Prairie Trails Memorandum
South Dakota State Library
Braille and Talking Book Library
Summer 2003, Volume 2, Issue 2
Editor: Bonnie Olson
Notes from the Director, Dan Boyd
It is survey time again.

In the past three weeks you should have received a survey document from the South Dakota Braille & Talking Book Library. This survey is required every three years by the Library of Congress, National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS).

It is very important that as many of our library patrons as possible complete the survey and return it to the library as soon as possible. The results from this survey are used in a variety of ways. NLS uses the survey as one of the pieces of information they use in evaluating your library. They also use the results to compare our quality of service to that provided by other Braille & Talking Book Libraries.

We use the survey information to make improvements in services that we are now providing and to help us in the planning and development of new services.

Thank you for the prompt return of the survey. If you have not completed the survey I would encourage you to do so as soon as possible. This survey is your opportunity to tell us what you like or don't like about the library. It is also an opportunity for you to provide us with information on suggested improvements or new services you would like.

Information on the results of the survey will be provided to you in a future issue of this newsletter.


Music News
For those of you that have expressed an interest in receiving music, this may be the organization for you. Recordings for Recovery is a music library that has music for everyone. With over 1200 titles with 26 categories of music, short stories and sound effects, Recordings for Recovery gives you a choice of the music you want to hear. Library patrons are eligible to select tapes and enjoy them for up to 60 days. The tapes are mailed back to Recordings for Recovery "Free Matter for the Blind" using the return label that is provided with each tape received.

Individual memberships are available for only $10.00 per year, however, services will not be denied for those that are unable to afford it. Contact Recordings for Recovery to receive the summer catalog and updated listing of available music. Recordings for Recovery, 5103 Eastman Place Suite 101, Midland, MI 48640, 1-800-798-1192, e-mail: staff@r4r.org, web address: www.r4r.org


