Library News
April Exhibits Feature Painting, Collage Art, and Photography
During the month of April, stop by the library to view stunning art by Anthony DiNicola and Alicia Reid; and display groups Wisconsin Chapter of World Organization of China Painters and Janesville Camera Club.
Drawn to the Library! Celebrate National Library Week
What draws people to the library? Everything! From books and digital resources to job assistance and creative programming, libraries are essential to thriving communities.
Online Learning
AncestryLibrary

Access limited to library computers. Huge collection of genealogy databases - great place to start researching family history! Available to Prairie Lakes System cardholders.
AR BookFinder
Archive of Wisconsin Newspapers

Access to daily and weekly newspapers in Wisconsin, starting in 2005 to the present, with an embargo delay of 60 days. Available through the Wisconsin BadgerLink project.
Stream & Download
Hoopla

Instantly borrow eBooks, eAudiobooks, comics, movies, music, TV and more! Download the Hoopla app for even greater convenience. Limit 3 titles per month with daily collective borrowing limits.
Libby by OverDrive

Borrow ebooks, audiobooks, and magazines to read on your phone or tablet using the Libby app by OverDrive. You can even send and read your borrowed ebooks to your Kindle ereader! It's free and easy to get started.
TumbleBook Library

A collection of animated, talking picture books. Also includes Read-Along chapter books, Tumble TV, games, puzzles and more. Hedberg cardholder exclusive.
Recommended Reads
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Burnout Immunity
A USA Today Bestseller & Financial Times Best Business Book of the Month April 2024
"A marvelously readable and extremely practical guide to handling stress." --Daniel Goleman
An essential guide to protect yourself from burnout by learning to develop and master key emotional intelligence skills
Why do some people in the world's most stressful careers avoid burnout while countless others are overwhelmed by the demands of ordinary jobs? What can we learn from these resilient role models who seem to be naturally resistant to the psychological hazards of work?
After extreme stress caused a life-threatening health cri-sis in her own life, Dr. Kandi Wiens dedicated herself to understand why work was leaving millions of us sick, exhausted, unmoti-vated, and feeling stuck and ineffective. In her research, she discovered something remarkable: Despite dangerous levels of work-related stress, some people seemed to be naturally "immune" to burnout.
So what did these people have that Dr. Wiens and mil-lions of others did not? Regardless of their role, industry, or experience, all these professionals exhibited a high degree of emotional intelligence (EI). EI is the ability to clearly perceive, understand, and productively manage emo-tions, thoughts, and behaviors in service of one's overall well-being and performance. The people with burnout immunity were relying on specific EI skills to successfully cope with stressful work environments and experiences. The result is that they were more productive; had happier careers and lives; and were free from the physical and men-tal ravages of exhaustion, negativity, and inefficacy that characterize burnout.
The good news is that everyone can build and boost emotional intelligence and use EI-based skills to manage workplace stress before it leads to breaking down or burn-ing out. Burnout Immunity shows readers how to:
Build self-awareness to identify what makes you vulnerable to burnoutManage your stress triggers and response, and tap into moments of good stressRegulate your thoughts and emotions to remain effective in the midst of stressDevelop healing connections to keep burnout at bayRecover from moments of burnout, reconnect to things that bring you joy, and reimagine a new way forward
Bolstered with research, exercises, self-assessments, and real-life stories from people with natural burnout immu-nity and those who've cultivated it, Burnout Immunity teaches workers how to positively cope with stress and to enjoy healthier and happier relationships with work.
