Approximately 2 weeks ago, Yahoo admitted to having been hacked 2 years ago, with information on over 500 million accounts being stolen. As a result, they are requiring users who have not changed their password since then to change their password the next time they log in. They also offer the option to add a telephone number where you may be called or texted to verify your identity should you have trouble logging in afterwards. For more information on this event, check Google News for a list of articles on it.

We encourage our patrons to be careful with their passwords, and to use strong ones. Strong passwords are at least 8 characters, and should be longer, and should have a mix of lower and upper case letters, as well as numbers and punctuation symbols. One common method of developing a fairly strong password is to take a favorite line from a poem or song, and mix in some of the other things to spice it up.

For example: "America, America! God Shed His Grace On Thee" might turn into a,2!GshGo3 (Please do not actually use this one, as attackers may find it and start using it as one of the words they try.) The passwords the Beauregard Parish Library hands out for Patron accounts are fairly strong, but they should not be used on other sites!

For this week's Travel Tuesday we will visit Singapore. Singapore is an island city-state at the tip of the Malay peninsula with a long history as a melting pot of Asian cultures.

There are many things travelers and curious folk can learn about Singapore by reading through the country profile in Global Road Warrior. Listed below are 5 more quick facts to get you started.

Free Music from Newsboys

The Newsboys started in Australia and now have a lead singer Michael Tait who used to be with the famous DC Talk ( who I heard in college when they opened for Stephen Curtis Chapman). Freegal, the free and legal website that gives you five free downloads weekly and three free hours daily of commercial-free streaming music has the latest 2016 album from the Newsboys called Love Riot. In it are anthem-like songs such as “Crazy”, “Hero", and “You Hold It All”. There is also the danceable “Earthquake”. Or songs with building power like “No Longer Slaves” and “Family of God” which builds to a powerful children’s chorus. Or the driving rhythm of “Committed”.

✷Freegal Quick Tip: Ever wonder what other Patrons in your library are downloading? Just click on the blue menu bar and click on MOST POPULAR. It will anonymously show you My Library Top 10 and the US Top 10.

To find Freegal: at the library's homepage, click on the Electronic Library icon and click on Music and Video or simply scroll down to the Freegal icon.

We received a new book last week that might appeal to those who love and work with horses. Check out A Journey to Softness: In Search of Feel and Connection With the Horse by Mark Rashid.

Mark Rashid is a well known horse trainer who has developed a unique method of connecting with horses using a combination of traditional horsemanship and principles learned through his mastery of martial arts. His method focuses on working with the horse rather than against it. He is known for being able to solve difficult problems with horses using communication instead of force. In this book he shares stories that use remarkable events, quiet moments, and even stumbling blocks to demonstrate how his techniques work. He defines “softness” as having the sensitivity to feel when the horse tries to “give” and using this knowledge to produce the results we want.

The author says that his techniques are the result of decades of working with horses, horse people, and martial artists. If you want to develop a deeper bond with your horse and improve your training ability, this book is for you. It is located in the non-fiction section of the library in Dewey number 636. This section contains several resources for horse training, so you might find some additional books to help in this endeavor.

The business world today is in a lot of flux. Changes come every day, with mergers, bankruptcies, reorganizations, and other maneuvers. Unfortunately, this means that all too often, people are forced to start the painful search for a new job yet again.

The Beauregard Parish Library offers services to try to make the search less painful. One of these services is the amazingly easy to use Cypress Resume service. Cypress Resume walks the user step by step through creating a well formatted résumé, as well as cover letters and reference sheets. It leads the job searcher through entering the important information needed, and formats it in the format of choice, then allows it to be saved and printed.

After it's created, our patrons can print their résumé on our professional quality Docucolor printer, which has a pass-through slot for feeding in heavy bond paper for that extra touch to get the résumé noticed. Or the patron can save the résumé as a PDF suitable for e-mailing or uploading to the corporate website, as many companies are now requesting applicants to do.

