Are you looking for a job? Perhaps you feel ready for a career change, were laid off, or realize that you retired too early and want—or need—to get back into the workforce. Having experienced a mid-life career change myself, I found the prospect of a job search quite daunting. In fact, I used to joke about being interviewed by "little children". If you are over 60, maybe 50 or even 40, you probably will experience the same feelings yourself, especially when you see 20- and 30-somethings competing for the same positions. Well, take heart: there is a lot of help out there for you. The following are a few information-packed books I found at our library:


Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life (2008), by Marc Freedman.
A social entrepreneur and the founder of Civic Ventures, Freedman is leading the charge to get people who are midlife or older to get (or stay) working in ways that can solve the big social problems of our world. He very articulately expresses how this can be done, and why it must be done.



Don’t Retire, REWIRE! 5 Steps to Fulfilling Work that Fuels your Passion, Suits your Personality,
and Fills your Pocket, 2nd ed. (2007), by Jeri Sedlar and Rick Miners.
This book gives you the tools you will need to find the right job for the years ahead. Jeri Sedlar is Senior Advisor to The Conference Board Mature Workforce and the former editor-at-large of Working Woman magazine.


These and many more titles are available at NPL’s Career area. You will also find specialized career databases, classes and programs there. And you may wish to take a look at our Career webpage, especially the section for Retirees. Also, the AARP gives awards each year to the Best Employers for Workers over 50. Look at the AARP Foundation’s Worksearch website for a whole suite of customizable tools to help you along the road to finding the right job for you.

When I was growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, it was common to have fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, neighbors, cousins, and friends who served in World War II. “The war,” as it is often called, was a moment when our country experienced total mobilization, and now, almost 70 years later, it continues to generate great interest and curiosity.

Museums have been established throughout the world to commemorate this event, including New Hampshire’s own Wright Museum, dedicated to chronicling the war effort on the “home front.” The Wright Museum was established in 1994 by David Wright, whose interest in restoring World War II vehicles led to a permanent museum collection nestled in the Lakes Region in Wolfeboro, just an hour and a half north of Nashua.

Visitors are greeted by the sight of an Army tank breaking out of the museum’s brick facade. The museum is divided into three sections: a gallery dedicated to the home front effort, a two-story visitors center, and a military wing containing the museum’s large collection of fully–operational military vehicles – including a 42-ton Pershing tank (MUCH bigger than the tank on the right!) – along with other exhibits honoring all branches of the military. The museum also hosts lectures and special events during summer months.

The Wright Museum is located at 77 Center Street in Wolfeboro, and open from May through October, Monday – Saturday from 10 – 4, and Sunday from noon – 4. Regular adult admission is $6.00 but the Friends of the Nashua Public Library have generously funded a pass that admits 2 adults and 4 children to the museum for free this October, and resuming when the museum reopens next year.

Thank you Friends! So enjoy the foliage and book your museum pass before you head north this fall!

You may have noticed an increase in the number of things which are pink recently. If you were watching a professional football game on Sunday October 4, you saw players and referees wearing pink gloves and pink cleats and goal posts wrapped in pink. Large groups of people wearing pink clothes and pink feather boas and hats have been seen walking together in many cities and towns. The pink ribbon symbol is everywhere.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. The number of people not affected by breast cancer in some way grows smaller every year. Fortunately, the resources available to women, or men, living with breast cancer increase all the time. A number of good, informative sources can be found online. If you are interested in participating in a fundraising walk, the Nashua walk, Making Strides Against Breast Cancer, will take place on Sunday, October 18. Information about the walk can be found on an events website for the American Cancer Society The New Hampshire Breast Cancer Coalition maintains another helpful site. There is a site for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, as well as one for the National Breast Cancer Foundation. The Susan G Korman for the Cure site also contains a wealth of information.

Breast cancer does not discriminate by sex or age. Breast cancer in younger women is not unknown, however, young women don't always take this possibility seriously. Advertising campaigns and websites are being developed to help them realize that breast cancer is not just about their grandmothers. Rethink Breast Cancer is one such site. Another site, Save the tatas tailors its approach to educate younger women and men about the seriousness of breast cancer with a much less serious approach.

