The staff at the library is excited to be there to help our community as we begin another school year in Healdsburg. If you are a student of any age, a teacher or a parent, we have something helpful to offer this year as we prepare for another chapter of this action-packed story of life in the 21st century.
First of all, we have a helpful website packed with resources to offer. Visit sonomalibrary.org/school for up to date information and links to resources that Sonoma County Library subscribes to. Take advantage of BookFlix for exploring books on a topic; CultureGrams to find fascinating information on countries around the world; Brittanica School for general, expert information on almost any subject; Tutor.com for one-on-one live help from tutors for students of any age; earn your high school diploma online with Career Online High School; take practice tests on a surprisingly large number of topics with LearningExpress; learn a new language with Mango Languages; or take advantage of audio and video courses from well-known expert professors through Great Courses.
 In addition to freely available information online and inside the library, we are also working with local schools on a few back to school night visits in order to help provide information for parents. If your school is interested in an online or in-person outreach visit from our expert staff sometime this fall, please contact us right away and we will work together on a date and time that will work.
For any and all of our online resources, CDs or DVDs, and of course our beloved collections of the printed word, you can access all of them with a library card. Getting one is easy. If you haven’t already, take the plunge this September for Library Card Sign-Up Month — a special annual celebration we share with the American Library Association and libraries nationwide.
 We applaud all of our community members of all ages who have participated in summer reading with us this year. It was an exciting summer with our new strategy of offering weekly raffles for a child, a teen, and an adult throughout the summer. We can’t wait to see how many total minutes our county has read and we hope you’ll consider joining us next time.
 One more exciting turn of events we wanted to draw your attention to concerns our subscription to Hoopla, the app where you can read, listen to or watch books, music, movies, comic books and more. We are excited to announce that Hoopla now offers access to Acorn TV, an American streaming video product featuring British television programming as well as elsewhere around the world. Some 1,600 episodes are available from many fan-favorite programs. Hoopla Digital is available through personal computers and mobile devices wherever you get your apps; you need only sign up using your library card. We hope you enjoy the additional programming available through your public library.
Jon Haupt is the branch manager of the Healdsburg Regional Library.
