The Society of Young Inklings is offering Online Writer’s Circles for young writers! From their website:

Join a small circle of dedicated writers who will encourage, provide specific feedback, and inspire you. Your group will be facilitated by a pro-writer and mentor through an online video chat. In each session, you will:

• play games and do activities that will help you develop your characters, the world of your story, and your plot
• share and discuss pieces of your writing project
• look at the writing of your peers and share what you love and what you wonder
• build close reading skills, and learn to discuss creative work in a way that supports another writer while also helping you to grow your own skill set
• discuss and explore at least one practical strategy to strengthen your writing craft

Click here for more information and sign ups!

The library has a new database!

Statista is one of the world’s leading online statistics portals, with statistics & studies from 18,000 sources. It provides access to several fields of study including marketing, business, politics, social sciences, law, and finance.

Some points of interest:

• Fast and comprehensive starting point for research
• Daily infographics on global issues
• Insight into the digital economies of 50 countries worldwide
• Awarded 2012 Best Statistics Portal 2014 by Library Journal

Go check it out on our databases page!

The library is delighted to announce that we now have audiobooks that you can check out!

Our collection, offering a range of choices for listeners age 11-18 and beyond, is with the ebooks in Overdrive. If you want to see which of our audiobooks are recommended for someone your age, check out our Pinterest board.

If you are not an audiobook devotee already, you might be wondering what there is to get excited about. Click on a cover below to take a listen to some samples from our collection and find out:

William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope (Gr. 8+) Full Cast Reading

The Night Circus (Adult for young adult) Reader: Jim Dale

The Graveyard Book (Gr 5-8) Readers: Tim Dann and Neil Gaiman

Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary “Jacky” Faber, Ship’s Boy (Gr. 6+) Reader: Katherine Kellgren

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Gr. 9+) Reader: Lin-Manuel Miranda

How It Went Down (Gr 9+) Full Cast Reading

Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War (Gr 7+) Reader: Ray Porter

So check out some audiobooks today, an tell us how you enjoy experiencing books in a whole new way!

Learn how to check them out on our how-to page.

JSTOR, one of the loves of our collective lives here at the library, is once again doing something neat.

From their announcement:

“We are pleased to announce a new program to make Open Access monographs available on the JSTOR platform. An initial set of titles is available from four outstanding publishers: University of California Press, University of Michigan Press, UCL Press, and Cornell University Press. We expect to add several hundred more Open Access titles over the next year […]

The ebooks, which reflect JSTOR’s high standards for quality content, are freely available for anyone in the world to use. Each ebook carries one of six Creative Commons licenses determined by the publisher. The titles are easy to use, with no DRM restrictions and no limits on chapter PDF downloads or printing. Users will not need to register or log in to JSTOR.”

The first set of books includes some amazing titles like:

“Bread and Circuses: Theories of Mass Culture as Social Decay”

“Dreams for Dead Bodies: Blackness, Labor, and the Corpus of American Detective Fiction”

At the beginning of the year, we sent out a survey to the Upper School asking about what social media you all would like to see us on. A whopping 54% of respondents said they’d follow us on Instagram and you’re in luck, because the library already has one!

So if you’d like to see the brand new books, picture opportunities like our Miss Peregrine’s photos, or general library shenanigans, follow us @castilibrary!

This election California has seventeen propositions on the ballot, which is…a lot. Fortunately there are a plethora of sources to help you figure out what they’re about, and to help you make an informed vote on each proposition, should you be of age. Here are some sources we have found to be helpful.

League of Women Voters (LWV)

The LWV offers an Easy Voter Guide to guide you through the propositions on the ballot in clear, easy to follow language. It’s available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Korean here. LWV in conjunction with MapLight also offers a website called Voter’s Edge, which is a “a comprehensive, nonpartisan online guide to elections covering federal, state, and local races in the state of California.” It covers the candidates running for offices, as well as the propositions. Both of these resources are nonpartisan–they do not take a position on the issues, they just provide information. LWV as an organization does take positions on some of the propositions, and their positions can be found here.

California’s Official Voter Information Guide

Offered through the Secretary of State, this is the official guide to the California State Ballot. It is available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Thai, Tagalog, and Vietnamese. As it is offered through the state, it is nonpartisan. It includes “impartial analysis, arguments in favor and against the many ballot measures, declarations of the candidates, the Voter Bill of Rights, and other important information.” The Secretary of State’s website also information on who is funding the propositions, which is very important information to consider when making an informed vote.

The Republican Party and the Democratic Party both offer positions on and information about propositions they support or do not support, and information and positions on candidates. As publications from political parties, these resources are partisan.