In this issue
- Literary Awards Season!
- Kids and Teens: Forest of Reading
- Summer Reading Clubs
- Website update
- What is Bookshare?
- Service Tip
- CELA receives Ontario Funding
- Stay connected!
Find nominees and winners from the literary awards season
Canada does an excellent job of recognizing its many writers, authors, and poets. Awards not only recognize individual authors, they also promote entire genres, and support the Canadian literary and publishing communities. They also bring new writers to the public’s attention. One of CELA’s commitments is to offer patrons the opportunities to read many of the winning titles from various awards. If you are looking to build your summer reading list, please visit our newly updated Awards page which includes links to titles in our collection which were nominated or won major literary prizes. There’s something there for everyone!
There have been a number of prominent awards announced recently.
The Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour was won by Cathal Kelly, author and sports columnist for the Globe and Mail. His book Boy Wonders traces his formative years growing up in the 70s and 80s. Funny and insightful book from an excellent story teller.
Congratulations to Dionne Brand for winning this year’s Trillium Book Award. The Blue Clerk is a rich exploration of poets and writers in the form of a conversation between a poet and the clerk who keeps her pages. Profound, moving and wise, it delves into the relationship between poets and authors, the act of writing and their connection to both their art and the wider world.
The Blue Clerk by Dionne Brand
The Griffin Poetry Prize was announced in early June. Eve Joseph won for her collection entitled Quarrels which will be added to the CELA collection. Read works by all 3 of the nominated Canadian poets in our collection.
Eve Joseph
Dionne Brand
Sarah Tolmie
Atlantic Book Awards
Author Lisa Moore was a double award winner for her short story collection, Something for Everyone. Moore who is one of Canada’s most noted short story authors, was awarded both the Alistair Macleod Prize for Short Fiction and one of Canada’s largest literary prizes, the $25,000 Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award.
Read Lisa Moore’s award-winning collection in accessible formats.
Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for political writing
Rachel Giese has won the $25,000 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for political writing for her debut book Boys: What It Means to Become a Man which delves into toxic myths about masculinity, society’s struggle to achieve gender equality while also recognizing the impact of the messages we send about what it means to become a man. Highly recommended.
Boys: What It Means to Become a Man by Rachel Giese
Kids and Teens
The Annual Forest of Reading event wrapped up in May with the Festival of Trees events held in locations across Ontario. School kids joined authors, illustrators and entertainers to celebrate the best in Canadian stories and illustrations. Each year CELA participates in this program, making at least half of all the nominated titles available so that kids, regardless of how they read, can vote to help choose the winners.
Find the list of Forest of Reading Titles available through the CELA collection on our website. They make excellent summer reading for the young people in your lives.
Summer Reading clubs at your public library
Public libraries across the country are kicking off their summer reading clubs. Many libraries participate in the TD Summer Reading Club. CELA works with the TD Summer Reading Club to put together an accessible notebook, available for free at public libraries for any kids with a print disabilities. We also have a selection of books related to this year’s theme, celebrating the natural world.
While we are working to add printbraille to our website, libraries, educators and patrons can access these titles using our printbraille order form. Simply indicate the title you are interested in and if one of our copies is available in our collection, we will mail it to you.
Request titles in printbraille using the order form
TD Summer Reading Club
New Brunswick Summer Reading Club
BC Summer reading
Website update
We thank all our patrons for their ongoing patience during our website updates. In the coming weeks patrons will have more options to manage their accounts, including the ability to view their history, update personal information, manage hold lists, and set search preferences.
We also continue to refine our search function and will be adding new filters including date published and date added to help patrons find recent additions to our collection.
We know this process has been long and sometimes frustrating for our patrons and we want to assure you that we continue to work with the organization contracted to develop our website to bring you all the functionality we had promised. Thank you for your continued patience and support.
What is Bookshare?
Bookshare is a digital library of more than 600,000 accessible books available to CELA patrons for free.
The collection includes award winners, popular authors and series, a comprehensive collection of books for kids and teens, non-fiction and some academic titles. Books are often made available on the same day they are published.
Bookshare titles are available in a variety of formats including DAISY zip and DAISY audio, braille, ePub and Word. The Bookshare audio collection is produced using synthetic speech rather than human narrated audio. CELA patrons may order physical copies of Bookshare titles in braille and audio CDs.
In order to access Bookshare titles, CELA patrons who have joined after 2014, and did not sign up for an individual Bookshare account, must submit a proof of disability form which can be accessed through our website. The form must be signed by a qualifying professional which includes a family doctor, special education teacher, a physical therapist or optometrist. The full list of certifying professionals can be found on the disability form. A CNIB card can also be submitted as proof of disability. CELA patrons who used our service prior to 2014 do not need to submit proof of disability to access Bookshare materials.
Educators are able to access Bookshare materials on behalf of their students, however other professionals using our Client Access accounts do not have access to Bookshare materials for their clients.
Once the proof of disability form is completed please email it to members@celalibrary.ca for processing. As soon as your Bookshare access is approved you may borrow books from both the CELA and Bookshare collection which are both searchable through celalibrary.ca.
Service Tip
In order to see which books you have ordered to be delivered either digitally or in physical format, please visit the My Account tab located in the top navigation bar on our website. Once logged in you will see your requested books available for downloading in zip formats, books on your direct to player bookshelf, and books placed on hold to be delivered in physical formats. If you require any assistance with these books please call our Contact Centre at 1-855-655-2273 or email help@celalibrary.ca.
CELA receives Ontario Funding
We are so pleased to announce that we have received funding from the Government of Ontario again this year. This 2019 funding ensures that all public libraries in Ontario are able to offer accessible reading materials to their patrons and supports programs like Educator Access which allow teachers to access over 700,000 titles on behalf of their students.
We thank the Government of Ontario which joins other provinces and territories, including all Atlantic Provinces, Saskatchewan, Northwest Territories, Yukon in renewing our funding.
We also wish to thank all our direct library subscribers who fund accessible libraries services directly from their budgets to ensure their patrons are fully served.
Stay Connected!
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