New Reads – Straight to Your Inbox

New Reads – Straight to Your Inbox

Looking for the newest library titles in your preferred genres or by your favorite authors? Get lists of titles added to the Allegheny County Library collections straight to your inbox with Select Reads!

Sign up for receive free monthly email notifications so you never miss another great pick. Choose from a variety of topics like Fiction, Non-Fiction, Entertainment, Graphic Novels, Home & Garden, Large Print, Romance, Teen, Age groups (4-8 & 9-12) and so many more.

Wth Select Reads, you can be up-to-date with the latest titles and authors that are available in the library catalog.

Find this resource on the county’s eLibrary page at elibrary.einetwork.net.

New Books – 1928 Edition

For decades the Sewickley Herald featured columns with information about new books the library had added to the collection.  This article from January 1928, less than five years after our current building opened, features seven books added to the collection. So what ever happened to these books? Does the library still have any of them? Can you still get them today?

We start with China Today Through Chinese Eyes. A New York Times review from the time mentions an article that delves into the Literary Revolution in China, a movement of books beginning to be published in the popular Chinese language away from the traditional Chinese.  The book is no longer part of Sewickley’s collection.  In fact, it can’t be found at any library in Allegheny County.  The closest place to find a printed copy of the book today would be Carlow University’s library in Pittsburgh:  https://www.worldcat.org/title/874929035.

My Lady of the India Pudah by Elizabeth Cooper  can no longer be checked out at the Sewickley Public Library.  However, if you get a public library card in Cleveland you can place a hold on this book today.  Of course, they will have the retrieve it from their offsite storage first!  Who has time for that?  If you really want to read about the Hindu princess Natara you can read it for free on Google Books right now.

Care and Feeding of Children by  L.E. Holt is a republication of Holt’s original 1894 publication.  Luther Emmett Holt was the head physian at New York’s Babies Hospital and this book was later “selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it,” according to a 2015 republication.  This book can’t be found at Sewickley or in our system either, but you can find another book by L.E. Holt called Food, Health and Growth from 1922 if you want to venture into Oakland and check out the Carnegie Library’s closed reference collection.

George Washington by Rupert Hughes is a two volume set on our first US president.  The first volume is subtitled The Human Being & The Hero, 1732-1762, the second volume is The Savior of the States 1777-1781. One would think that a library is sure to hold onto a biography of our first president, right? Sadly, no libraries have held onto this one either! You can access the full text for free thanks to archive.org and Trent University.  Don’t worry you can still find close to 20 George Washington biographies at SPL.

The Meadows by J.C. Van Dyke explores the natural beauty of the Raritan Valley in…New Jersey.  John Charles Van Dyke was an art historian, critic, and nature writer who was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Although no libraries around kept this 95 year old book there has been at least one positive Good Reads review from a fellow New Jersian.

At last we come to Best Plays of 1926-1927.  The book surely featured the play Show Boat, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein (pre-Richard Rodgers).  Although we can’t see a scanned, digital version of the book to confirm Show Boat’s inclusion we can request the book with a library card.  That’s right, this is the one book from 1928 that remains at a library in Allegheny County.  You can request the book from the Wilkinsburg Public Library and pretend it’s predepression (1928) Sewickley once again!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Novels Set in Western PA

Novels Set in Western PA

Pittsburgh Novels interactive map example

Example of the interactive map feature

We are excited to announce that the Penn State University Libraries’ Open Publishing program has launched “The Pittsburgh Novel: Western Pennsylvania in Fiction and Drama, 1792–2022.” This online annotated bibliography compiled by Peter Oresick and Jake Oresick includes all known fiction with a significant geographical setting in any of Pennsylvania’s 26 westernmost counties published between 1792 and 2022 – more than 1,500 works.

The searchable bibliography organizes content using keywords, genres and place settings and includes abstracts and notes for each entry. Places are nested in each entry by county, municipality, neighborhood, sub-neighborhood and landmark. A unique feature of the bibliography is the interactive map. Clicking on a region in the map provides a list of titles associated with that region or zone with links to that title in the bibliography.

The bibliography includes national bestsellers, award-winning films and screenplays of popular motion pictures, children’s and young adult works, scripts of plays and television series, and obscure and self-published titles.

Read more about this project here:  Penn State University Libraries launches online bibliography of western Pa. fiction (PSU News – January 31, 2023)

Search the database here.

Get Your News at the Library

Newspaper

The Sewickley Public Library is a great resource to get you access to local and national news.  Coming to the library is a great way to save money and stay informed about what is going on in the community and across the country.  We can help eliminate the paywall when you reach the limit of free articles!

 

If you prefer print, we do subscribe to several newspaper for use at the library.  They include:

  • The Times (Beaver County Times)
  • Pittsburgh Post Gazette
  • New York Times
  • Wall Street Journal
  • USA Today
  • Sewickley Herald
  • Barrons
  • Pittsburgh Business Times
  • IBD (Investors Business Daily)

We also have unlimited online, digital access available to our users for the following:

For other news sources, we offer on demand access to articles that are available on website and eEditions.  These include:

  • The Times (Beaver County Times)
  • Pittsburgh Post Gazette
  • New York Times
  • Wall Street Journal
  • USA Today
  • Barrons
  • Pittsburgh Business Times
  • IBD (Investors Business Daily)

Finally, we also offer access to some newspaper databases.  These include:

ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Black Newspaper Collection

InfoTrac Newsstand

Tutor.com Help Goes Beyond Primary School

Tutor.com Help Goes Beyond Primary School

College students can connect to the tools they need for a successful school year with Tutor.com! This useful database is a one-stop-shop for test prep & homework help resources and is available to all library card holders in Allegheny County.

Tutor.com’s Student Success webinar series is coming back next month with three more webinars. These sessions on confidence building are perfect for college students seeking a strong start to the new school year. With all of the Tutor.com webinars, if you are unable to attend the training at the given time you will be sent an email with a recording that you can view as your schedule permits.

Learn more and register via the following links:

Tutor.com is also bringing back their monthly orientations to help you navigate using Tutor.com services. These are great for users of all ages. In these orientations, Tutor.com will review all of the features you can find within the program. Sign up for a session at Tutor.com Orientation.

 

Sewickley Public Library Guide to Preservation

Whether you’re an amateur collector of antiques or the proud owner of an old family heirloom, the restoration and preservation of antique items can quickly get confusing and overwhelming. If you’re looking to preserve family heirlooms or other types of antiques, here is some helpful information about the process, including a list of preservation resources in the area generously provided by the Conservation Technicians at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh!

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New Years Resolutions at the Library

As 2019 creeps closer and closer, the pressure to think of some good New Years resolutions grows.  What goals would you like to accomplish? What challenges do you want to set for yourself? Do you want to make more than one resolution? While we don’t have all the answers, here’s some ideas for New Years resolutions that can be accomplished right here at the Sewickley Library.

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Tips and Tricks for Ancestry.com Library Edition

 

Image result for ancestry library

Looking to research your family tree, but not sure where to start? Want to find out who owned your house in the 1800’s? Ancestry.com is an expansive resource for genealogy and historical information, with over 20 billion records in its database, and about 2 million added each day.

Ancestry.com offers a special edition for library users, which can be instrumental in your genealogical research. Here are some quick tricks and tips to help get you started!

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