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Five Talents That Really Matter
"Anyone can be a leader. A leader's strengths can be their greatest weaknesses. Those statements touted in many business books. But, according to Barry Conchie and his business partner Sarah Dalton, they are complete BS. The Five Talents That Really Matter explains how high-performing leaders are talented in five essential ways. The Five Talents That Really Matter strips away the fluff in leadership and unveils and describes the traits and characteristics that actually determine high-performance leadership. These talents provide a template against which career-driven managers and leaders can assess and develop their own capabilities. The five evidence-based talent dimensions are: Direction: High-performing leaders describe a compelling, intrinsically good destination and help others understand that getting there will be worth the effort. Drive: This dimension hardly needs a description. We all know it when we see it: strong work ethic, tenacity, goal-orientation... being a self-starter. Influence: The ability to motivate, persuade, challenge, and change the minds of others. Relationships: People matter to outstanding leaders. They can build commitment and trust among the people they work with. Execution: Excellent leaders are obsessed with getting work done and how work gets done. Through questioning, assessment, scientific predictions, and testing, Conchie and Dalton have built a database that reveals the talents and behaviors of the most successful leaders. In this book they present for the first the first time a model that demystifies the aura and complexity surrounding high performing leaders"--
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Lean Marketing
Bigger Results with Less Marketing
You keep being told to do more marketing—more complex, more aggressive, and more expensive marketing. Chasing the latest bright, shiny object is exhausting. Increased efforts keep leading to disappointment. The overwhelm for entrepreneurs, marketers, and business leaders is real. There’s a better way.
The lean movement has transformed manufacturing and is now revolutionizing marketing. Small, medium, and large businesses are getting bigger and better results with less marketing.
In this book, you’ll discover:
● Why many existing marketing techniques have stopped working and what to do instead.
● The exact tools and tactics you need to build a devastatingly effective marketing system.
● How to win with a simple, structured, and systemized approach rather than failing with random acts of marketing.
● How to pivot from bloated, ineffective, and wasteful marketing activities to ones that compel prospects to take action.
● How to create a strong product-market fit so that your target market intensely desires what you have to offer.
● How to do marketing you’ll be proud of that works without hype, scams, or pressure.
● How to build a strong brand that creates goodwill and attracts ideal customers.
Lean Marketing is a follow-up to the international bestselling phenomenon, The 1-Page Marketing Plan.
Stop trying to outshout the other guy. Stop blunt-force conventional marketing tactics that annoy, interrupt, and repel. Stop wasting time with theoretical claptrap that doesn’t work in the real world. Get immediate traction by implementing lean marketing. -
The Art of Small Business Social Media
An essential guide for small business owners that Booklist calls "appealing and supremely useful" in a starred review and Guy Kawasaki points out in the foreword, "if you're an entrepreneur or small business owner and want to master digital marketing, you need this book."
In The Art of Small Business Social Media, social media expert Peg Fitzpatrick offers a comprehensive guide tailored specifically for small business owners. Recognizing that social media isn't a one-size-fits-all tool, Fitzpatrick provides a roadmap for entrepreneurs to navigate the digital landscape effectively. Drawing from her extensive experience working with brands big and small, she demystifies choosing the right platforms, crafting a robust social media plan, and engaging with communities online. Real-world examples from various industries serve as case studies, offering actionable insights that can be applied to any small business setting.
Whether you're a solo entrepreneur or part of a small team, The Art of Small Business Social Media is your key to unlocking the full potential of social media marketing. It's not just about being online; it's about being online effectively. This book equips you with the skills to participate in the digital world and thrive in it, giving your business a competitive edge in today's marketplace.
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Never Not Working
The always-on, hustle culture creates an unhealthy, counterproductive relationship with work.
Many workers believe that to compete with other top talent, they must embrace a culture that rewards long hours and a constant connection to work. Businesses and society endorse busyness, overwork, and extreme commitment as the most valued traits in workers. Sometimes that endorsement is explicit, as when Elon Musk told X/Twitter employees to work "long hours at high intensity" or get fired. More often it's an implicit contract, a buildup of organizational and cultural norms and the adoption of new technologies that make it easy to tether people to work.
Either way, this workaholic behavior is unhealthy and counterproductive for workers and for organizations. It's time to fight back. Malissa Clark--a preeminent researcher on the culture of overwork--shows you how in Never Not Working. Clark examines overwork and burnout, not just from the individual's perspective but from an organizational perspective too. She delivers a comprehensive, nuanced definition of workaholism, busting myths along the way--working long hours, it turns out, doesn't automatically make you a workaholic. She also helps you assess whether you're falling prey to the phenomenon and whether you're creating workaholics in your organization.
