Tinkering at Home!

March 26, 2020March 26, 2020 ~ mxremy ~ Leave a comment

Looking for coding, gadgetry, and other STEM activities to do at home? These organizations have you covered!

First, follow along with the Girls Who Code and make binary bracelets, Scratch stories, and digital tutorials. They’ll be updating with new activities regularly, so stay tuned.

Next, check out Make Magazine’s Makercamp! They have a great catalog of projects to follow along with, from low tech papercraft automata to a fully functional Makey Makey Operation board game.

Finally, check out these Khan Academy schedules to add a bit of structure to your day! They have lessons on everything, from Math to Biology to Reading Comprehension.

Interim guidance for businesses and employers from the CDC

March 26, 2020March 23, 2020 ~ Sam Bardarik ~ Leave a comment

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will update this interim guidance as needed and as additional information becomes available. This web page includes recommended strategies for employers to use now and important considerations for creating an infectious disease outbreak response plan.

Start your genealogy research at home

March 26, 2020March 26, 2020 ~ Book Club Mom ~ Leave a comment

You can research your family history from home with these helpful library resources:

Access Heritage Quest Online, free with your library card.

Click here or visit chescolibraries.org, select Tools and Research from the menu bar and click on All CCLS Databases to locate Heritage Quest Online. Sign in with your library card.

Family Tree Magazine on Flipster

View this current issue and past issues of Family Tree Magazine through 2015 online.

Click here or visit chescolibraries.org, select Downloads from the menu bar and scroll down to click on Flipster and sign in with your library card.

General OneFile (POWER Library)

Our GALE General OneFile through POWER Library has millions of articles available in PDF and HTML full-text, supplemented by reference, newspaper, and audio content. Find relevant articles and periodicals by entering “genealogy” in the Search bar.

Click here or visit chescolibraries.org, select Tools and Research from the menu bar and click on All CCLS Databases to locate General OneFile and sign in with your library card.

Genealogy searches from home – a great way to learn your family history!

Local agencies can help with food, rent, counseling

March 26, 2020March 23, 2020 ~ Sam Bardarik ~ Leave a comment

Contact the United Way of Chester County: https://www.unitedwaychestercounty.org/ or 610-429-9400.

Or, please contact the Brandywine Health Foundation: https://brandywinefoundation.org/ or 610-380-9080.

Job and career websites

March 25, 2020March 20, 2020 ~ Sam Bardarik ~ Leave a comment

Looking for help you can access from home to develop your career or maximize your job search? We’ve curated a list of websites for you! From career management to resume writing to interviewing tips to job and salary profiles, we’ve got you covered.

Jennifer Weiner Hosts Book Club on Facebook

March 25, 2020March 25, 2020 ~ makohl10 ~ Leave a comment

Where are our realistic women’s fiction/chick lit/relationship fiction/beach readers?! Whatever you want to call the genre, we know it is one that is heavily read and loved by our patrons. One of the genre’s flagship authors, Jennifer Weiner, is hosting a live Backlist Book Club of her work, beginning tonight, Wednesday, March 25th at 7:30 p.m. on her Facebook page. You can find a complete list of her work here.

Cooking and baking magazines on Flipster

March 24, 2020March 24, 2020 ~ Book Club Mom ~ Leave a comment

Wondering what to make for dinner tonight? The new stay-at-home restriction means we’ll be doing a lot of cooking and baking at home. We have lots of cooking and baking ideas for you, available through our online magazine source, Flipster. Use your library card to access these and more than 80 magazines.

Click here to sign in and you’ll be on your way to a new recipe idea!

Learn how to increase happiness

March 24, 2020March 22, 2020 ~ megyves ~ Leave a comment

Current events have many of us worried, stressed out, and with more time on our hands than usual. Why not try an online course aimed at increasing daily happiness? One of Yale University’s most popular courses is available for free through Coursera, an online learning platform. The Science of Well-Being is taught by Yale Psychology professor Laurie Santos. The topics covered include misconceptions about happiness, how we can overcome our biases, and stuff that really makes us happy. The course is taught through video lectures, optional readings, and activities to do each day to build happier habits. Click on the course title above to learn more and enroll or read a more in depth review from Business Insider here.

Your Emails, Voicemails, and Texts are Being Answered

March 24, 2020 ~ makohl10 ~ Leave a comment

We may not be able to meet and help you at the library right now, but we can “meet” and help you virtually! You can still rely on us while the library is closed to provide you with excellent information to all of your reference and research questions. Librarians are staffing Reference email, voicemail, and texts throughout the day and returning messages as quickly as possible. Any messages received after 9 p.m. will be returned the next morning.

To Contact a Librarian:

Email: ref@ccls.org (or complete and submit the Contact Form on this site)

Call: 610-344-5957 and leave a voicemail, including your phone number (and email address if you have one).

Text: ref@ccls.org from your mobile device.

Disaster loan assistance from the SBA

March 24, 2020March 23, 2020 ~ Sam Bardarik ~ Leave a comment

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) provides low-interest disaster loans to businesses of all sizes, private non-profit organizations, homeowners, and renters. SBA disaster loans can be used to repair or replace the following items damaged or destroyed in a declared disaster: real estate, personal property, machinery and equipment, and inventory and business assets. For eligibility information, applications, and further disaster preparedness information, go to https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/disaster-assistance.

The PA Small Business Development Center is hosting a no-cost webinar, SBA Emergency Loan Webinar: Process for applying and FAQs, tomorrow, Wednesday, March 25, 10:30am to 11:30am and 1pm to 2:15pm.