Last week we featured a new book about the British Royal Family because of the upcoming exciting events that many of us are anticipating. On May 19th, Prince Harry will marry American actress Meghan Markle. This week’s new book is about her.

Meghan: A Hollywood Princess is written by well-known royal biographer Andrew Morton. Many television viewers are familiar with Meghan for her role in the series Suits (the library owns seasons 1-6 on DVD). While technically she will become a Duchess and not a Princess after her marriage, she will be a very important member of the Royal Family. As an American actress of mixed race who has been divorced, she is very different from the traditional image of British royalty. But she won the heart of her Prince, and now has won the hearts of Brits and the world.

This book tells her story. She grew up in Los Angeles and studied at an all-girls Catholic school. She had a difficult family life, something she shares with Harry. She struggled as an actress before finally getting her big break on Suits. After becoming successful, she used her position to champion humanitarian causes – much like Princess Diana. The book shares details of the royal romance, which took place over two continents and was kept secret for some time. As soon as the secret was revealed, Meghan had to deal with being in the global spotlight, and seems to have done so incredibly well.

If you would like to know more about this fascinating young lady before the wedding takes place, this book can be found in the non-fiction 941 section, just like last week’s book.

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.

Soul Surfer [DVD]

In the movie, Soul Surfer, a teenage girl who has been consumed with her love of surfing is suddenly faced with some difficult choices. She must choose whether to attend a mission trip with her church or to train for a surfing competition. One day while surfing, she loses her arm in a shark attack. Will she turn toward or away from God in her time of crisis? Will she continue surfing? You will need to watch the movie to find out.

Soul Surfer was a movie that encouraged me during one of the most crucial moments of my life. This young lady has been an inspiration to many teenagers as well as adults in overcoming dire situations.

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

The library has a wide variety of events that take place for all ages, as well as having space available for patrons to hold their own events. Classes, gaming sessions, meetings, or clubs, we've got places you can use.

To see what's happening, you can go to the page. While there, you can also reserve a space if you need one.

If you need special equipment, contact the library at 337-463-6217 to see what is available.

We also have printed calendars of events available at the desks at all branches of the library. Just ask if you don't find one.

RB Digital App

Reminder to patrons who check out Zinio digital magazines. Today, April 17, is the last day to use the Zinio for Libraries App. Beauregard Parish Library will continue to offer quality digital magazine content, but patrons who are also mobile app users will need the use the RB Digital App instead.

You can find the app at the following marketplaces:

• Apple App Store
• Google Play
• Amazon Appstore

The new improved Freegal Music has great new playlists to explore. Click on Browse then Genre and choose from playlist such as "Disco", "Classical", "Rock", and "Country". Or click on Browse, then Playlist and get different lists based on your mood such as "Pre-Game", "Workout", "Shake Off The Stress", "Good Vibes", and "Island Grooves".

Hear the famous Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Pathetique and Fur Elise. Listen to Mozart’s Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute and The Barber of Seville. Download Clara Shumann’s Trois Romances. Try Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, Camille Saint-Saens “The Swan” from The Carnival of Animals, or The Hungarian Rhapsodies by Franz Liszt.

This week the library received a new book that might appeal to all those who have been following the news of the British Royal Family. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (Prince William and Kate) are expecting their third child any day now, and Prince Harry will be marrying American actress Meghan Markle next month.

Some of us older folks remember getting up at the crack of dawn over 35 years ago when the Princes’ father, Prince Charles married the lovely “Lady Di” who became the beloved Princess of Wales. We watched as the marriage disintegrated and were ultimately horrified when the Princess died tragically. In all of this, one person was largely considered to be the villain – Prince Charles’ longtime mistress Camilla Parker Bowles. Now a new book tells her story.

The Duchess: Camilla Parker Bowles and the Love Affair the Rocked the Crown is written by Penny Junor, a journalist and broadcaster who has covered the Royal Family for three decades and written several bestselling biographies of its members. In this book she tells about the woman who was once hated by the general public and blamed for some of the darkest moments in the history of the modern monarchy. But this seems to be changing. When Camilla and Charles married in 2005, great care was taken to reassure the British people that Camilla would never be the Queen. But now the majority of Brits would not be upset if that were to happen. Once considered to be an evil home wrecker, she is now seen as a woman who wanted nothing more than to be with and support the man who has always been the love of her life.