Cypress Resume is just one of the services available at the Library to help patrons find and keep jobs. Other resources may be found on our Online Learning Resources page.

Need a suggestion for something to read or watch from the library this weekend? Maybe you'd like to check out an ebook or audiobook? Try some of our Staff Picks, to find what some of the other people in our parish are enjoying.

We know that not every staff pick will appeal to every patron, but not to worry! If you need help selecting something, we have online tools like Book Browse and our Online Catalog, or you can ask one of our friendly staff members to help search for you.

White Trash Zombie Gone Wild by Diana Rowland

The White Trash Zombie series is set in fictional St. Edwards Parish, Louisiana, and it centers on Angel Crawford. Before she became a zombie, Angel was the cliche of a down and out loser with a bad drug habit who came from a bad home. When she becomes a zombie, Angel starts to improve her lot in life by doing a job she's good at, and she starts to feel self-worth enough to fix broken relationships.

While all that might sound fussy and nothing to do with zombies, the fun is always in the details. Angel is sarcastic and witty. Being a zombie isn't always a piece of cake (or brain!). At various times in the series, Angel has people trying to kill her permanently or force her into making other people zombies. All the while, she still has to keep up her job as a morgue tech, get her GED, and maybe get her degree.

The most recent book is the 5th in the series, and the plot involves Angel relapsing on drugs after she got clean, thanks to being a zombie. While she's dealing with that, St. Edwards Parish is hosting a zombie fest full of fake zombie revelers (think: Mardi Gras with zombies) and a few not-so-fake zombie hunters. Angel has to ask friends for help to get over her relapse, stay safe from hunters who might be in on her secret, and somewhere along the way, a romance develops in the weirdest of places.

Zombie books aren't for everyone, but this would appeal to those who watch the TV series iZombie, people who like quirky murder mysteries, and those who like stories where plucky people better themselves.

The books currently in the series are:

My Life as a White Trash Zombie

Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues

White Trash Zombie Apocalypse

How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back

White Trash Zombie Gone Wild

If White Trash Zombie series interests you, feel free to request or check it out. We'll be back next Thursday with a different Staff Pick.

Partial service outage tonight

Taking part of our network offline for troubleshooting. Basic Internet should remain up, mail, personal webpages and some other services will be unavailable for a few hours.

Update: 9:08pm

Hopefully everything is back up and running. Report any remaining problems

Exciting news for Louisiana Library Patrons: Because of recent flooding in the state, we now have access to EBSCO's Home Improvement Reference Center until June 30, 2017. Even if your home hasn't been impacted by the flooding, there are numerous other tips and tricks to help you.

EBSCO’s Home Improvement Reference Center is designed to assist homeowners in do-it-yourself home repair, maintenance and remodeling projects. Step-by-step instructions for thousands of projects in the areas of plumbing, outdoor, woodworking, electrical and decorating are provided in high-quality PDF files. Additionally, thousands of articles from magazines and reference books provide tips and suggestions to supplement the step-by-step instructions.

Content Includes:

Merryville branch will close at 5:00 pm today. We apologize for the inconvenience. The branch should resume regular hours tomorrow.

The library has a very extensive DVD collection that is popular with our patrons. Many people enjoy checking out seasons of television shows and watching all of the episodes. We have all types of series, from the old classic shows to today’s most popular ones. We try to purchase new seasons as soon as they are released. Here are some of the new releases of current shows that we received last week.

The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Ninth Season. When this hugely popular sitcom began, two socially awkward physicists, Leonard and Sheldon, lived across the hall from the beautiful Penny. Leonard fell in love with her, but there were many hurdles in their relationship. Now, nine seasons later, they are finally getting married. Sheldon has also found a girlfriend, but the season begins with some trouble in their relationship. Their friend Howard and his wife Bernadette, also scientists, learn that they are going to be parents. And Raj, now over his inability to talk to women, now has not one, but two potential girlfriends.

