Chester City Library offers a range of Library Special Needs Services to people who don't have access to our library service in the usual way. As long as you live in Chester City, we'll provide a wide range of library services and resources including:

    Large printed and ordinary printed books

    Talking books on tape and CD

    DVDs and music CDs

    Magazines

    Reference and information requests

    Home delivery service

    Let us know what you like to read and we will choose the resources for you. Our staff will deliver the resources to your home for free. We also provide a service where we can choose the resources for you or someone instead of you choose the things from the library. You can also choose the resources you need personally.

    Talking books and captioned videos

    The library can provide talking books for people who are unable to use printed books because of eye diseases. You don't have to miss out on reading any more when you can borrow talking books from the library. If you have limited hearing which prevents you from enjoying movies, we can provide captioned videos for you at no charge.

    Languages besides English

    We can provide books in a range of languages besides English. If possible, we will request these items from the State Library of NSW, Australia.

    How to join?

    Contact the Library Special Needs Coordinator to register or discuss if you are eligible (合适的) for any of the services we provide-Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 9am-5pm on 4297 2522 for more information.

    Here's a selection of festivals for tourists to the United States in summer.

    San Francisco Silent Film Festival

    Films at this odd cinematic event have a variety of musical accompaniments,including piano and violin.It includes some classic silent movies.If you want to see them all,you can buy a festival pass.

    May 29 to June 1; www.silentfilm.org

    Union Street Festival

    This popular street fair stretches out over six blocks of the city,in the fashionable shopping area of Union Street.This year,there's beer,wine tasting and more separate themes—fashion,cuisine,tech,local,craft,and health and fitness.

    June 7 to 10; www.unionstreefestival.com 

    North Beach Festival

    This is San Francisco's oldest street party,with live entertainment,delicious food and arts and crafts.Situated in the Little Italy district,known for its associations with the "Beat Generation",festival goers are guaranteed plenty of good Italian food.There is also as the “blessing of the animals”,a San Francisco tradition which takes place at the National Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi (610 Vallejo Street) at 2 pm on both days of the festival.

    June 14 to 16; www.sfnorthbeach.org

    Stern Grove Festival

    This is the oldest free summer arts festival of its kind in the United States.It includes a wide variety of acts,from the local symphony orchestra to well known artists such as Smokey Robinson.

    Sundays from June 22 to Aug 24; www.sterngrove.org

    “This way, everyone.” said the young Bahamian as he led the way to the boat. As the boat moved over the waves, I thought back eleven years to my first island visit via a cruise ship. As we landed, I noticed a sign advertising swimming with dolphins. I looked at my mother; she knew exactly what I wanted, but I was too young. “Maybe some other time,” she said. I think everyone knows that those four words usually translate to never. It made me, a little boy, depressed for many days. From that day on, it was my dream to swim with those gentle creatures.

    Now, after 15 minutes of travelling, we reached the Sanctuary Bay. As we arrived, I saw the gray creatures showing off their unique talent before my eyes. We were led off the boat, past a back building. Our guide told us we would have the pleasure of spending the next 90 minutes with Kaholo, a young male, and Robola, the largest female, who is quite famous for having played the lead in the film Zeus and Roxanne.

    My father and I were joined by four others and followed the man once more. He told us to jump into the water while he let the dolphins into that part of the bay. For the first 20 minutes, we could go anywhere and touch the dolphins as they swam by.

    Kaholo and Robola must have known I was their biggest fan because they swam towards me as if I had had fish. After the introductory period, they jumped over our heads. I got a hug and kiss from Robola, and also learned how to have Kaholo talk to me.

    This was by far the most magical experience of my life. Next time your parents say “Maybe some other day”, have faith in them. Your dreams are important to them too, and they will do whatever they can to make it possible, because dreams can come true.

    Car companies are developing vehicles that will plug into electric sockets(电源插座), just like many laptops, digital cameras, cell phones and MP4 do. Called "plug-in vehicles", these cars will get most of their power from electricity. Their drivers won't have to stop at gas stations as often as usual.

    The technology is more than just cool. In our car-filled world, plug-in vehicles could reduce the amount of gas we use, which keeps rising in cost now and then. Besides, driving around in these vehicles may even help the environment. Gas-burning cars produce a lot of greenhouse gas, which causes global warming.

    The first company-produced plug-in vehicles could hit the roads by 2020. But engineers still have a lot of work to do to make the technology practical and inexpensive.

