Shall We Play A Game?

If you're like Matthew Broderick and responded, "Love to," then November is your month. International Games Month, an annual celebration of gaming and libraries run by library associations across the world, including the United States, is celebrated every November. You may think that games have nothing to do with libraries or books but think again!

There are some obvious connections, like games based on literary works. Some examples jump right out: Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher series lent itself to the (arguably better) video game series. There's a Game of Thrones board game, and a separate card game, both based on George R. R. Martin's series of the same name. Some are a little more obscure: SimCity was inspired by Urban Dynamics by Jay W. Forrester and a short story from The Cyberiad by Stanisław Lem. I could go on and on; these games number in the thousands.

But, do we even need to draw these parallels? Libraries that shush still exist and have their function, but libraries as a welcoming third place are growing by leaps and bounds. Many Mississippi libraries offer themselves as a place where patrons can have fun and learn. MLC's Special Collection Coordinator Charlie Simpkins says, "Adults need playtime, too. Games aren't just for kids." And he's right.

Have you always wanted to master the game of chess? Ask your local library if they have a chess club. Want to try DND but don't have a gaming group? Yep, check at your local library. Do you like getting together with friends for a board game night? That's right--try your local library. MLC offers games for all ages for libraries to use for game nights and/or special gaming communities, so your library can be a gaming mecca all year long. ALA's Games and Gaming Round Table has put together an amazing list of printable games and online resources.

Ursula K. Le Guin once said, "A library is a focal point, a sacred place to a community; and its sacredness is its accessibility, its publicness. It’s everybody’s place." We agree. It's an excellent place to learn, to grow, and to play. Let's play a game, shall we?

Life Is What You Bake It...

Elisabeth Scott

Reference Librarian

...and so is cooking while blind or visually impaired. 

People have this idea that you shouldn't touch anything in the kitchen because you're low vision or blind. They think you'll have a lot or accidents or get hurt or something. But accidents don't have much of anything to do with sight, and there are a lot of preventative measures you can take to be a competent low-vision or blind chef.

That's Margaret Smitherman, Patron Services Librarian with MLC's Talking Book Services. Margaret is a low vision cook herself. She says that one of her favorite cooking memories was receiving her grandmother's recipe for pound cake, which was intended to be made in a wood-burning stove. The recipe even had directions for picking the proper sized logs to use in the oven. It was printed in New York Point, an early form of dot system used by the blind. Margaret adapted the recipe for a modern oven and has made it multiple times over the years, most recently for an MLC holiday gathering. (I'm here to tell you, it's delicious.) Some of her favorite tips for cooking with low or no vision include using a whistling tea kettle, keeping a bowl of ice water on the counter for treating mild burns, and using your timer and your nose to know when food is done.

There are a lot of places out there with advice and pointers on how to get started cooking with a visual impairment. Here are a few places we found to get you started:

• This article from the American Printing House for the Blind gives some great tips for organization and prep work when cooking.
  
  
• The Blind Kitchen offers videos and recipes for those with low or no vision, with the added bonus of having adaptive equipment available to purchase from their store.
  
  
• Cooking without Looking is a fun YouTube channel that features blind and low vision people cooking and leading their lives. There's a podcast, too!
  
  
• This article from The Blind Guide has more excellent tips for cooking with low or no vision. The website was started when the author's mother lost her vision in the 1990s.
  

If you're in Mississippi, you couldn't ask for a better resource to get cooking in the kitchen than the Addie McBryde Rehabilitation Center for the Blind. A part of the Mississippi Department of Rehabilitation Services, they teach those with low or no vision how to cook on their own, imparting important skills like meal planning and preparation, grocery shopping, and kitchen organization. If you know someone who can benefit from this service, fill out their online form here.

Last but not least, don't forget about MLC's Talking Book Services! The service is available to all Mississippians who are unable to read standard print due to a visual, physical, or print disability. Their catalog offers hundreds of cookbooks and other books about cooking which can be accessed by downloading or requesting a hard copy on cartridge. Give them a call at 1-800-446-0892 if you have any questions or need help signing up for the service.

Thank You For Your Service

Elisabeth Scott

Reference Librarian

Our nation celebrated Veterans Day last week, and over the weekend, I read an interesting article about the falling rate of living veterans. When I was a child in 1980, 18% of American adults were veterans. Now? It's 6%. The end of the military draft in 1973 had a huge impact on this number, and the article got me thinking on how prominent veterans and the idea of war were in my youth. Both of my grandfathers served during World War II, along with most of my great-uncles. My dad is a veteran; he served in Thailand. Most of my friends' dads when I was growing up? Also veterans. To me, it felt like everyone was a veteran. It should come as no surprise, then, that many of Mississippi's older generations of authors are also veterans (or at least wrote about them). Let's take a quick look, shall we?

