WV Reads 150 Celebration

YOUR TEAM HAS READ 150 TITLES!  IT’S TIME TO CELEBRATE!

The West Virginia Center for the Book invites you and your team to a reception in honor of your reading accomplishment!

Saturday, March 22, 2014, 1 – 3 PM

West Virginia Library Commission J. D. Waggoner Reading Room

Culture Center

1900 Kanawha Boulevard East

Charleston, West Virginia Reading Room

Meet ten West Virginia authors in the Great Hall of the Cultural Center.

Tour the West Virginia State Museum at the Culture Center.

Books and other West Virginia handcrafts will be available for purchase

at the West Virginia State Museum Gift Shop.

Prize Drawings will be held throughout the reception.

For additional information/directions contact your local library or call 304-558-3978

                                             

LearningExpress Library 3.0

LearningExpress, the career/test tutor database, supplied by the West Virginia Library Commission, is transitioning to a new platform!  

The newest version of LearningExpress Library™ (3.0) will launch via the portal www.wvinfodepot.org  on Monday, February 24. The current version (2.0) will remain on the site until May 1 when it will be retired. Both platforms will be available to users between February 24 and May 1. After that date, only version 3.0 will be available. It is important for libraries to alert their patrons to retrieve any materials they've created on the old platform before it disappears on May 1.

LearningExpress Library™ 3.0 is new technology that has no connection to LearningExpress 2.0. As such, it will not recognize existing usernames and passwords from LearningExpress Library 2.0. All current users will be required to register as new users to access the new platform. Furthermore, any content saved in LearningExpress 2.0 accounts will not migrate to LearningExpress Library 3.0.

New GED test and the TASC test prep materials are available in the new LearningExpress Library™ 3.0 High School Equivalency Center.

Job & Career Accelerator, another LearningExpress product, has also been updated. It's now one of nine specialty "centers" available through the LearningExpress Library main page. (Look for it on the All Centers drop-down menu.) And on the www.wvinfodepot.org portal, Job & Career Accelerator 3 has been added.   The same user names and passwords can be used for LearningExpressLibrary  and Job & Career Accelerator.  These usernames and password can be the same used for the 2.0 platform products. 

As with LearningExpress Library, personal accounts, resumes, cover letters, training records, and job searches created on the previous platform will not transfer to the new version of Job & Career Accelerator. Users will need to create new personal accounts. The old version of Job & Career Accelerator will remain available to users until May 1, 2014.

****Link to a video which shows you how to take advantage of everything LearningExpress Library has to offer including how to create a new account, login to the library, move around quickly, search for and use our products, use your personal portfolio page, and get help:  http://www.learningexpresshub.com/learningexpresslibrary/user-guides/full-length-video.  The video and other helpful information is found under the User Guides tab. 

For additional information and resources please contact Susan Hayden, 304-558-3078, ext. 2015.

Capitol Reads

February's Capitol Read is Affrilachia Poems by Frank X. Walker. Walker is Kentucky's most recent Poet Laureate. Walker is the first black writer to receive the honor.

Affrilachia was the 2013 One Book, One West Virginia selection.

"I wanted to tell her/ that the word Affrilachia/ was not intended...to divide communities/ that it existed to make visible/ to create a sense of place/ that had not existed." from Affrilachia

Affrilachia (2000) is a ground-breaking book that, as Gurney Norman (former Poet Laureate of Kentucky) writes, "illuminates a vast cultural landscape." In adding a new word to the English language, Walker provided us with a fresh concept of what it means to be Appalachian, a condition that transcends race, revealing a sense of both kinship and place. As Norman writes, "In Affrilachia, Frank startled the world with his poetic assertion that in the twenty-first century, many African American people have regional identity and place-based consciousness that is inextricable from their racial identities,' or, as Walker writes himself, "some of the bluegrass is black." Affrilachia provides a voice to the "Appalachians," who, like the Cherokee, complete the rainbow that is as Appalachian as the Scot-Irish we too often limit the region to.

Frank X. Walker was the recipient of the 2013 Appalachian Heritage Writer's Award, presented by the West Virginia Humanities Council. Walker was also the Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence at Shepherd University. Program support comes in part from the West Virginia Center for the Book.

To learn more about Affrilachian poetry, visit The Affrilachian Poets

To learn more about the West Virginia Center for the Book and the One Book, One West Virginia program visit WV Center for the Book

Black History Month Resources

In February we celebrate the rich history of African Americans.  To learn more about Black History Month, the West Virginia Library Commission has put together several resource guides.  While most of the resources are available through websites, some of the digital resources will require a West Virginia Library Commission Library Card.

African American History and Studies  http://wvlcguides.org/african_american_history

African American/Black History Month  http://wvlcguides.org/content.php?pid=408830

American History  http://wvlcguides.org/american_history

World Religions  http://wvlcguides.org/world_religions

World War I  http://wvlcguides.org/ww1

World War II  http://wvlcguides.org/ww2

Closure due to inclement weather 2/13/14

The Library Commission and West Virginia Library Commission Special Services Division are closed today due to the weather. Everyone be safe!

Poet Norman Jordan to headline African-American Literature Celebration

Poet Norman Jordan to headline African-American Literature Celebration

The 2014 African-American Literature Celebration, held in the Norman L. Fagan Theater in the Culture Center, Capitol Complex, on Friday, February 7, 2014, 6:00–7:30 PM, will feature Norman Jordan, an internationally published poet and West Virginia’s most-published African-American poet. Jordan’s poetry has been anthologized in 41 books, the most recent being Make a Joyful Sound: Poems for Children by African-American Poets, In Search of Color Everywhere: A Collection of African-American Poetry and Wild Sweet Notes: Fifty Years of West Virginia Poetry 1950-1999.

Jordan, co-founder and director of the African American Heritage Family Tree Museum in Ansted and president of the West Virginia African American Arts and Heritage Academy, will read his poems and discuss the Black Arts Movement, his self-publishing experiences and the art form of “Stick Poetry.” He will also talk about one-time Fayette County resident Carter G. Woodson and his significance to Black History Month.
Affrilachian poet and Charleston resident Crystal Good will join Jordan and share her poetry with the audience. West Virginia author and filmmaker Danny Boyd will attend the reading as well.

A reception in the West Virginia Library Commission’s J.D. Waggoner Reading Room will follow the event. Books by Jordan, Crystal Good and Danny Boyd will be available for sale and the authors will be available for autographs.

The African-American Literature Celebration is held each February as part of Black History Month. The event is sponsored by the West Virginia Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, and a project of the West Virginia Library Commission in partnership with the West Virginia Humanities Council. The West Virginia Center for the Book promotes the importance of books and reading and highlights the state’s unique literary heritage, from its earliest storytellers to modern novelists and poets.

The West Virginia Library Commission serves the people of West Virginia and encourages lifelong learning, individual empowerment, civic engagement and an enriched quality of life by enhancing library and information services for all West Virginians. More information is available at www.librarycommission.wv.gov.

Captitol Reads

January's Capitol Reads was As the Crow Flies  by Craig Johnson.

Walt Longmire doesn’t have time for criminals. His daughter is getting married in two weeks and the wedding locale arrangements have just gone up in smoke signals. He needs to find a new site for the nuptials—fast. Unfortunately, his expedition to the Cheyenne Reservation is derailed by a grisly death. It’s not Walt’s turf, but he’s coerced into the investigation by Lolo Long, the beautiful new tribal police chief.