Whatever your opinion of the Royal couple, check out this book to learn more about this complex and fascinating woman. It can be found in the non-fiction section in Dewey number 941. This section is also home to the other biographies of the members of the Royal Family, so you might want to check them out too.

While many of the Library's online resources can be accessed simply by using your library card number, such as Overdrive, others such as Freegal require that you have an Electronic Services Account with the library.

Another important use for an Electronic Services account is more complete use of our Evergreen Online Card Catalog. While anyone can search for books and see whether they're in or not, you need an account to be able to reserve and renew books using it from the comfort of your home.

Logging into the Patron Lab computers at our branches, or our WiFi, also needs an Electronic Services account for fullest use. Yes, visitors can get a guest account, but they need to do it each time they come in, while anyone with a regular account can just walk in, log in, and be surfing in no time!

You also get an @beau.org email address with your electronic services account, although it can be set to forward anything going there to another email provider such as YahooMail or GMail.

Seriously, an Electronic Services account is the best thing since getting your own Library card! If you haven't signed up for one, come on in and check with any of our clerks to ask about getting one.

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.

Choosing Sides: From Holiday to Every Day, 130 Delicious Recipes to Make the Meal by Tara Mataraza Desmond

Do you, like me, often find yourself in a rut when it comes to fixing dinner for your family? Do you think of a tasty entrée only to find yourself preparing the same 4 side dishes over and over? If you're looking for a way to change up what goes on your family's plates, check out Choosing Side : From Holiday to Every Day, 130 Delicious Recipes to Make the Meal by Tara Mataraza Desmond.

Each recipe even includes entrée suggestions to make the most out of pairing flavors and even textures.

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

Beauregard Parish writers, tomorrow we are excited to bring you In Your Own Words: Short Writing Competition. This is an event we hope catches on. It is free to participate, and all entrants get a special Beauregard Parish Library bag.

Bring your single page (750 word maximum, if single-spaced) written work and hear it read aloud. Listen to critiques by local professionals and enjoy camaraderie (and commiseration) with your fellow authors. Additional prizes will be awarded to the judges' pick and people's choice. Submissions are turned in at the event and read in order of submission.

Come for the fun tomorrow at DeRidder branch from 6:00-7:00pm!

Happy National Library Week!

National Library Week (April 8- 14, 2018) is a time to celebrate the contributions of our nation's libraries and library workers and to promote library use and support. From free access to books and online resources for families to library business centers that help support entrepreneurship and retraining, libraries offer opportunity to all. The theme for 2018 National Library Week is "Libraries Lead," and American Ballet Theatre Principal Dancer Misty Copeland will serve as 2018 National Library Week Honorary Chair.

National Library Week 2018 will mark the 60th anniversary of the first event, sponsored in 1958. This national celebration is sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and observed in libraries across the country each April. All types of libraries - school, public, academic and special - participate every year in National Library Week.

During National Library Week, all branches of the Beauregard Parish Library will offer Fresh Picked Reads, grab and go bags of library goodies available for check out. Pick up a bag, check out the items inside and be on your way in moments! The Fresh Picked Reads are a perfect solution for those who only have a little time to swing by their library and those who just want to try something new. We hope you enjoy your Fresh Picked Reads from our garden of ideas!

This week the library received a book that many readers will find helpful and inspiring. Check out: Where There’s Hope: Healing, Moving Forward, and Never Giving Up by Elizabeth Smart.

Elizabeth Smart was abducted and held captive by a religious fanatic and his wife when she was a teenager. After months of torture, she was rescued and was able to pick up the pieces of her life. She has created a foundation to help prevent crimes against children and she travels the country speaking to educate, inspire, and foster change in the world.

This is her second book. Her first, My Story, tells of her ordeal and how she overcame it. This book focuses more how she and others have been able to endure and deal with all sorts of adversity. She shares the lessons she has learned through her own struggles, and her conversations with others including spiritual leaders, other survivors of trauma, and even her own parents. Her mission is to help readers make peace with their own pasts and embrace the future.