Longmire: The Complete Fourth Season. Follow the adventures of Sheriff Walt Longmire and his friends in Absaroka County, Wyoming in this contemporary western crime thriller series. In season four the mysterious White Warrior is dead, Walt’s best friend, Henry Standing Bear, is now free, his deputy, Victoria “Vic” Moretti is newly divorced, and Walt’s wife’s murder is seemingly resolved. But just when it looks like everyone can move on, there is trouble with the Reservation’s new casino. This will bring both danger and new opportunities to all.

Empire: The Complete Second Season. In this drama, Lucious, the founder and CEO of a successful record label has been diagnosed with ALS. He has to choose one of his three sons to take over his company when he dies. His ex-wife, who is also a co-founder of the company, has been released from prison and wants to reclaim her place in the company. In season two, the feuding family may have to unite in order to prevent an outside takeover. In addition to the intense drama of the series, there are also stunning musical performances.

*These television programs are not rated and may contain material that is not appropriate for all viewers.

Children have started school once more, which leads to the perpetual problem of adults: "How do I do this stuff again? It was so long ago!" Never fear, help is here!

The Beauregard Parish Library has a number of options for finding help with homework. On the Digital Learning page, you can find Homework Louisiana, LearningExpressLibrary, and Tutor.com. These services help guide the child through doing the homework, without doing it for him. There are even live tutors available during certain hours.

Need a suggestion for something to read or watch from the library this weekend? Maybe you'd like to check out an ebook or audiobook? Try some of our Staff Picks, to find what some of the other people in our parish are enjoying.

We know that not every staff pick will appeal to every patron, but not to worry! If you need help selecting something, we have online tools like Book Browse and our Online Catalog, or you can ask one of our friendly staff members to help search for you.

Louisiana Class D & E Driver's Guide
Louisiana Commercial Driver's License Manual

The Louisiana DMV no longer offers this book at its offices, but makes it available for download and printing at home. As a service, the Library prints a few copies, binds them, and has them available for checkout or purchase. You can also come in and download it to your USB flash drive (we have some for sale if you need one), or even download and only print the sections you feel a need for.

Cars and trucks on the road can be very dangerous. These guides will help you stay safe out there!

If the Louisiana Class D & E Driver's Guide or Louisiana Commercial Driver's License Manual interests you, feel free to request or check it out. We'll be back next Thursday with a different Staff Pick.

The Library is intended as a place of sharing and education, where everyone can come and enjoy new things. However, sometimes, people develop a certain resentment or other reason to dislike the Library.

On September 21, 1991, someone chose to register their discontent in a very destructive manner. Arson.

In 1973, the citizens of Beauregard Parish elected to build a new Library building to replace the one that had served up to that point, and in December of 1975, the new building was opened to the public (click above pic for a larger version). The new building was a source of pride for the community, with the Beauregard Parish Library system becoming recognized as one of the best in the state.

However, in the early morning of Saturday, September 21, 1991, someone entered the building and started a fire. The fire resulted in the complete destruction of two of the office rooms, along with all furniture and other contents of those rooms, as well as extensive smoke and water damage to the rest of the building. A significant portion of the Library's collection could not be saved, while the rest required extensive cleaning and deoderizing by a professional salvage company.

Temporarily, the Library moved its headquarters location to space donated by Brookshire Brothers next to their store on the west side of town. Four years later, and a lot of work, the Library had recovered its title as the second-most used Library in the state, and a new building, at the site of the previous, was ready to open.

The old headquarters lasted 16 years, until someone senselessly decided to destroy it. The new headquarters has been open since 1995, and has served well in the intervening 21 years - and we hope that it will continue to do so for many more years to come.