South Dakota Collection
The following titles are recent additions to the South Dakota collection.
  • SD003512 "The Wild Rose and Other Prairie Parables" by David G. Johnson
    Written by a Sioux Falls minister. As a preacher, David Johnson says he has no choice when it comes to stories. He said, "Use them or lose them (the first 'them' refers to the stories, the second 'them' refers to his listeners). He says stories help people to listen, to understand, and to remember. The book is a group of short reflective stories.
  • SD003577 "Callaghen" by Louis L'Amour
    A rugged Irish gunslinger matches wits and bullets with a cunning Indian and a dangerous mountain outlaw.
  • SD003578 "The Quick and the Dead" by Louis L'Amour
    Con Vallian stops at a stranger's campfire and finds himself guiding a family of newcomers across the prairie. He helps them fight a pack of rustlers, a mountain lion and some Huron Indians.
  • SD003579 "Under the Sweetwater Rim" by Louis L'Amour
    Two hundred miles west of Fort Laramie and prepared to fight for their land, the Indians ferociously attack another wagon train. One wagon carrying the major's daughter, a dashing cavalry officer and $60,000 in gold mysteriously disappear.
  • SD003580 "Silver Canyon" by Louis L'Amour
    A gunfighter drifts into a dusty western town and immediately falls in love with a beautiful woman. His love forces him to choose sides in a deadly range war in which his lady's father is one of the contenders.
  • SD003581 "Dark Canyon" by Louis L'Amour
    Gaylord Riley sets up his cattle range bordering Dark Canyon, a regrettable choice of location. Rustlers use the canyon to drive stolen cattle across the mountains, desperate men skulk in it, and bandits use it for ambush.
  • SD003582 "How the West Was Won", a novel by Louis L'Amour
    The epic saga of the men and women who pushed on despite the uncertainties of nature, the wrath of savage enemies, countless dangers, and cruel death to win the rich and untamed west. Based on the screenplay of the same.
  • SD003583 "The First Fast Draw" by Louis L'Amour
    Cullen Baker returns to Texas after the Civil War wanting only to raise a crop and sleep under his own roof, but the vicious leader of a gang of carpet baggers has different plans for Cullen and his land. Some strong language.
  • SD003584 "The Rider of Lost Creek" by Louis L'Amour
    When Mort Davis saw the big spreads fixing to fence out his piece of grass and barbed wire biting into the Live Oak country, he called in Kilkenny. Kilkenny was poison in a gun battle and left no more trail than a ghost. It would not have been a range war without him.
  • SD003585 "Fallon" by Louis L'Amour
    Macon Fallon, down on his luck, and itching to get west to San Francisco, devises a scheme to get rich with the unintentional help of a wagon train.
  • SD003586 "The Broken Gun" by Louis L'Amour
    An author of western fiction and history becomes involved in a ninety-year-old mystery and vendetta when he visits a remote Arizona town to research the disappearance of the original settlers almost a century before.
  • SD003587 "Where the Long Grass Blows" by Louis L'Amour
    The owner of a splendid Appaloosa gelding, a fine California saddle of hand tooled leather, a .44 Winchester rifle and two .44 Colts, Bill Canavan decides he wants a well-watered ranch in good stock country. But first he has to settle with the rustlers who had turned respectable by becoming ranchers in the Valley.
  • SD003588 "Bendigo Shafter" by Louis L'Amour
    Enroute to California in the 1860's when an early winter keeps them from crossing the Sierras, a motley group of twenty-odd pioneers decide to settle in the Wyoming territory and build their own town. Eighteen-year-old Bendigo Shafter, strong and virtuous, who reads Plutarch and Thoreau in his spare time, pitches in and helps the community through the first rugged winter.
  • SD003589 "The Man from Skibbereen" by Louis L'Amour
    Crispin Mayo leaves Ireland for the American West to seek his fortune, but runs afoul of a band of renegade outlaws.
  • SD003591 "Kilrone" by Louis L'Amour
    Kilrone, the Indian fighter, has need of the rawest courage and the fastest guns the West has ever known, if there is to be any future for him. Medicine Dog has sworn to take his scalp and Iron Dave Sproul is gunning for revenge.
  • SD003592 "The Sky-Liners" by Louis L'Amour
    The two Sackett brothers run into Black Fetchen's gang in town and a feud develops. The Sacketts are good fighters but they must contend with the best gunslingers in the country.
  • SD003593 "Shalako" by Louis L'Amour
    Shalako, a loner and a gambler riding down from the Sierra Madre, meets a band of travelers desperately in need of help to get through treacherous Apache country.
  • SD003594 "Kiowa Trail" by Louis L'Amour
    A cattle drive through Indian country and a nineteen-year-old's first love bring trouble and adventure to a couple of cowhands.
  • SD003595 "The Empty Land" by Louis L'Amour
    Gold is discovered in the Utah hills and a boom town soon grows up around the strike. As miners and shopkeepers move in, violence and murder become a way of life until loner Matt Coburn comes in to clean the town up.
  • SD003596 "Comstock Lode" by Louis L'Amour
    Cornish coal miner Tom Trevallion uproots his small family and moves to America to have a shot at the California gold rush. But thieves kill Tom, and shortly thereafter kill his wife. Some strong language.
  • SD003597 "Matagorda" by Louis L'Amour
    The cowboy comes to Matagorda looking for a herd to drive to Kansas, but finds instead a town caught in a blood feud where every man is forced to join or die choosing.
  • SD003598 "Catlow" by Louis L'Amour
    Catlow, a reckless adventurer with a blazing gun, hijacks a mule train loaded with Mexican gold. With the Mexican Army and U.S. law hot on his heels, Catlow must trek through Indian country.
  • SD003599 "The Man called Noon" by Louis L'Amour
    A hoard of gold is buried somewhere on the Davidge spread. No one knows exactly where, but a whole lot of people are ready to kill for it. All Fan Davidge wants is her ranch back, and Ruble Noon vows she will have the ranch and the gold or he will die trying.
