Getting Ready for Tax Season: How to Find Forms and File Online

It's that time of year again--tax season is almost upon us. The federal and state income tax filing season begins January 31. The deadline for federal tax returns is Tuesday, April 15, and the deadline for Louisiana income tax returns is May 15.

Federal Forms

All Terrebonne Parish library branches have the most common federal forms, including the 1040, 1040A, and 1040 EZ forms, and their instruction booklets. We also have associated forms, including Schedules A, B, C, C-EZ, D, E, and EIC. If you need other forms, we can print most shorter ones for you free of charge. However, we have to charge 10 cents per page to print out instruction books. All federal forms can be viewed online at www.irs.gov/Forms-&-Pubs. We will be happy to get you on a public computer to view or print the forms you need. If you are an employer or self-employed, you can get forms such as the 1099 (which can be viewed but not printed online) at the Federal Building at 432 Lafayette Street in Houma.

State Forms

As for Louisiana state tax forms, this year the Louisiana Department of Revenue has stopped sending them to libraries. In fact, when we spoke with a representative in Baton Rouge, she said no state forms would be sent anywhere in Terrebonne Parish. To get physical copies of the forms, you have three options. You can print them from the state's website, at bit.ly/lataxforms, starting January 31. You can also order tax forms by phone at 225-219-2113, or order them online at bit.ly/ordertaxforms.

Filing Online

In order to save paper and paperwork, both the federal and state tax agencies are pushing for people to file online. The IRS offers two basic electronic filing systems: Free File, which lets you use choose one of several free software packages provided by a variety of tax preparation services, and E-File, which is for more complicated tax situations. It uses paid versions of tax software and may be completed by your tax preparer. Many of the Free File packages allow you to file state as well as federal returns. The safest way to decide which service to use is to go directly to the IRS online filing page, at: www.irs.gov/Filing. If you want to file your state taxes online separately, you can do that at: bit.ly/lafileonline.

Tax Preparation at the Library

Volunteers with Catholic Charities, working through the IRS' Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, will be helping people file their taxes for free at the Main Library on Tuesdays, from February 4th through April 15 (except Mardi Gras day, March 4). They will be here from 9 AM to 3 PM, and help is available on a first-come, first-served basis. To qualify,  you must have earned less than $50,000 in 2013, and less made less than $100 in royalties. For more information about the information and paperwork to bring, go to bit.ly/vitainfo.

If you have any questions about tax forms and preparation at the library, call the Reference Department at 876-5864, option 2. Thanks!

Fold 3 History and Genealogy Archives

If you're interested in history and genealogy, our newest database may be right down your alley. Fold3 History and Genealogy Archives has over 50 million pages of historical documents, including presidential papers, historic treaties, military rolls, photographs, maps, and more. To access Fold 3, go to the library's homepage at www.mytpl.org and click "Research" on the navigation bar. Then click "Databases by Name" and look for Fold3. If you're outside the library, you'll be asked to enter your library card number, and then you'll see the Fold3 homepage.

The front page has links to many of the resources available within Fold3. However Fold3 itself is just one database in this package--there are also five others to explore, as shown in the image below.

Each of these databases contains a huge number of historical documents. The best way to see what each one offers is to select one from the dropdown menu, and then click "Browse" next to the search box. This opens up a page that lets you see what collections are included in each database, and then explore what's in each collection. For example, the picture below shows how you can pick "City Directories", then pick a city (New Orleans in this case), and then pick a year.

Fold 3 History and Genealogy Archives has so many historic resources that it's hard to give a brief overview. The best way to get started is to simply open it up and start exploring. In the Revolutionary War Archives, for example, you can look through papers from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, as well as George Washington's wartime correspondence. In Fold 3 itself you can browse milestone documents in American history such as the surrender of Germany or the repeal of prohibition. You can even search through Air Force documents about UFO reports! You never know what kind of records you will stumble across.

If you have any questions about Fold3 History and Genealogy Archives, give us a call at 876-5861, option 2. We hope you enjoy browsing through American history!

Geaux Vote with Geauxvote.com

It’s that time of year again: voting season. If you’re trying to find out where to vote, what’s on the ballot, or even whether you are registered to vote, the state of Louisiana has a website designed to help called geauxvote.com.

To find your voting information on geauxvote.com, click the “Are You a Voter” link in the middle of the home page.

Click “By Voter” from the choices on the right, and then enter your first name, last name and either your zip code or birth month and year.

You should now see a page that displays your name, political party, voting parish, ward, precinct and voting status.

