At the end of last year our collection of digital periodicals moved from being available from RBDigital to now being available as part of the eBCCLS collection. That means Hoboken Library Patrons can use the Libby or Overdrive App they have been using for ebooks and digital audiobooks for periodicals as well now. I love the convenience of having one less app cluttering my phone and they are perfect when I want something quick to read on a lunch break.
Flipping through magazines here is a bit different if you are only used to viewing articles from research databases. You aren’t simply viewing pdfs of the articles, instead you get a more authentic experience of paging casually through your favorite magazine. You can zoom in on articles that are of interest to you. Magazines can be checked out for two weeks, but there are no limits on the number of magazines you can check out and it does not affect your checkout limit for ebooks. Limited back issues are also available.
Popular titles available from the collection include The Economist, National Geographic, US Weekly, The New Yorker, Newsweek, and Cooks Illustrated. Plus you’ll find new favorites such as MollieMakes a lifestyle and craft magazine which includes great craft ideas, the inside scoop on top crafters, and much more. I enjoy having access to not just American periodicals, but ones from around the world. For the International Fashionista you can view style magazines from around the globe such as Vogue Australia, Elle Quebec, Harper’s Bazaar India, and Glamour South Africa and many, many more.
What are your favorite magazines from the eBCCLS collection? Share them in our comments!
Written by:
Aimee Harris
Head of Information and Digital Services
Magazines are Now Available from eBCCLS: Go Check Them Out!
10 MarBridging Racial Divides: The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
3 Mar
I’ve been waiting to read a book like The Vanishing Half for a long time.
As someone who reads a lot of fiction, I’m very fussy about what I read. I’m always looking for a new and interesting way to tell a story, and this book certainly does that. On the surface, the book tells the simple story about a set of twin girls who live in a very small town named Mallard. The town is so small that it doesn’t even officially appear on a map, but we do know that they are in the Deep South. The girls are described as being of African American descent. And both the town they live in and the girl’s mother sees them as such. But when the girls run away from home at sixteen, Desiree continues to be seen as African American while Stella is able to pass herself off as a white woman. The two roads that these women take because of their seemingly differing racial identities lead them on two journeys that are both heartbreaking and wonderful.
I love the way that Brit Bennett frames the way that the girls are treated differently because of how they’re seen, how Stella deals with “passing” as a white woman, and how ultimately, the twins have to come back together in order to move forward. Bennett does a great job of describing what it’s like to have an identical twin sister, and how the Vignes sisters are two halves of a whole.
I think that this is a book that we need right now in 2021. The racial divides that have been haunting our country are stated so clearly in this book. I feel that this book tackles race in a new way that can make people realize just how important it is to talk about race openly and with compassion. As an Asian American woman, I have seen how people in this country have found a way to be even more openly racist towards people like me because of Covid 19 being called the “China disease.” We need literature like this to bring people together and in order to have honest conversations about race.
This book is available at the Hoboken Library through BCCLS in regular print, large print, as a book on CD, and on Playaway. It is also available as digital audiobooks and ebooks from eLibraryNJ and eBCCLS.
Written by:
Nicole Marconi
Library Assistant, Children’s Department
Hoboken Library Staff Picks 