Mercer County Library Blog

Do you ever feel like you’re being watched? These days, security cameras capture you on street corners, generative AI remembers things about you, and third-party cookies track you across the Internet. The library offers a number of resources that will help you understand more about these important topics. In Means of Control , journalist Byron Tau explores how the U.S. government takes advantage of all the data collected about consumers on the Internet. “Recommendations” on social media feel eerily targeted and advertisements are specifically curated to your desires and purchasing behaviors. Beyond that, generative artificial intelligences such as ChatGPT, ClaudeAI, Google Gemini, and Grok are proliferating fast, with 62% of U.S. adults stating that they interact with generative AI at least once a week. In More Everything Forever , astrophysicist Adam Becker discusses how genAI companies and the billionaires who fund them do not always have our best interests in mind, valuing technol...

A few months ago, I decided I wanted to get into Star Trek ; setting out to consume every piece of its media ever released. It’s only been 60 years since the first show, certainly I’m not too late, right? If you weren’t already aware, the Star Trek cinematic universe is considerably massive; the complete collection totaling 14 shows (four of which are animated), 13 movies, around 55 novels, and over 100 comics. My progress? Pitifully negligible: I’m only on the seventh episode of the first season of the first show. If that wasn’t bad enough, at the start of the new year, Paramount+ began releasing the first episodes of a brand-new Star Trek show— Star Trek: Starfleet Academy . My ultimate goal may sound impossible, but only because it is. In all seriousness, becoming invested in a series like Star Trek is worthwhile for this exact reason—it has so much to offer, to the point you feel you may never run out of options. Of course, not every option is completely satisfying, or entertai...

July is Graphic Novels in Libraries Month. To celebrate this occasion, we’re going to look at anime – which has many connections and crossovers into graphic novels. Stop by your local Mercer County Library System branch to see our great selection of anime and graphic novel materials, or check them out at mcl.org! The first anime I ever saw was Neon Genesis Evangelion . It was on a VHS tape from Blockbuster Video. I remember being captivated by the detailed visuals and the story of a boy my age that operated a giant robot and lived with a cool lady and a penguin. The fact that Evangelion was able to shift from dark and moody to absurd and light hearted isn’t lost on me – or any other anime fan. It’s a genre that is as varied as any other storytelling medium. There were a lot of ways to watch anime, but I personally liked getting up early and catching an episode of Dragon Ball Z before I went to school. It was a show about a group of friends who fought aliens and went on adventures. ...

We can all use more humor in our lives, especially during times of stress. There is an old saying that tragedy plus time equals comedy, and many different people have said this over the years. The website Quote Investigator refers to an American print example from a February 1957 Cosmopolitan interview with comedian, writer, and actor Steve Allen, in which he says: “Man jokes about the things that depress him, but he usually waits till a certain amount of time has passed…. I guess you can make a mathematical formula out of it. Tragedy plus time equals comedy. ” The site also goes on to reference earlier writings, including “the prominent English novelist Thomas Hardy penn[ing] a letter in 1889 containing the following thematically related statement: All comedy, is tragedy, if you only look deep enough into it. ” This explains the adult tendency towards “dark humor;” those jokes about things that we might consider serious or even tragic in other contexts. Laughter and humor can be use...

"I am not a number! I am a free man!" Thus, the iconic phrase from Patrick McGoohan's late 1960s television classic The Prisoner   (1967) made its way into the individualist lexicon and TV history. The eccentric allegory about an individual who resigns from a top secret job and wakes to find he has been mysteriously abducted to a prison called The Village is a thematic counterpoint to our own times.  While being interrogated in various ways by a succession of Number 2's - the question of Number 1 remains cloaked in mystery - McGoohan's character, called only Number 6 in the series, continues to plot ways of escape from The Village just as Number 2, and those who are part of the Village apparatus, continue their attempts to extract information from him - information of extreme value to which the audience is never privy.  Wanting to watch each episode without commercials or rental and streaming fees makes checking out the show from the library ideal.  Prior to The P...

One of the great benefits of working at the circulation desk for the Mercer County Library System is getting to interact with our patrons. As patrons come in and out of the library to pick up their materials, you get to know what they like to read, watch and listen to by the materials they have reserved and that they check out during their visit. Many patrons return a book or a DVD and let us know it was a great book to read or a show they really enjoyed watching. And because of that, one of the perks of working at the circulation desk is picking up recommendations from patrons. Talking with fellow circulation workers at the branches around the county, we all have the same situation of a growing list of must-read books and new DVDs to watch - many based on the recommendations of patrons. With that in mind, I’ve put together a list of books and DVDs that have been recommended over the past year or two. So, in essence, look at this as suggestions from the people that utilize the l...

We have been living through strange times. And while they may seem extra strange to us, they don’t get stranger than The Twilight Zone , Rod Serling’s classic speculative fiction anthology series. Though it first aired in 1959, the show itself may feel like it eerily reflects our current reality. Beginning with these words, both invitation and warning, Serling brings us into a world that mirrors the subconscious of our own: "There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call  The Twilight Zone ." In an era when television was just finding its place as a more serious medium (remember just as many theatrical performers eschewed film, most film stars would not do television),...

Streaming has become increasingly popular and with increasing popularity comes the need for more content. Do you know what makes good content? A good book. Luckily, at the Mercer County Library System books are kind of our thing. Here are six relatively recent streaming shows that are based on books we happen to offer in our collection. The shows are presented in no particular order. Apple TV+ is currently streaming Silo , a post-apocalyptic story taking place in an underground bunker and starring Rebecca Ferguson, Tim Robbins, and Common. Silo is based on the Wool trilogy by Hugh Howey. The books in the Wool trilogy are Wool , Shift , and Dust . Wool is available as a physical copy and as an eBook and eAudiobook through eLibraryNJ and hoopla, Shift is available as a physical copy, and Dust is also available as a physical copy and as an eAudiobook through hoopla. The Wool trilogy is a triumph for self-publishing as it started out as a short story published through Amazon’s Kindle Dir...

Top 10 Favorite Anime TV Shows List Originating from and popularized in Japan, anime is a unique form of animation that frequently adapts Japanese comics known as “manga,” Japanese young adult “light” novels, and video games. Unlike most American animation typically geared toward general demographics, such as SpongeBob SquarePants and The Simpsons , anime is a medium in which a limitless array of specific stories can be told by primarily Japanese creators for audience members of all ages and backgrounds. From Studio Ghibli’s timeless cinematic masterpiece Spirited Away (2001), to Sunrise Inc.’s sprawling science fiction space western drama Cowboy Bebop (1998-1999), anime offers a bit of something for everyone. While many viewers prefer watching anime spoken in its original Japanese language with native language subtitles, others have grown accustomed to watching anime with native language dubbing (voice acting). Unfortunately, native language dubs are not always an accurate reflec...