library card, you can get an Instant Digital Card through OverDrive using your cell phone number, and get immediate access to ebooks and audiobooks. Just click the image below or here to get started!

National Constitution Center

On Monday, March 23, the National Constitution Center launched a free eight-week series of daily live interactive courses on the Constitution for middle school, high school, and college students. Jeffrey Rosen will teach the courses, along with NCC colleagues Kerry Sautner, our dynamic chief learning officer, and Tom Donnelly and Nicholas Mosvick, senior fellows in constitutional studies. You can view the full schedule here. The 1:00pm courses on Wednesday, Thursday, and Fridays will be available for anyone to watch at constitutioncenter.org/live. Visit the Interactive Constitution here.

POWER Library

With public libraries (and schools) closed to the public, please remember the POWER Library is open 24 hours a day! The POWER Library includes over 20 online databases plus over 16,000 e-books you can read online and/or download. If you do not have a public library card yet, please sign up for an eCard to access the POWER Library. An eCard will provide you with immediate access to the e-resource provided in POWER Library. An eCard will not provide you with access to any e-resources subscribed to by your library, nor does it have any borrowing privileges. Visit POWER Library or Register for your eCard here.

Booklist

Booklist Announces Free Online Access for All! All of their content is now freely available until further notice.

“The COVID-19 threat is unprecedented and will continue to cause extreme disruption, both personally and professionally,” said George Kendall, editor and publisher of Booklist Publications. “At Booklist, published by the American Library Association, we want to help minimize these disruptions where we can for all library staff along with their students and patrons. With that in mind, we hope the following information and resources will be helpful.”

“We appreciate our readers and understand you are facing major challenges and disruptions,” Kendall said. "Please do not hesitate to contact us and let us know how we can help.”

Free online access includes:

More than 25 years of recommended print and audiobook reviews, features, interviews, spotlights, and classroom connections
Booklist and Book Links replica digital editions, which can be read on desktop or mobile devices
Advanced search functionality
Readers’ advisory and collection development tools

For an enhanced online experience and to read digital editions on mobile devices, sign in to your existing online profile or complete the free profile form. Note that a profile is not necessary for reading online content, but having one will allow you to save, share, and download your work. To learn how to put Booklist Online to work, please view this informative video tutorial.

Visit Booklist!

PBS Kids

Is your child’s school closed due to coronavirus concerns? PBS KIDS’ new weekday newsletter offers activities and tips you can use to help kids play and learn at home. Click here to sign up and to see a variety of other free resources to support families.

TumbleBooks

TumbleBooks, a world leader in online children’s book databases, is making its family of online libraries available for free until August 31! In addition to the TumbleBooks Library which is always available through our website, you now have access to four more databases. These are easy to use, and feature unlimited access from home! Read as many books as you want, when you want, and on any device. There are no check-outs, holds, or bulky downloads. Books are available instantly. Please click the icons below to get started!

Storytime by Children’s Authors

Click here to see the Big List of Children’s Authors Doing Online Read Alouds & Activities.

Librarian Bookends

Click here for a variety of book resources available from Librarian Bookends on Twitter. And check out the hashtag #OperationStorytime on Twitter for more great resources for your family.

Health Reference Series Online

In the midst of uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, Omnigraphics is committed to bringing you the health resources and information that you and your community need to stay healthy and safe. This is why they are offering access to their state-of-the-art Health Reference Series Online with no charge from now until April 30th. Simply complete the following steps to get access:

Go to our product page.
Click add to cart.
Use code HRSO at checkout.
Enjoy no charge access from now through April 30th.

JENKINTOWN LIBRARY