If this book interests you, it can be found in the non-fiction section of the library in Dewey number 364. You will also find Ms Smart’s first book in this section, as well as a book written by her parents about the ordeal.

This month is one that causes many people great stress and headache. It's Tax Month, of course. Normally, federal tax returns are due no later than April 15th. However, this year, since April 15th is a Sunday, and April 16th is Emancipation Day, a legal holiday in the District of Columbia, the filing deadline is extended to Midnight of April 17th. Still, sooner begun, sooner done, sooner outside having fun - just because we have two extra days to file it doesn't really mean we should wait for the last minute.

Now, library staff is absolutely NOT allowed to give tax advice, by law, so we are not allowed to tell you what forms you might need, or help you fill them out. The most we can do is help you find any forms or publications you might need, offer access to books on the topic we have in the collection, and hope it all adds up to a refund for you.

The library has some forms on hand, though the IRS has not sent out nearly as many this year as it has in previous years. We may or may not have on hand the 1040, 1040A, and 1040EZ forms, as well as instruction booklets. We can't reserve some for you if you ask, so they may be gone before you get in here. However, we can help you download from the IRS website forms, instruction booklets, and other publications, and for our standard printing charges, print them out.

The IRS also has links to companies that may allow you to file your income tax return online for free!

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.

Bridges: A History of the World's Most Spectacular Spans by Judith Dupre

This is a gorgeous picture book for adults about bridges that has many photographs of different kinds of bridges, from simple to the most complex. It even has a section on bridge disasters. You could read from cover to cover, but each bridge gets a two page profile. That makes it easy to jump around to whatever bridge makes you curious. The text is also easy to read, so you don't have to be an architect to understand the bridge profiles.

This book is so beautiful, you may decide you want a copy of it for home or to give as a gift to the bridge fan in your life.

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

Patrons who use Zinio app for their digital magazine needs, we have an announcement from our vendor.

The Zinio for Libraries app will be discontinued in the near future. As a result, we need you to download the RBdigital app on your mobile device to access magazines. Your username and password will remain the same. You won't lose any of your previously checked out content.

Zinio app users should migrate to the new app to the new RBDigital app by April 17, 2018. You can find the app at the following marketplaces:

• Apple App Store
• Google Play
• Amazon Appstore

We apologize for any inconvenience.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Music Minute to bring you an update about Freegal Music from the vendor.

On April 4, the Freegal Music Site will be down for approximately 10 hours (12:00 AM EDT - 10:00 AM EDT). When it is back up, there will be an entirely new product and new apps for the iOS and Google stores. Patrons/customers will be able to use their existing credentials, and all their playlists and stored music will be preserved. Patrons/customers will receive their customary notification from the stores that an update is ready, and those that allow automatic updates will have a seamless experience. New FAQs and a video tutorial will guide the end users through the site.

As always, we thank you for using Freegal, and we hope you will enjoy the new upgrades to the apps and other services.

You got that new computer, and turned it on. Now, you need software for it that will do all those familiar tasks such as word processing, spreadsheets, slide presentations, modifying graphics...

Or maybe you don't actually need it, but you'd like to try it out so you can maybe move up to a better job?

Well, there's a lot of free software out there that is as good as the commercial stuff, and doesn't force you to upgrade every time you turn around. And most of it, you can try out here in the Library on our patron computers, and then download and install it on your home computer. Things to look for include:

• LibreOffice - word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program, drawing program, database program. It's like the full version of Microsoft Office, but not as expensive! Need help getting started with it? The Library provides access to Universal Class, which while focused mostly on Microsoft products, will give you a sense of what kind of things you can do, or you can just search on YouTube for Libreoffice, and find all kinds of tutorial videos.
• The Gimp (The GNU Image Manipulation Program). This does almost exactly the same things Photoshop does, but again, much cheaper. And again, you can find all kinds of tutorials for it on YouTube.
• Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome for the web browsing experience you're probably quite familiar with.

The Library is closed today, for Good Friday, but you can still go ahead and download these wonderful programs and get started.