Annual Event to Feature C.C. Lockwood

C.C. Lockwood, Louisiana photographer and bestselling author, will speak at the Libraries Southwest Annual Author Dinner and Lynda Carlberg Award presentation at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, October18 at Treasures of Marilyn’s located at 3510 5th Avenue in Lake Charles.
The public is welcome to attend and registration is required by October 1. To register, please download this form and send it in as directed at the bottom of the form.
The cost of the meal and program is $30.00. A cash bar will open at 5:30 p.m. and dinner will be served at 6:30 p.m.

Wildlife photographer C.C. Lockwood has lived and worked in fragile ecosystems whose preservation shapes his artistry. Through words and images, he has captured the unique sense of space in wild places as diverse as Louisiana swampland and the rugged back country of the American West. His work has earned him international acclaim as an environmental artist, including the Sierra Club’s Ansel Adams Award for conservation photography.
Lockwood’s work continues to reflect changes and perils in the natural world. His eleventh book, “Marsh Mission,” is part of a years-long effort by Lockwood to bring attention to the crisis of vanishing Gulf Coast wetlands. His newest book, “Louisiana Wild, The Lands Protected and Restored by The Nature Conservancy,” portrays the good work this organization is doing on over 280,000 acres of land in our state.

During this evening's events, the annual Lynda Carlberg Award will also be presented to Beth Vandersteen, Director of the West Baton Rouge Parish Library system.

Free New Music from Britney Spears

Why pay for your downloads? Why buy an album? It’s all free to you on Freegal the free and legal website paid for by the Beauregard Parish Library. Your five free weekly downloads are yours to keep and burn onto a disc or download to a device. They are yours to keep forever. And you can always listen before you download (except for videos) with your commercial-free three daily hours of music from Freegal.

So, why not listen to Britney Spears latest album, Glory (including the deluxe version), for free? She’s got a different style for this one. It is heavy on the synthesizer and vocal effects. She also uses her upper vocal range which is sometimes breathy, sometimes gritty. The album is heavily produced with arrangements that are different and at times seemingly experimental. Each song is different from the other, from the Funky Retro Blues of “What You Need” to the pretty breathy vocals yet stacatto synths of “If I’m Dancing” to the Spanish spoken and sung words and slightly Latin feel of “Change Your Mind”, to the French words and electronic music of “Compure Eleqtrique”.

Britney Spears Videos on Freegal: Toxic, Oops!... I Did It Again, Womanizer (Director’s Cut), Perfume, Circus, I’m A Slave 4 U, I Wanna Go, Criminal, Ooh La La (From the Smurf Movie), Make Me, Kill the Lights, Don’t Let Me Be The Last To Know, Piece of Me, Overprotected, Born to Make You Happy, From the Bottom of My Broken Heart, I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll, Radar, Stronger, Lucky, Sometimes, (You Drive Me) Crazy, If You Seek Amy, Gimme More, Everytime, Boys, I’m Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman, Do Somethin’, Hold It Against Me

Britney Spears Albums on Freegal:

Fifteen years ago, the United States of America suffered one of its greatest losses of life. The twin towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed in acts of terrorism.

Today, we encourage you to reflect on those who lost their lives, those who gave their lives in the recovery efforts, and all those who still struggle with the aftermath.

If you would like to spend time considering the events of that day, we have numerous resources available including articles available through out databases and videos including photo-documentary and music available through AVOD.

Preparing a meal does not have to be time-consuming and difficult. Check out one of the latest additions to our cookbook section.

The Quick Six Fix by Stuart O’Keefe is designed to help you save time and simplify your meal preparation. The author, an Irish-born chef who now works in California, shows how to use fewer ingredients and take smart short cuts to prepare delicious dishes. He shows how to stock your pantry with basics and set up your work area with the tools you need, ensuring that you will be able to prepare a diverse range of delicious dishes at a moment’s notice. His recipes are easy to follow and allow for substituting ingredients that you have on hand. There are chapters on breakfasts, salads, soups, pasta, sides, meat and sweets. Each chapter contains many recipes and colorful, mouth-watering pictures of the dishes. In all there are 100 recipes, each requiring no more than 6 key ingredients, 6 minutes of prep work, and 6 minutes of clean up. There are also menu and meal planning guides to help get you in and out of the kitchen fast so that you can spend more time enjoying your creation and sharing delicious, wholesome, homemade food with those you love.