To view a sample election ballot, click the "Ballot Information" tab located on the same page just above your voter information.  Click “What’s on My Ballot” on the next page, and a sample ballot should soon load. 

Geaux Vote is also offered as a mobile application for both Apple and Android mobile devices.

If you need additional help finding your voter information, stop by the Main Library across from the Civic Center or call the Reference Department at 876-5861, option 2.

Geaux Vote!

National Geographic Virtual Library and National Geographic Kids

Since 1888, National Geographic magazine has given subscribers a window into the rest of the world, bringing amazing photographs, articles, and maps into people's homes. Now your library card gives you access to every issue of National Geographic, all the way back to the first one, plus hundreds of maps, photographs, video clips, and books from National Geographic Publishing. All this is available through our latest database, National Geographic Virtual Library. For kids, we've also added the National Geographic Kids database, which has full issues of National Geographic Kids magazine back to 2009, over 200 kids books, and hundreds of kid-friendly images.

To get to both databases, go to the library's webpage, at www.mytpl.org, and click "Research" on the navigation bar. Now click "Databases by Name", and look for National Geographic Virtual Library and National Geographic Kids under the N's. If you're in one of our libraries, you'll be taken straight to the database. Otherwise you'll need to enter the number on the back of your library card. This brings you to the NGVL home page:

Now you can click "Browse Magazines" to look through every issue of National Geographic for the last 124 years. Or you can go to "Explore Topics" to find articles, maps, pictures, and ebooks on the topics below:

You can also do an Image Search to find downloadable images. This even lets you search old ads in National Geographic magazines, if you want to see, for example, what kind of cars were being advertised in the early 1950's. If you want to see a list of all books, images, maps, and so on, you can go to Advanced Search. Just select Books, Maps, or any other category you're interested in. If you enter keywords in the search box, you'll see results that contain those keywords. If you leave the box blank and select a format..."Books" for example...you'll see a list of all the resources in that format.

National Geographic Kids is a separate database designed especially for young people. Like NGVL, it has a wide range of pictures, books, maps, and videos. To get to it, just click the yellow button that says "For Kids". This kid-friendly database is great for writing reports, finding pictures for school projects, or just learning more about the world!

We're excited about our new National Geographic databases, and we hope you will be too. If you have any questions about National Geographic Virtual Library or National Geographic Kids, call the Reference Department at 876-5861, option. 2. Have fun exploring!

Axis 360: Our New Alternative for E-Books

Our e-book services are expanding!  Axis 360 is a new service which lets you check out a wider variety of e-books than ever.  It allows the library to purchase e-books that we can’t get through Overdrive, our main e-book service. Our collection of Axis 360 books is small now, but we’re adding new books all the time. Axis 360 books may be available in three different formats—EPUB and PDF, which are also used in Overdrive, and another format called Blio. EPUB and PDF are easier to use, so we recommend those. Be sure to click on EPUB or PDF instead of Blio when downloading your book.

How you download books depends on what kind of e-reader you have.  Some e-readers need to be connected to a computer, and others allow you to download books directly to your device. Just find your device in the list below.

Windows Computers,Older Nooks (Non-HD), Sony Readers, Kobo

If you want to read the book on your computer, or on one of these e-readers, you can download books through the library’s website. You can either search for them in the catalog and click on the book you want, or go directly to our Axis 360 page.  To get to Axis 360, go to the library’s webpage at www.mytpl.org, and click Catalogs. In the dropdown menu, click EBOOKS, and then click on Axis 360. When you find a book you want, click on it more information. Click here for more detailed instructions for downloading your book.

iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch

To get started on these devices, you can download the Axis Reader app from the app store. Click here for detailed instructions.

Kindle Fire

With the Kindle Fire, you can download e-books directly from your device with the Axis Reader app, but you need to install the app by connecting the device to your computer.  Click here for detailed instructions. Unfortunately, Axis 360 doesn’t currently work with original (e-ink) Kindles.

Android Devices (Including Nook HD and HD+)

Android devices with access to the Google Play store can download the Axis Reader there, and then download e-books directly on their device. Click here for instructions. 

Downloading your first e-book may seem a little complicated, but once your device is set up, all the others will be easy. If you need help, give us a call at 876-5861 option 2, or bring your device by the Reference Department at the Main Library. Happy e-reading!

Downloading Music and Videos with the New Freegal

If you're a music lover and you haven't checked out Freegal, the library's downloadable music service, you should! With Freegal and your library card, you can download music and videos, and they're yours to keep. It's free and it's legal, and that's why it's called Freegal.

