The Free Library Mobile Services page has recently been updated!

There are new step-by-step instructions and screenshots illustrating how to access and bookmark the Free Library's mobile website on your mobile device of choice. By adding our mobile app icon to your mobile device's home screen, you can access all the great books, music, movies, information, resources, and services available to you from the Free Library with a tap of your finger!

You can sign in and manage your library account, search our vast catalog and databases, download ebooks and podcasts, browse through thousands of images in our extensive digital collections, view the calendar of events at your neighborhood library, and even access and read this very blog.

Leave a comment below and let us know how you use our mobile website and any features you might like to see in a future update!

Tags: How To, mobile, tech, website

If you attended any of the recent Philadelphia Book Festival events, or are planning on attending any of the remaining Philadelphia Science Week or Philly Tech Week events, you've probably stopped by one of our 54 branches.

Want to continue to find out about exciting, educational, and enlightening events at your local neighborhood library?
Have a Facebook account?

Surf on over to our Facebook page and at the top you will see a tab for "Branches and Departments".

Click on that tab and you will be able to access links to all of our branches and departments that have Facebook pages.

Find your local neighborhood library branch's page and "Like" it, check out the latest bestsellers and DVDs available in Philbrick Hall by "Liking" its department page or "Like" our Summer Reading page to get ready for this summer's reading challenge!

Comment and interact with other Free Library Facebook followers, post a suggestion or question on a branch or department page, and share posts and pictures with your friends from the Free Library pages you "Like"!

Tags: Branches, Departments, Social Media, tech, website

If you haven't viewed our Extras page in a while, we've recently updated it with some new spring-themed photos from our various digital collections.
Add a touch of spring to your desktop, tablet, phone, e-reader, or mobile device by downloading a new wallpaper or screensaver!

Speaking of digital images, have you visited the Free Library of Philadelphia's Pinterest page?
Pinterest is a social photo-sharing and bookmarking site that allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections of events, interests, and hobbies. You can view, re-pin, and comment on hundreds of images that we've uploaded from our collections, Free Library events, What We're Reading book recommendations, and miscellaneous photos that we have found interesting on the web and on other Pinterest pages.

You can always find the Extras page link at the top-right of our website.
We will continue to add more features and images to this page so check back often.
Have a suggestion for our Extras page? Share your thoughts in the comments!

 

Tags: digital collections, mobile, tech, website

In tech news reported right before the Easter holiday last week, it was revealed that Amazon had bought the social reading website Goodreads.
The news was posted on Goodreads official blog, expressing their excitement over the new partnership, especially the ability to now bring Goodreads to the most popular e-reader in the world, Kindle.

This is not the first time Amazon has aquired a website like Goodreads.
They acquired both Shelfari and AbeBooks back in 2008, as well as owning other such social networking via media sites like IMDb from as far back as 1998.

Goodreads, launched in 2007, is currently the leading book-centric social network, boasting over 16 million registered users.
That doesn't mean that there are not other contenders out there, the two most high profile being LibraryThing (although it is a pay service and not free like Goodreads) and the recently launched Bookish (backed by Penguin, Hachette and Simon & Schuster).

The Free Library currently incorporates Goodreads reviews through our VuFind online catalog.
Goodreads has stressed on their blog post that nothing about their service will change, including the millions of book reviews and ratings already stored on the Goodreads website. While no one is quite sure what will or will not possibly happen to Goodreads right now, we can assure Free Library cardholders that we will be updating you with any new info when it is available and any actions we may or may not take to change our service with Goodreads.
 

Tags: reading, tech, website

"Be afraid... Be very afraid." is the newest addition to the ever-expanding collection of interactive online exhibitions featured on the Free Library's website.

The exhibition, researched and written by Cameron Dahl, a Librarian 2 in the Literature Department, and Aurora Deshauteurs, Curator of the Print and Picture Collection, spans centuries of historic and harrowing horror tales that can be found in the Free Library's circulating collections, ghastly images from our Print and Picture Collection, terrifying trailers for some of the most frightening films ever made and links to esoteric essays from fellow horror hounds on the web.

Some highlights include the nightmarish world of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, often cited as the first horror film), the definitive literary horror classic, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), the birth of the modern zombie movie with Night of The Living Dead (1968), the low-budget shock of Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), the quintessential "slasher" film Halloween (1978), the body horror and media macabre of David Cronenberg's Videodrome (1983), the self-referential satire Scream (1996), and the "found footage" genre of scare tactics in Paranormal Activity (2007).

Immerse yourself in this interactive exhibition, borrow horror books and movies from our chilling collection, and share the scares on social media.

View this exhibition... if you dare!


 

Tags: Exhibitions, digital collections, tech, website