• Shelby Foote was born in 1916 in Greenville. He was the author of a well-known trilogy of nonfiction books on the Civil War, as well as multiple novels. He joined the Mississippi National Guard after college and served in both the Army and the Marines during World War II, but did not see combat. You can read more about his time in service here and here.
  
  
• John Alfred Williams was born in 1925 in Jackson. He was a medical corpsman in the Navy during World War II. Williams has a "reputation as a supremely talented but undervalued writer" and wrote a large variety of work, including prize-winning novels and biographies, during his lifetime.
  
  
• Etheridge Knight was born in 1931 in Corinth. He served several years in the Army, including as a medical technician before and during the Korean War. Physical injuries and psychological trauma suffered during the war led to an opiate addiction and jail time, but Knight used this as a time to pivot toward the arts. While incarcerated, he spent his time reading and reaching out to active poets of the time. His first book of poetry was published as he was released from prison, and he went on to write several more. 
  

Some Mississippi authors enlisted, but life had other plans. Richard Ford joined an ROTC program in college, only to be discharged due to hepatitis. William Faulkner enlisted in the Canadian Royal Air Force, but spent most of his time in quarantine from an influenza pandemic at the time in Toronto. World War I was over before he saw any time overseas, not that you could tell that from the stories he told and the photographs he had made. Faulkner did, however, lend a hand in shaping the young minds of future veterans. In one of his last public appearances before his death, Faulkner visited West Point. He gave a reading from his forthcoming book The Reivers and was a guest lecturer for several literature classes. The tape recordings of that visit have been transcribed and compiled in the book Faulkner at West Point.

Splish, Splash! It’s Soap-Making Class!

 Alex Brower

Information Services Director

The MLC Craft Club met for the fourth time on September 8th, 2023. We gathered in our staff lounge kitchen to make soap. This is a very quick and easy craft, suitable for groups of all ages.

I bought all of my ingredients at my nearby craft store. They are common ingredients that should be available at yours. Here is your soap-making list:

• Soap base
• Colorants
• Essential oils
• Soap molds
• Lavender
• Eucalyptus
• Lemon balm

The instructions for melting the soap base should be included on the package. I pre-sliced the soap and put it in individual plastic cups. This allowed attendees to each grab their own and head to the microwave after a brief overview of how the process would work. If you want your program to be more contained, you could heat up the soap ahead of time in a large batch and then pour it into individual cups or bowls for your patrons. The soap base heats and cools relatively quickly, so this may not be feasible unless you are able to bring the soap to the program space in a short amount of time. Attendees at MLC first heated the base in the microwave for 30 seconds and then in short 10 second bursts until it was melted.

From there, we added in drops of essential oils--I provided lavender, tangerine lychee, and green tea/cucumber--and colorant to get the smell and color that we wanted. Some participants added in lavender or lemon balm pieces to their soap. This didn’t always have the desired effect, because the pieces tended to settle to the bottom. I think this could be fixed by waiting for the soap to cool and thicken slightly before adding in the blooms. I highly recommend starting light with both the color and the essential oils--just add a few drops--and then slowly adding more so you don’t overwhelm your soap with scent or super dark colors.

Once the color and scent are to the person’s preference, pour the melted soap into a mold. Create a layered effect by pouring a small amount of soap into the mold, waiting for it to cool slightly in the mold, and then adding a few drops of color to the next pour. The graphic above shows the soap that I made this way. Create a marbled effect by adding a few drops of colorant, pouring the soap in the mold, and then adding more colorant and pouring the soap in immediately instead of layering. MLC has acquired large loaf soap molds, round molds, geometric molds, and rectangular molds. The rectangular molds set the fastest and most consistently. The round and geometric molds stay warm in the center longer, so they need more time before popping the soap out of the mold.
 
We didn’t watch a Creativebug video this time, but there are several classes on the platform that you can use in conjunction with MLC's new soapmaking kits. A series on bath and body products would be a fun idea; it has the potential to have good attendance around the holidays when patrons might want to create homemade gifts for their friends and family. MLC staff participating in our test program suggested letting patrons create their own blends of essential oils before creating their soap or other craft. This way they would get a better grasp of which scents worked well together before adding them into their soap, thus avoiding potential disappointment.

Overall, this Craft Club was a big success! Our soap may have turned out a little different than we expected, but it smells good and works great. Make sure to share your soap creations with MLC once you check out our kit!

CreativeBug classes:

• Make Soap Three Ways taught by Arina from BellaCreme
• Handmade Soap taught by Lindsey Stone    
• Bath Bombs from CBTV Live
• Make Natural Perfume taught by Arina from BellaCrema