Stuart O’Keefe starred in his own cooking show, Stuart’s Kitchen, on Irish television and has appeared as a featured chef on the Food Network. He has a degree in culinary arts from the Dublin Institute of Technology and studied in Bordeaux. Many of the recipes in this book reflect his Irish heritage and his culinary school training.

The children have returned to classes, but learning should never stop. The Library is glad to help by offering free access to Universal Class.

Through Universal Class, you can study anything from Accounting & Business, to Alternative Medicine, to Law, Science, Parenting, Web Development, and dozens of other fields, each having dozens of courses within. Many of the courses count for Continuing Education Units, which in some cases may mean pay raises and opportunities to advance in a career.

You can access this and other educational opportunities through our Online Learning page.

Need a suggestion for something to read or watch from the library this weekend? Maybe you'd like to check out an ebook or audiobook? Try some of our Staff Picks, to find what some of the other people in our parish are enjoying.

We know that not every staff pick will appeal to every patron, but not to worry! If you need help selecting something, we have online tools like Book Browse and our Online Catalog, or you can ask one of our friendly staff members to help search for you.

My Life in France by Julia Child

A love of no-to-low-fuss but adventurous cooking coupled with an extended kitchen renovation means I've been looking for other ways to satisfy my need for gustatory entertainment. My most recent solution : the audiobook of Julia Child's autobiography, My Life in France.

This memoir follows Julia and Paul Child through their first posting in France in 1948 all the way through their return stateside and beyond into the 1970s. Julia reminisces about her time at Le Cordon Bleu, the trials and joys through years of collaborative efforts in creating Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and how The French Chef came to be. Throughout her narrative, themes of family, friendship, and even a light smattering of global politics keep the story from becoming too mired in, to use Child's own phrase, "cookbookery."

Those interested in Julia Child's life and works, as well as fans of instructional cooking shows, will enjoy this biographical piece. A basic understanding of the French language will help, as not all French interjections and dialogue are translated into English.

If My Life in France interests you, feel free to request or check it out. We'll be back next Thursday with a different Staff Pick.

The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has provided a request for public comment relating to the “PROPOSED MODIFICATION TO THE MINOR SOURCE AIR GENERAL PERMIT FOR CRUDE OIL AND NATURAL GAS PRODUCTION FOR ANY COMPANY LOCATED IN LOUISIANA, LOCATED IN ANY PARISH, LOUISIANA AGENCY INTEREST AI 158873 AND ACTIVITY TRACKING NUMBER PER20160001.“

If interested, please review these documents and contact DEQ with concerns or questions, as outlined therein.

Families, Pre-School Story Time is back!

Ms. Sandi starts her DeRidder story time series today at 11:00 am. Please note this time is different from DeRidder's summer story time series. We can't wait to see you there.

We have story times elsewhere in the parish, too!

For this week's Travel Tuesday we will visit United Arab Emirates. Liesure travel and work may take us to many places in the world. The United Arab Emirates is a small country on the southern shore of the Arabian Gulf in the Middle East. Most of the country is flat, with a subtropical desert climate. The largest and perhaps most opulent city is Dubai, which is also known as one of the world's major aviation hubs.

There are many things travelers and curious folk can learn about the United Arab Emirates by reading through the country profile in Global Road Warrior. Listed below are 5 more quick facts to get you started.

Free music from Michael Jackson

Last week I mentioned Weird Al Yankovic’s parody of one of Michael Jackson’s songs. Well, how about the real thing? Yes, Freegal, the free and legal website that gives you 5 free downloads a week and 3 free hours daily of commercial-free streaming music has many of Michael Jackson’s albums including a collection of his number one hits Number Ones, and The Essential Michael Jackson.

Other Albums include: