Shellharbour City Library provides a range of Library Special Needs Services for people who are unable to access our library service in the usual way. As long as you live in Shellharbour City, we'll provide a full 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

    You will be asked to complete a “Statement of Need” application form which must be signed by a medical professional.

    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 choosing 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.

    Language 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—9 am to 5 pm on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Call 4297-2522 for more information.

    Before the 1830s, most newspapers were sold through annual subscriptions in America, usually $8 to $10 a year. Today $8 or $10 seems a small amount of money, but at that time these amounts were forbidding to most citizens. Accordingly, newspapers were read almost only by rich people in politics or the trades. In addition, most newspapers had little in them that would appeal to a mass audience. They were dull and visually forbidding. But the revolution that was taking place in the 1830s would change all that.

    The trend, then, was toward the "penny paper"-a term referring to papers made widely available to the public. It meant any inexpensive newspaper; perhaps more importantly it meant newspapers that could be bought in single copies on the street.

    This development did not take place overnight. It had been possible(but not easy)to buy single copies of newspapers before 1830,but this usually meant the reader had to go down to the printer's office to purchase a copy. Street sales were almost unknown. However, within a few years, street sales of newspapers would be commonplace in eastern cities. At first the price of single copies was seldom a penny-usually two or three cents was charged-and some of the older well-known papers charged five or six cents. But the phrase "penny paper" caught the public's fancy, and soon there would be papers that did indeed sell for only a penny.

    This new trend of newspapers for "the man on the street" did not begin well. Some of the early ventures(企业)were immediate failures. Publishers already in business, people who were owners of successful papers, had little desire to change the tradition. It took a few youthful and daring businessmen to get the ball rolling.

    Researchers have discovered the first Earth-sized planet. It was first marked by scientists' using NASA's Kepler telescope (望远镜), so it's called Kepler﹣186f. It lies about 500 light years from Earth and goes around its star. The planet is the right distance from its star for water: not too close or not too far. Water is one important condition that scientists guess is necessary for life. So it could have water and possible life. It's called a true Earth cousin.

    "This planet is an Earth cousin, not an Earth twin," said Barclay, who is among a team of scientists reporting on the discovery in the magazine Science this week.

    "It's very exciting to find a planet similar to the Earth," Barclay said. "It's not easy work because things change as we get more measurements."

    Scientists don't know anything about the air of Kepler-186f, but it will be a task for future telescopes which can study for chemicals that have something to do with life.

    "It's possible for life to live in this planet, but that doesn't mean there is life in it," Barclay said.

    So far, scientists have found nearly 1,800 planets in the universe.

    "The past year has seen a lot of progress in the search for Earthlike planets. Kepler﹣186f is very important because it is the first planet that is the same temperature and is almost the same size as Earth," scientist David Charbonneau wrote in an email.

    Right in front of the Minneapolis Central Library, a row of green hikes sits parked in a special stand. Each hike is designed with the logo "Nice Ride" the name of the city's bike-share program.

    Nice Ride bikes are a lot like the library books that people come here to borrow. To rent a bike, you simply use your membership card at a Nice Ride bike station. Members can rent one of 1, 200 bikes from 138 stations throughout Minnesota's largest city. People use the Nice Ridebikes to go to work, to go out on business, or just to enjoy the city's many bike paths.

    The rise of bike-share programs like Nice Ride is encouraging more people than ever to choose biking over driving. Skyrocketing gas prices and concerns about the environment have also gotten people to dust off their bike helmets, pump air into flat tires, and hit the road.

    Why ride? Not only is biking good exercise, but switching from a car to a bike also reduces the amount of pollution in the air. Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas linked to climate change, is one of the many polluting substances that come out of a car's tailpipe.

    Bike-share systems are found around the world in cities like London, Paris, Barcelona, and Melbourne, Australia. The largest program—with 70, 000 bikes—is in Wuhan, China.

    To make roads friendlier to non-motorists, the U. S. Department of Transportation has invested more than a billion dollars in cycling and pedestrian projects in recent years. The money went toward building thousands of miles of on-street bike lanes and bike-and pedestrian-only passages called greenways.

    In 1973, I was teaching elementary school. Each day, 27 kids entered "The Thinking Laboratory." That was the name students voted for after deciding that "Room 104" was too dull.

    Freddy was an average student, but not an average person. He had the rare balance of fun and compassion(同情). He would laugh the loudest over fun and be the saddest over anyone's misfortune.

    Before the school year ended, I gave the kids a special gift, T-shirts with the words "Verbs Are Your friends" on them. I had advised the kids that while verbs may seem dull, most of the fun things they do throughout their lives will be verbs.

     Through the years, Pd run into former students who would provide updates on old classmates. I learned that Freddy did several jobs after his graduation from high school and remained the same caring person I met forty years before. Once, while working overnight at a store, he let a homeless man sleep in his truck. Another time, he lent a friend money to buy a house.

    Just last year, I was conducting a workshop when someone knocked at the classroom door. A woman excused the interruption and handed me an envelope. I stopped teaching and opened it up. Inside were the "Verbs" shirt and a note from Freddy's mother. "Freddy passed away on Thanksgiving. He wanted you to have this."

    I told the story to the class. As sad as it was, I couldn't help smiling. Although Freddy was taken from us, we all took something from Freddy.