New Mexico State Library

Newsletter

News of the Library for the Blind and Print Disabled

This newsletter is published by the New Mexico Regional Library for the Blind and Print Disabled (LBPD) and is distributed free to patrons and other interested parties. In addition to large print, the newsletter can be requested in braille, heard in audio on New Mexico Newsline for the Blind, or viewed at the State Library’s web site at www.nmstatelibrary.org. For information, call LBPD at 1-800-456-5515 or 505-476-9770, or email sl.lbph@dca.nm.gov.

Winter 2023

Books At Your Local Library

Last year we launched a new program to let you get your next book order in person at select local libraries. Since then, we’ve added two new locations in Las Cruces and Silver City. To participate, bring any audiobook cartridge you have finished with to a participating library. Plug the cartridge into the Book Refill Station and your next set of books will start downloading automatically. The indicator light will turn blue when it is working and green when your books are ready.

 

If you have books automatically selected for you, you’ll always have new books ready. But if you select your own books, be sure to call in an order before you go. Not sure? Give us a call and we’ll help!

 

 

New Locations:

Thomas Branigan Memorial Library

200 E Picacho Ave

Las Cruces, NM 8001

 

Silver City Public Library

515 W College Ave

Silver City, NM 88061

Existing Locations:

Santa Fe:

Santa Fe Public Library Main Branch
Santa Fe Community College

 

Los Alamos: Mesa Public Library

Rio Rancho: Loma Colorado Library

Updates and Information

New Online Catalog:

The NLS Voyager catalog has received a major update, making it easier to use and more powerful than ever. The Voyager catalog is the best place to find absolutely everything available through this program, including braille books and In Production titles that will be coming soon to our library. It was built with accessibility in mind and will work smoothly at high zoom or with a screen reader.

 

Visit nlscatalog.loc.gov to try out the new Voyager catalog yourself.

 

Virtual NLS Music Meeting:

Want more music in your new year? In 2023, the NLS Music Section will start hosting a quarterly virtual event where patrons can learn in depth about selected music topics. The quarterly Music Notes Meeting will occur on the fourth Tuesday of the first month of each quarter at 7:00 p.m. eastern time. The 2023 sessions will be on April 25th, July 25th, and October 25th.

 

 

Each hour-long Music Notes Meeting will begin with a pre-recorded conversation about a topic covered in the NLS Music Notes blog between the author and the Music Section Head. A live question-and-answer session with the blog author will follow.

 

 

The topic for April 25th is “Time Out for ‘Take Five’.” Music Section Head Juliette Appold will talk with Music Reader Services Librarian Brian McCurdy about this famous piece of music and its relevance to the NLS Music Collection.

 

 

An event link will be posted to the NM LBPD website closer to the meeting date: https://nmstatelibrary.org/lbpd/

 

Stay tuned!

Most Popular Books of 2022

2022 was a busy year for us at the LBPD. We sent out more than 114,000 books across almost 27,000 unique titles on nearly 5,000 audiobook cartridges. These were the most popular by category:

 

 

New Mexico Interest

DBC10403 – Hypnotizing Chickens & Other Stories by Jan Sherman

DBC10347 – Black Range Tales by James A. McKenna

DBC10406 – The Sun: A Mystery by Courtney White

 

 

Mystery/Thriller

DB101096 – The Law of Innocence by Michael Connelly

DB101338 – Deadly Cross by James Patterson

DB105787 – Mercy by David Baldacci

 

 

Western

DB101319 – Preacher’s Frenzy by William W. Johnstone

DBC24737 – Man Riding West by Louis L’Amour

DB102453 – Will Tanner by William W. Johnstone

 

 

Romance

DB106415 – Invisible by Danielle Steel

DB107839 – Beautiful by Danielle Steel

DB100846 – The Return by Nicholas Sparks

 

 

General Fiction

DB105197 – The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

DB102287 – The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

DB101078 – Wonder Boy of the Whistle Stop by Fannie Flagg

 

 

New From Our Recording Studio

DBC10418 – The Not So Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier by Terry L. Anderson; read by John Pound

Rather than describing the frontier as a place where heroes met villains, this book argues that everyday people helped carve out legal institutions that tamed the West.

 

DBC10377 – Chasing the Santa Fe Ring: Power and Privilege in Territorial New Mexico by David Caffey; read by Charles Boatright

Anyone acquainted with 19th century New Mexico history has heard of the Santa Fe ring – seekers of power and wealth in the post-Civil War period, famous for public corruption and for dispossessing land holders. Scholars have never really described this shadowy entity. Caffey looks beyond myth and symbol for the Ring’s history. Who were its members? What did they do to gain their unsavory reputations? What was their influence on the struggle for statehood?

 

DBC10416 – The Enemy Gods by Oliver La Farge; read by Bruce Herr

Centering around Myron Begay – Divine Arrow is his Indian name – a young Navajo who is apparently won away from his tribe until he believes that he can solve the problem of life by making an imitation white man out of himself.

 

DBC10437 – Machine of Death: A Collection of Stories About People Who Know How They Will Die edited by David Malki!, Ryan North, and Matthew Bennardo; read by Dave Hendrix

Machine of Death tells thirty-four different stories about people who know how they will die. Prepare to have your tears jerked, your spine tingled, your funny bone tickled, your mind blow, your pulse quickened, or your heart warmed. Or better yet, simply prepare to be surprised. Because there’s no telling exactly how things will turn out. Some explicit descriptions of sex, some violence, and strong language.

