TAX TIME

The rush is on; it started in January and won’t end until midnight on April 15^th! Here at SAPL though, we want to help you prepare and end all that last minute stress. At Central Library and at various branches, San Antonio Public Library is offering an income tax assistance service, absolutely free of charge. This service is especially for persons with low incomes and senior citizens needing help with the basic 1040 and 1040EZ tax form. Available between February 2^nd and April13^th, volunteers from the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (V.I.T.A.) and the American Association of Retired Persons (A.A.R.P.) will help answer your basic tax-related questions. For a list of branches and for dates and times of assistance, please call 207-2500.

Library staff are not trained to help with your tax questions.

FEATURED DATABASE

MEDLINE, PubMed, and MEDLINEplus…
These three databases are all goldmines of health information provided by the world’s largest medical library, the National Library of Medicine. While all three are similar and produced by the same agency, they are a little different in scope and are accessed different ways.

Medline was the first of the three databases and serves as the core for the other two. It comprises 11 million citations and abstracts of articles published in more than 4,300 biomedical journals and magazines, and in some cases goes back to the mid 1960’s. The topics include medicine, nursing, dentistry, and veterinary medicine -- the articles found on these topics are technical and will most benefit the health professional. This is a service that the library pays for and is accessible at any SAPL location or through our website http://www.sanantonio.gov/library/includes/locate.asp

PubMed is a web based service and can be accessed free of charge from the Internet. It searches the complete MEDLINE but instead of providing just a citation, PubMed will provide a link to the full text article when available. It also indexes additional life science journals that are not in MEDLINE. The interface is simple to use making it easier for the searcher, but since the articles are pulled from MEDLINE they are still of a scholarly nature. There is also online help available. The address is http://www4.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/

MEDLINEplus is the most consumer oriented of them all. The database uses dictionaries and encyclopedias as the reference tools instead of scholarly journals. There is information on over 500 diseases and conditions, lists of hospitals and physicians, health information in Spanish, extensive information on prescription and nonprescription drugs, and links to thousands of clinical trials. If you are looking for a place to start, then this is the website to use. The address is http://medlineplus.gov/

NEW PERIODICALS AT THE CENTRAL LIBRARY

The Periodicals Department at Central Library now houses the following local city and military newspapers, which have proven to be very popular with our customers. If you’d like to see what other periodicals we carry, check our online list or call your nearest branch.

Bulverde Community News - includes Bulverde, Spring Branch, and Canyon Lake

Discovery - Brooks Air Force Base

Ft. Sam Houston News Leader

Herald - includes Bracken, Cibolo, Converse, Garden Ridge, Kirby, Live Oak, Marion, Randolph, Schertz, Selma, Universal City, and Windcrest

Kelly USA Observer

Lackland Talespinner

Medical Patriot – serves Brooke Army Medical Center, Wilford Hall and the University of Texas Health Science Center

North San Antonio Times - includes Alamo Heights, Terrell Hills, Olmos Park, and Monte Vista

Northside Recorder: North Central edition

Northside Recorder: Northeast edition

Northside Recorder: Northwest edition

Southside Reporter

Wingspread - Randolph Air Force Base

GARDENING QUESTIONS?

With the days feeling like spring lately, it’s hard not to get out into your yard and into the garden. Whether that’s a landscaped acre or so, or a simple herb garden, we’ve got books that you’ll want to see. The list below is just a sampling - check your local branch for availability, and for more!

Herbs for Texas: a study of the landscape, culinary, and medicinal uses and benefits of the herbs that can be grown in Texas
Howard Garrett, 2001
635.70976 GARRETT

Month by Month Gardening in Texas
Dale Groom, 2000
635.09764 GROOM

The New Central Texas Gardener
Cheryl Hazeltine, 1999
635.09764 HAZELTINE

Xeriscape for Central Texas: a water-wise approach to home landscaping
1998
635.95 XERISCAPE

Native Texas Plants: landscaping region by region
Sally Wasowski, 1997
635.95176 WASOWSKI

1001 Most Asked Texas Gardening Questions
Neil Sperry, 1997
635.90976 SPERRY

The Texas Flowerscaper: a seasonal guide to bloom, height, color and texture
Kathy Huber, 1995
635.90976 HUBER

DESCRIPTIVE VIDEOS FOR THE VISUALLY IMPAIRED

These San Antonio Public Library tapes are the same as our ordinary VHS recordings, except that they have an additional audio track which features a narrator subtly describing the action taking place. This allows an individual with a visual disability the opportunity to more fully enjoy the video experience. To access these titles in CARL, the Library's online catalog, you can either do a call number search, such as "video DVS," or enter the keyword search, "video recordings visually handicapped." To see a list of what we own, click on http://www.sanantonio.gov/library/descriptive.asp. Then either come into the Media Room on the first floor of the Central Library, or call 207-2500 to place one on hold or for more information. Some branches own a limited selection and there are a few children’s videos as well.

More information about Descriptive Videos can be found at http://main.wgbh.org/wgbh/access/.