Clark shows you how to escape the trap of putting work at the center of everything and thus losing your well-being--or your company's performance--in the process. Deeply researched and written for everyone from leaders to individual contributors, Never Not Working is the essential guide to identifying workaholism in yourself and others and starting on the road to recovery.
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99% Perspiration
An enlightening and entertaining interrogation of the myth of American self-reliance and the idea of hard work as destiny
“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” This phrase, arguably Thomas Edison’s most famous quote, has been drilled into the minds of generations of Americans. A fairly straightforward iteration of the idea that innovation, discovery, and ingenuity are the result of drive and grit above all, it has also come to represent much darker myths: that hard work always leads to success and that achievement is the product of individuals and not communities. In this model, those who come out on top are there because they earned it, and everyone else needs to buckle down, glove up, and, maybe one day, they’ll get there too.
As the wealth gap widens, communities crumble, and Americans work more for less, Adam Chandler raises the question: What happens when perspiration isn’t enough? To answer it, he crisscrosses the country interviewing mayors, teachers, generals, pastors, construction workers, and entrepreneurs, to reveal just how untenable relying on “perspiration” as a strategy has truly become. He also delves into America’s past to reveal how our government, education system, and culture at large have woven the idea of meritocracy deep into the fabric of American society and how some of history’s most famous so-called bootstrappers really built their wealth. From George Washington to Seattle,Washington, Jay Gatsby to Bill Gates, 99% Perspiration unpacks the misguided obsession with hard work that has come to define both the American dream and nightmare, offering insight into how we got here and hope for where we may go. -
Life After High School
For most teens, graduating from high school feels like a finish line. But choosing which path to take next can be overwhelming.
It helps to become informed about the options and know how to narrow them down to fit your personal goals. Filled with practical advice about preparing for the future now, deciding whether or not to pursue post-high school education, paying for college or career training, and setting goals along the way to make the journey easier, this book covers career planning, the cost of education, and how to approach the future with a mindset that will set you on the right path.
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Job Moves
A USA Today Bestseller
"The ultimate guide to changing jobs and advancing your career." --Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and Hidden Potential, and host of the TED podcast WorkLife
Three innovators offer a road-tested framework for career development that helps anyone make real progress on their path when they switch jobs.
Each year, an estimated 1 billion people switch jobs worldwide. A lucky few stumble into the role of their dreams, but hundreds of millions are disappointed. What if, when looking for a job, we could make more informed choices to better select the opportunity we seize? What if the power to move along our career paths lies with each of us, as opposed to hiring managers or the market?
According to the "Jobs to Be Done" theory of product design--customers don't simply buy products; they recruit them to do specific jobs that solve a problem. Job Moves adopts this model to view jobs as positions we "hire" to help us make progress in our lives and careers. Based on research conducted with over a thousand professionals at all stages of their careers, Ethan Bernstein, Michael B. Horn, and Bob Moesta find that this notion bears out no matter your age, stage, or trajectory.
Key to this new, universal approach is understanding our priorities at the specific moment when we make each move. This team has created a process to help individuals identify the current circumstances driving them to look for new opportunities, the experiences they hope to gain in a new job, what tradeoffs they'll gladly make in return, and how to learn-before-switching if a new job will deliver. The result encourages job seekers to look beyond a title or company for a more holistic view and ask not what you can do in a job, but what a potential job can do for you.
Full of useful activities and tools, Job Moves offers the timeless framework of our generation to help anyone create a career that will be happier and more fulfilling.
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Ordinary to Extraordinary
Ordinary to Extraordinary will give you valuable insights into developing your career, no matter your age or stage! Pursuing an extraordinary career is one of the best things you will ever do for yourself. It will bring you joy, friends, wisdom, treasures, stories, travels--and for author Pattie Dale Tye, a spouse. It will give you freedom and superpowers (to be used for good, not evil). You'll be able to change lives--not just your own but legions of others. It will make you cry, wince, shout, curse, and miss vacations or family events. But in the end, it will be one of the best parts of your precious life.
Having a successful career--success means different things to different people--will enable you to live the life you want to lead and to give back and help others all along the way.