New Local Recordings from Other States

 

DBC06816 – Flight of Gold: Two Pilots True Adventure Discovering Alaska’s Legendary Gold Wreck by Kevin A. McGregor (Washington TBBL)

On March 12, 1948, an airliner with 30 people aboard flew into a near vertical moutainside in Alaska. Soon rumors started that the plane had also carried gold an diamonds. The author investigated the remote crash site and helped with the identification of human remains 50 years after the crash. Unrated.

 

 

DBC15534 – Whispers and Shadows: A Naturalist’s Memoir by Jerold W. Apps (Wisconsin TBL)

The author explores various themes of naturalism through person anecdotes.

 

 

DBC16738 – Giants in the Earth: The California Redwoods by Peter Johnstone (California BTBL)

Literary anthology of stories, poems, natural history compositions, and articles selected from three hundred years of writing about the California redwoods. Authors Walt Whitman, John Muir, Jack London, Tom Wolfe, Armistead Maupin, and others who visited the groves felt inspired to write about their experience and feelings. 

 

 

DBC25121 – Hammett: A Life at the Edge by William F. Nolan (California BTBL)

A biography of the mystery author Dashiell Hammett, best known for his books The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man. This biography, which spans from the 1930’s through the 1950’s, takes the reader from the streets of San Francisco to the skyscrapers of New York, and explores Hammett’s adventures as a Pinkerton detective, pulp fiction author, intelligence officer in the military, and president of a Communist activist group.

 

 

DBC26065 – A Return to Emptiness: Stories by Chris Ransick (California BTBL)

In this collection, the award-winning poet and author presents stories of normal people coping with life-altering events – couples trying to hold onto their marriages, parents trying to come to terms with children that have gone missing. The author shares a sense of the human experience that is a part of and apart from the natural world. Winner of the 2005 Colorado Authors’ League award.

 

 

DBC27423 – Medallion Status: True Stories from Secret Rooms by John Hodgman (Minnesota State Services for the Blind)

In these pages, Hodgman explores the strangeness of his career, speaking plainly of fame, especially at the weird, marginal level he has enjoyed – not only of the surreal excitement of it , but also the drudgery of it, the emptiness of the status it conveys, and the hard moments of losing that status. Through these stories you will learn many things, such as what it’s like to be invited to become and honorary member of an Ivy League secret society, only to be hazed and humiliated by the dapper young members of that club. Or how it feels when your TV gig is cancelled and you can console yourself with the fact that all of that travel that made your children feel so sad and abandoned at least left you with a prize: Platinum Medallion Status with your airline. Unrated.

 

 

DBC27456 – Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American by Wajahat Ali (Minnesota State Services for the Blind

This is just one of the many warm, lovely, and helpful tips that Wajahat Ali and other children of immigrants receive on a daily basis. Go back where, exactly? Fremont, California, where he grew up but is now an unaffordable place to live? Or Pakistan, the country his parents left behind a half-century ago? A deeply personal and keenly perceptive memoir of an American immigrant experience.

 

DBC26683 – To the Stars: The Autobiography of Star Trek’s Mr. Sulu by George Takei (California BTBL)

A biography of George Takei, one of the first Asian American actors to win a starring role in television in the 1960s. Opening with the story of his family’s internment during World War II, George recounts stories of his childhood at the Tule Lake War Relocation Center in California, his early career in Hollywood, and the behind-the-scenes difficulties and discrimination he faced in his role as the helmsman of the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek. Unrated. Commercial audio book.

 

DBC26756 – Triggernometry: A Gallery of Gunfighters: With Technical Notes on Leather Slapping as a Fine Art, Gathered From Many a Loose Holstered Expert Over The Years by Eugene Cunningham (Texas TBL)

The author gives a short biography of 18 gunfighters of the old west, including John Wesley Hardin, Billy the Kid, Sam Bass and Butch Cassidy. Years of research, study, writing and revising resulted in this book, which is factual and authoritative, but also as interesting as a good novel. Good and bad and mixed of nature are shown here. But all played their part in the building of the western country. Audio quality note due to slight audio imperfections.

 

DBC27660 – Broken Eyes, Unbroken Spirit: The Story- of a National Blind Golf Champion by David Meador (Tennessee LABM)

When a car accident robbed David Meador of his sight as a teenage, he thought his life was destined to be one of hardship and struggle. Broken Eyes, Unbroken Spirit is the inspirational story of one man suddenly faced with nothing but limitations, pain and frustrations, who nonetheless managed to triumph in life by winning golf championships, setting sales records, and beating cancer – twice. This book goes will show you an entirely new world – one where you have the courage to overcome any of life’s challenges.

What Are Your Reader Advisors Reading?

Berdina

“I’m finally starting everyone! Over the past three years, many of you have repeatedly suggested that I’d pick up the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich so I’m currently reading One for the Money (DB4024) and will be making my way to Game On: Tempting Twenty-eight (DB105777) I’m enjoying it so far!”

 

Sam 

“I’ve been in the mood for comfort reading, which means going back through Terry Pratchett’s wonderful Discworld series. These are some of the legitimately funniest fantasy novels I’ve ever encountered and I find myself constantly returning. It’s one big world, but start with Mort (DB108876) for dark humor, Going Postal (DB059826) for bureaucratic folly, or Wyrd Sisters (DB62408) to meet the witches.”

 

Tim

“When I was in my mid-twenties, Joseph Campbell’s Masks of God (DB084554) expanded and deepened my worldview. In Primitive Mythology, Campbell explores the earliest religious drives of humankind. Why and how did we begin to think of the human soul as an entity with an existence separate from our bodies? This book and its thousands of pages has been so important to me, I’m reading it again.