    Batteries are the biggest challenge. In the plug-in-vehicle world, Li-ion(锂离子)batteries are getting the most attention. These batteries can store a large amount of energy in a small package, and they last a longer time between charges. Li-ion batteries can fit laptops, cell phones, heart instruments and other similar pocket ones.

    But because cars are so big and heavy, it would still require a suitcase-sized Li-ion batteries to power about 12km of driving. What's more, the batteries are much expensive.

    "A car filled with batteries could go a long distance," says Ted Bohn, an electrical engineer in Chicago. "But it couldn't pull any people, and it would cost $100,000." So researchers need to work out how to make batteries smaller and cheaper, among other questions.

    "The answers don't exist yet." Bohn says, "As a kid, I thought someone someplace knows the answer to everything. All of these questions haven't been decided. But that's what engineering is about--making a guess, running tests and getting fine results."

    If you want to convince the boss you deserve a pay rise or promotion, the solution could be simple—eat the same food as they do. Psychologists have discovered managers are much more likely to instantly trust us if we choose the same dishes as them.

    During experiments, discussions over wages and work conditions were much more successful if both sides chose to snack on the same treats. And shoppers were much more likely to buy a product advertised on TV by someone eating a similar food to them at the time.

    The reason is thought to be the so–called similarity attraction theory—where people tend to like others who have similar tastes or habits to themselves. But this is believed to be one of the first studies highlighting the role of food in this relationship. Researchers at Chicago University in the US conducted a series of experiments to examine food's role in earning trust.

    In a test, participants were told to watch TV—where someone pretending to be a member of the public praised a certain product. The volunteers were given Kit Kat bars to nibble, while the TV people ate either a Kit Kat or grapes as they talked.

    The results showed viewers were much more likely to express an interest in buying the product if the TV showed the other person eating a Kit Kat too. The researchers added, "Although similarity in food consumption is not a sign of whether two people will get along, we find consumers treat this as such. They feel more trusting of those who consume as they do. It means people can immediately begin to feel friendship and develop a bond, leading to smoother transactions from the start."

    Harley Street psychologist Dr. Lucy Atcheson said it was already known that wearing similar clothes could instantly create trust. But this was the first report that food had the same effect. She said, "This is really interesting. It makes sense as people feel they have common ground and can trust the other person. That means negotiations are more likely to be successful."

"Assume you are wrong." The advice came from Brian Nosek, a psychology professor, who was offering a strategy for pursuing better science.

To understand the context for Nosek's advice, we need to take a step back to the nature of science itself. You see despite what many of us learned in elementary school, there is no single scientific method. Just as scientific theories become elaborated and change, so do scientific methods.

But methodological reform hasn't come without some fretting and friction. Nasty things have been said by and about methodological reformers. Few people like having the value of their life's work called into question. On the other side, few people are good at voicing criticisms in kind and constructive ways. So, part of the challenge is figuring out how to bake critical self-reflection into the culture of science itself, so it unfolds as a welcome and integrated part of the process, and not an embarrassing sideshow.

What Nosek recommended was a strategy for changing the way we offer and respond to critique. Assuming you are right might be a motivating force, sustaining the enormous effort that conducting scientific work requires. But it also makes it easy to interpret criticisms as personal attacks. Beginning, instead, from the assumption you are wrong, a criticism is easier to interpret as a constructive suggestion for how to be less wrong—a goal that your critic presumably shares.

One worry about this approach is that it could be demoralizing for scientists. Striving to be less wrong might be a less effective motivation than the promise of being right. Another concern is that a strategy that works well within science could backfire when it comes to communicating science with the public. Without an appreciation for how science works, it's easy to take uncertainty or disagreements as marks against science, when in fact they reflect some of the very features of science that make it our best approach to reaching reliable conclusions about the world. Science is reliable because it responds to evidence: as the quantity and quality of our evidence improves, our theories can and should change, too.

Despite these worries, I like Nosek's suggestion because it builds in cognitive humility along with a sense that we can do better. It also builds in a sense of community—we're all in the same boat when it comes to falling short of getting things right.

Unfortunately, this still leaves us with an untested hypothesis （假说）: that assuming one is wrong can change community norms for the better, and ultimately support better science and even, perhaps, better decisions in life. I don't know if that's true. In fact, I should probably assume that it's wrong. But with the benefit of the scientific community and our best methodological tools, I hope we can get it less wrong, together.