Too often, people have the mentality of "My job is nine to five." Or, "I can't wait for the end of the week and to end my thirty-year career so that I can move on with life." But if you have the right perspective, your career--no matter what direction it takes or how many roles and titles it includes--can give you meaning and purpose, allowing you to use your gifts and talents in extraordinary ways. Tye's goal is to help you see the treasure you are holding.
If you are at the start of your career, the world is your oyster, as the saying goes. Tye encourages you to enjoy the fact that you have this field of learning opportunity in front of you. Your gifts, talents, and drive to succeed are what others are looking for.
For those reentering the workforce, it's important to reacquaint yourself with all the great things you've accomplished, the new skills you've acquired, and the education you have received from life itself. Tye wants to help you remember and then reimagine your career using the skills and experience that will set you up for success.
If you are entering the third stage of your career, the world needs your skills, wisdom, and experiences! Think about how your education and experience can promote you into higher positions you may have previously disqualified yourself from. Unlimited choices and paths lie ahead of you, and the great thing is that you get to choose where you want to go! If you still have it ... use it!
And for everyone, from the day you graduate from college through to your third career stage, you will meet hundreds, if not thousands, of people. Treasure these connections, and maintain contact with as many people as possible. Maintaining these special relationships will build your network, which is one of the most important aspects of your career.
As you read this book, Tye would like you to keep in mind this universal principle: let each of you look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others. No matter where you are in your career, if you are always looking to help others achieve their goals, you are giving back, and you will reap the rewards for that generosity during your lifetime.
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Switchers
Are you stuck in an unsatisfying job or feel like you're in the wrong profession An industry that just isn't a fit Don't just settle but succeed in the right career!
Get unstuck and land a new career--one you're genuinely passionate about. Switchers helps you realize that dream. Written by celebrated career coach and psychologist Dr. Dawn Graham, the book provides proven strategies that will get you where you want to go.
The first step is to recognize that the usual rules and job search tools won't work for you. Resumes and job boards were designed with traditional applicants in mind. As a career switcher, you have to go beyond the basics, using tactics tailor-made to ensure your candidacy stands out.
In Switchers, Dr. Graham reveals how to:
- Understand the concerns of hiring managers
- Craft a resume that catches their attention within six seconds
- Spotlight transferable skills that companies covet
- Rebrand yourself--aligning your professional identity with your new aspirations
- Reach decision-makers by recruiting "ambassadors" from within your network
- Nail interviews by turning tough questions to your advantage
- Convince skeptical employers to shelve their assumptions and take a chance on you
- Negotiate a competitive salary and benefits package
Packed with psychological insights, practical exercises, and inspiring success stories, Switchers helps you leap over obstacles and into a whole new field. This guide will help you pull off the most daring--and fulfilling--career move of your life!
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What Color Is Your Parachute? 2022
With timeless advice, up-to-the-minute insights, and more than ten million copies sold over fifty years, the world’s most popular and best-selling career guide is fully revised and expanded for 2022.
“One of the first job-hunting books on the market. It is still arguably the best. And it is indisputably the most popular.”—Fast Company
What Color Is Your Parachute? is the world’s most popular job-hunting guide. This completely updated edition features the latest resources, strategies, and perspectives on today’s job market, revealing surprising advice on what works—and what doesn’t—so you can focus your efforts on tactics that yield results.
At its core is Richard N. Bolles’s famed Flower Exercise, a unique self-inventory that helps you design your career—and your life—around your key passions, transferable skills, traits, and more.
This practical manual also provides essential tips for writing impressive resumes and cover letters, networking effectively, interviewing with confidence, and negotiating the best salary possible.
Whether you’re searching for your first job, were recently laid off, or are dreaming of a career change, What Color Is Your Parachute? will guide you toward a fulfilling and prosperous life’s work. -
Reverse the Search
From the creator of top career YouTube channel Self Made Millennial, the only job search guide you’ll need to get employers competing for you
Are you tired of sending out dozens of job applications every day and never hearing back? Or, when you do land interviews, not getting an offer, and never knowing why? As a former recruiter and head of HR at multiple companies, Madeline Mann has seen every kind of job application under the sun, and she’s here to tell you that the antiquated job search advice you’ve been told before is all wrong.