Now there's a new edition of Freegal, with many advantages over the old one. It has a more user-friendly interface, more music, new video capability, and you can see what's available before you login.

Freegal is based on a credit system. Library patrons get three credits per week. For one credit you can get a song, and for two you can get a video. If you have run out of credits for the week, you can simply add songs and videos to a wishlist, and download them with the credits you get the next week.

To get to Freegal, go to our webpage at www.mytpl.org.  Then go to Online Catalogs on the navigation bar, and click "E-Services" in the dropdown menu. On the next page, scroll down and click on the Freegal icon.

This brings you to the Freegal page, which looks like this:

From this page you can browse songs and videos, see what's new and what's popular, and browse by genre. Or you can use the search box at the top of the page to find particular songs, artists, albums, and videos.

Let's go through the process of downloading a song. First, login by clicking the "Login" button at the top right of the page. Now enter your library card number, as well as your PIN, which is a 6 digit number based on your birthdate.  For example, someone born on September 9, 1999 would have the PIN number 090999 (if you have trouble logging in, give the library a call at 876-5861 ex. 2 for help).

If you want the song "I Had Me A Girl", by The Civil Wars, you could enter the song title in the search box.
This will bring you to the page for the album the song appears on. Now you can click the play button to hear a sample of the song. If you click the button with a + sign next to the song, you can either download the song, or add it to a wishlist so you can download it later.

If you click "download", your computer will prompt you to save the song in a file on your computer. Bingo!  Now you own the song, and you can transfer it to a mobile device or burn it to a CD.  It's yours to enjoy.

Freegal also has Apple and Android apps for your mobile devices.  These are useful if you're out and about, however, we recommend using the Freegal website to download songs to your computer first.  This allows you to transfer them from your computer to your mobile device, so you have them in both places. If you use iTunes, you can download the song to your computer, and then transfer it into you iTunes library.

If you have an questions about using Freegal, please don't hesitate to email us at reference@mytpl.org, or call the Reference Department at 876-5861, ex. 2.  Happy listening!

Searching the New Online Catalog: How to Pinpoint What You Want

When I was a kid, if I wanted to find a book in the library I would go look it up in the card catalog.  For those of you who aren't old enough to remember such antiques, this was a big set of drawers filled with cards, like the one to the right.  Each card had information about a single book.  You could look up books by author, title, or subject, which meant each book had three different cards.

That was then.  Today, library catalogs are almost all web-based programs called Online Public Access Catalogs, or OPAC's.  They allow patrons to do things they never could have done with a card catalog, like searching the catalog from home, and reserving and renewing books online.  They also allow much more powerful searches...if you know how to use them.  In this post, I'm going to talk about some ways to make your searches more effective, by narrowing your results to the items you're most interested in.

To get to the library catalog, simply go to the library website, at www.mytpl.org.  You can enter your search directly by typing it into the Search Catalog box on the right.  Or you can click on Online Catalogs, and then click Online Catalog.  This will bring you to the New Releases feature, which shows the covers of new books we've just added to our collection.

Now type a word in the search box.  If you type in the word "dogs", for example, you'll find that we have over nearly 4,000 items with "dogs" as a keyword.  Unless you want to click through all of them, you'll need to narrow things down a little.  One way to do this is to specify the kind of material you're looking for.  In the Format section on the menu to the left, you can narrow your search to books, DVDs, books on CD, and so on.

Another way to narrow your search is to specify whether you're looking for fiction or non-fiction, or for children's or adult works.  You can do that by clicking on Collection, and choosing the type of work you want.  For example, the picture below shows that if you choose Non-Fiction Adult, that narrows your search to 418 items.

If you want to narrow it down a little further, you can choose a particular subject, such as Behavior or Training.

Finally, you can narrow your search to items at a particular library branch.  Just click on Change in the box labeled "Searching".  This will open a popup window that lets you choose the branch you want to search.  This can be useful, but you may also want to search all the branches, because we deliver books from one branch to another.  Just request it, and we'll deliver it to your home branch and call you when it arrives.

You can also see which branch (or branches) a particular item is available at by clicking All Copies beneath the item listing on the left.

The Card Catalog will then display all the branches that carry the item, its availability, and where to locate it on the library's shelves.

Things have changed a lot since the days of card catalogs.  Our online catalog lets you search in new, sophisticated ways to find exactly what you need.  It also offers many other powerful search tools, but we'll cover those in future blog posts.  Have fun searching!