One of the major weapons in the fight against breast cancer is the mammogram. October 15 is National Mammography Day. At the Breast Cancer Site.com during the month of October, a mouse click will enable someone in need to have a free mammogram. One quick click a day, costing you nothing, will be counted toward sponsor -funded mammograms for individuals who would otherwise not get them.

If you would rather have a book than a website, or if you want a little of both, there are a number of books @ your library on the subject of breast cancer. Here is a partial list:

Choices in breast cancer treatment by Kenneth D. Miller
Pretty is what changes by Jessica Queller
I am not my breast cancer by Ruth A. Peltason
Breast cancer: the complete guide by Yashar Hirshaut
The 10 best questions for surviving breast cancer by Dede Bonner
The breast cancer survival manual by John S. Link
Be a survivor by Vladimir Lange
Breast cancer basics and beyond by Delthia Ricks
Breast cancer answers by Bruce A. Feinberg
Breast cancer husband by Marc Silver

For one week only all teens in grades 6-12 are invited to come and celebrate Teen Read Week at the Nashua Public Library. Libraries across the country will be joining us Sunday, October 18th - Saturday, October 24th encouraging teens to read, just for the fun of it.

As part of our celebration we have programs that will take you out of your reality. Here's the official line up...

Food Fear Factor
Tuesday, 10/20 @ 4pm
East Wing
Travel beyond your reality and see if you can stomach these "tasty" treats.
Register Now!

Are You a Werewolf?
Wednesday, 10/21 @ 2pm (It's Early Release Day!)
A game of accusations, denials, and man-eating werewolves. (This is not a videogame, but is in fact more awesome.)

Teen Movie (which I can not name, but I will give you a hint: Will Ferrell's newest flick)
PG13, 105 minutes.
A researcher with questionable smarts is sucked into a space-time vortex and must survive in another dimension.

I'm not finished yet, I saved the best for last...
Teen Fine Amnesty
All week long!!!!!
Any teens in grades 6-12 can bring in their library card or id and get any overdue fines erased no questions asked. This does not include fines from lost or damaged items. This is free money, just for using your library card.

What are you waiting for? Stop in soon.

This is a question that sometimes lands at the Reference Desk here at the Nashua Public Library. Unfortunately, encyclopedias are not an item that we accept as book donations. Many people are perplexed by this – surely their 30-year old, pristinely-kept multi-volume set of encyclopedias (which weren’t cheap, by the way) have a use in our warehouse of knowledge and shelves of books. However, the encyclopedias we keep on our shelves print new editions every year. Imagine looking up information on the Taliban, East Germany, communist China, the Internet, or even Michael Jackson in an encyclopedia that is 30 years old. The information that you would find would probably not be very useful.

I always wish I could embrace with open arms those 30-year old encyclopedias with which our well-meaning patron would like to benefact us. However, the sad truth is that, should they come into our possession, they would be put into the recycling bin. When I field these calls, one of my suggestions is to cut up the encyclopedias [gasp], and use them for art projects. Being forced to wrestle with being put in the position of, in a sense, rejecting someone’s good intentions, I scoured the web for cozier answers for our encyclopedic donors. Here is what I found:

• Freecycle! The Freecycle Network™ is a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (and getting) stuff for free in their own towns and thus keeping good stuff out of landfills. You can find out more about the Nashua Freecycle group here
• An art group in the area. Some artists use outdated 'throw away' books for altering and other art related projects. I would try the Nashua Area Artists’ Association
• Goodwill, or Salvation Army. Perhaps someone is looking for books to decorate their homes
• Offer them on CRAIGS's LIST under either "FREE" or "CRAFTS"

And for those of you who wouldn’t get a frowny face when considering "Books+Exacto Knife":
• What about a secret hiding spot for loot?
• Perhaps you are looking for a secret place for your ipod
• Maybe a bar for down in the basement
• Perhaps you would like to make a book headboard or your bed
• A lamp made from a stack of books like this one. Or this one.
• Bookshelf made of old encyclopedias
• My personal favorite – the increasingly popular Book purses

Or, perhaps, you, gentle reader, have other ideas for what to do with 30-year old encyclopedias?