After years of working in HR, Mann began to share her behind-the-scenes insight into the world of hiring, creating viral career tip videos and posts online—and soon amassing nearly 1 million followers across YouTube, LinkedIn, and TikTok. In Reverse the Search, Mann distills her juiciest advice into a concise guide on how to turn the job search around, going from job seeking to job shopping—from desperately sending out applications to having your pick of jobs. By following the simple but proven steps—beginning with determining your ideal job through negotiating your final offer—that have landed hundreds of Mann’s career coaching clients positions at dream companies, you will transform into a lifelong Job Shopper, getting recruited and attracting opportunities at every stage.
Because Job Shoppers know they deserve to land more than any old job. They deserve a job that brings meaningful work, happiness, flexibility, and financial stability. And with Reverse the Search’s help, you’ll get noticed and approached, even when you’re not actively looking for a job. You will have the leverage, and you will never have to perform a soul-sucking job search again. -
Never Let Me Go
NOBEL PRIZE WINNER • From the acclaimed, bestselling author of The Remains of the Day comes “a Gothic tour de force" (The New York Times) with an extraordinary twist—a moving, suspenseful, beautifully atmospheric modern classic.
One of The New York Times’s 10 Best Books of the 21st Century
As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were.
Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special—and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together. -
Plain Bad Heroines
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
The award-winning author of The Miseducation of Cameron Post makes her adult debut with this highly imaginative and original horror-comedy centered around a cursed New England boarding school for girls--a wickedly whimsical celebration of the art of storytelling, sapphic love, and the rebellious female spirit.
"A delectable brew of gothic horror and Hollywood satire . . . deliciously ghoulish." --Ron Charles, Washington Post
Our story begins in 1902, at the Brookhants School for Girls. Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it the Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary's book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, the Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever--but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way.
Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer Merritt Emmons publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the "haunted and cursed" Gilded Age institution. Her bestselling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, opposite B-list actress and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled--or perhaps just grimly exploited--and soon it's impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins.
A story within a story within a story and featuring black-and-white period-inspired illustrations, Plain Bad Heroines is a devilishly haunting, modern masterwork of metafiction that manages to combine the ghostly sensibility of Sarah Waters with the dark imagination of Marisha Pessl and the sharp humor and incisive social commentary of Curtis Sittenfeld into one laugh-out-loud funny, spellbinding, and wonderfully luxuriant read.
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These Violent Delights
A Literary Hub Best Book of Year * A Crime Reads Best Debut of the Year * A Newsweek 25 Best Fall Books * A Philadelphia Inquirer 10 Big Books for the Fall * An O Magazine.com LGBTQ Books That Are Changing the Literary Landscape * An Electric Lit Most Anticipated Debut * A Paperback Paris Best New LGBTQ+ Books To Read This Year Selection * A Passport Best Book of the Month
The Secret History meets Lie with Me in Micah Nemerever's compulsively readable debut novel--a feverishly taut Hitchcockian story about two college students, each with his own troubled past, whose escalating obsession with one another leads to an act of unspeakable violence.
When Paul enters university in early 1970s Pittsburgh, it's with the hope of moving past the recent death of his father. Sensitive, insecure, and incomprehensible to his grieving family, Paul feels isolated and alone. When he meets the worldly Julian in his freshman ethics class, Paul is immediately drawn to his classmate's effortless charm.
Paul sees Julian as his sole intellectual equal--an ally against the conventional world he finds so suffocating. Paul will stop at nothing to prove himself worthy of their friendship, because with Julian life is more invigorating than Paul could ever have imagined. But as charismatic as he can choose to be, Julian is also volatile and capriciously cruel, and Paul becomes increasingly afraid that he can never live up to what Julian expects of him.
As their friendship spirals into all-consuming intimacy, they each learn the lengths to which the other will go in order to stay together, their obsession ultimately hurtling them toward an act of irrevocable violence.
Unfolding with a propulsive ferocity, These Violent Delights is an exquisitely plotted excavation of the depths of human desire and the darkness it can bring forth in us.