  • SD003600 "The Lonely Men" by Louis L'Amour
    Tell Sackett is lured into the Apache's mountain stronghold by the icy beauty of his brother's wife. With him go John J. Battles, Spanish Murphy and the half-breed Tampico. Each is driven by his past to test his speed and cunning.
  • SD003601 "Hanging Woman Creek" by Louis L'Amour
    Pronto Pike has known plenty of trouble in his day, but none like that winter on Hanging Woman Creek. He and his partner, as good a man with a rifle as there ever was, are making things tough for the rustlers lifting Bar J cattle.
  • SD003602 "The High Graders" by Louis L'Amour
    Gunslinger Mike Shevlin is hired by pretty Laine Tennison to keep the miners from stealing gold ore from her mine and to challenge the cattlemen who swear to close the mine because the range waters are being poisoned.
  • SD003603 "Kid Rodelo" by Louis L'Amour
    The mysterious cowboy Kid Rodelo is the only man who can save a band of travelers from bounty-hunting Yaquis.
  • SD003605 "Conagher" by Louis L'Amour
    As far as the eye could see was a vast, lonely horizon. And Evie Teale and her two children were all alone here now, alone in an untamed country where the elements, the Indians, and the thieves made it far easier to die than to live. But Evie struggled on, while miles away another solitary soul battered for his own survival. He was Conagher, a lean, dark-eyed drifter who wanted trouble with no man, but who wasn't about to be pushed around.
  • SD003606 "Stagecoach Station 31 Royal Coach" by Hank Mitchum
    Count Wilhelm von Schiller and his traveling party cross the frontier in a custom-built Concord coach. From Chicago to California they brave the West's savage land and people, yet danger is waiting within their own party . Explicit descriptions of sex, strong language and violence.
  • SD003610 "Bachelor Bess" by Elizabeth Corey
    This book portrays a woman pioneer and farm life in the South Dakota frontier during the 20th century. Written by a South Dakota author.
  • SD003612 "Crazy Horse and Korczak" by Robb DeWall
    This book is based on fact. Every year Korczak Ziolkowski, sculptor of Crazy Horse memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota, receives scores of letters from students of all ages. This book attempts to answer many of the questions the sculptor receives from those students.
  • SD003613 "New Memories of the Millennium" by Bob Bartos
    Bob Bartos' column in the Webster, South Dakota "Reporter and Farmer" weekly newspaper has been recognized in three categories. Best General Interest, Best Featured Series and Local Humorous by the South Dakota Newspaper Association. This book contains 55 short stories from his columns.
New DVS Additions
Descriptive Video Service (DVS) carefully describes the visual elements of a movie such as the action, characters, locations, costumes and sets, without interfering with the dialogue or sound effects. Our collection consists of over 280 videos that are available for loan. The following videos were recently added to our collection. If you would like a complete listing of all the videos in our collection, contact your reader advisor at 1-800-423-6665.
  • DVS-00290 "A Tickle in the Heart"
    In their youth the Epstein brothers, Willie, Max and Julie, were known as the Kings of Klezmer, the joyous, sad and sentimental music of European Jews. Now in their 80's, they're still delighting audiences. A tender testament to three humble living legends filled with the world's liveliest and most poignant folk music.
  • DVS-00291 "The Christmas Wife"
    Not long a widower, and facing his first Christmas alone, John Tanner (Jason Robards) employs a dating service to meet Iris (Julie Harris). The two enjoy each other's company more than either of them expected. But Iris has a secret she needs to share. A gentle, touching drama with fine performances from the two stars.
  • DVS-00292 "A Girl is a Girl"
    Totally into dating beautiful girls, young Trevor sets out on a series of sexual misadventures in search of the love of his life. Well-acted and smartly written, this irreverent, off-beat comedy of twenty-something manners contains nudity and coarse language.
  • DVS-00293 "Parsley Days"
    Comely Kate teaches bicycle maintenance. Her boyfriend Ollie is a birth-control counselor. Together since high school, the couple is the envy of their friends and the pride of their families. Trouble is, Kate is pregnant, and no longer in love with Ollie. This bitter-sweet, whimsical, romantic comedy contains coarse language.
  • DVS-00294 "Abilene Town"
    A town marshal is caught in a clash between the cattlemen, who have been the town's mainstay, and the homesteaders, who aim to be the town's future. Randolph Scott, Lloyd Bridges, Edgar Buchanan and Ronda Fleming star in this well-made western.
  • DVS-00295 "Anna Karenina"
    A beautiful wife of a Russian aristocrat falls in love with a military officer and risks everything to be with him. Stars Vivien Leigh and Ralph Richardson.
  • DVS-00296 "The Bells of St. Mary's"
    Bing Crosby as Father O'Malley and Ingrid Bergman as Sister Benedict try each other's patience, poise and personal values in this classic comedy from director Leo McCarey.
  • DVS-00297 "A Farewell to Arms"
    A superb adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's famous novel, set against the brutal backdrop of World War I, about the passionate romance between an American ambulance corpsman (Gary Cooper) and a beautiful English nurse (Helen Hayes).
  • DVS-00298 "The Fishing Trip"
    This compelling story of lost childhood and possible redemption follows three young women who travel to a remote cabin to confront their stepfather about a dark family secret. Buoyed by humor and the resiliency of youth, their journey together is a deeply affirming testament to the power of love and friendship.
  • DVS-00299 "The Last of the Mohicans"
    During the 1750's an American scout (Randolph Scott) and his two Mohican companions help the British fight the French and their savage Huron allies. A superb adaptation of the James Fenimore Cooper's classic novel.
  • DVS-00300 "The Last Winter"
    Farm life is perfect for 10-year-old Will Jameson. Then his dad lands a job in the city, and Will must confront the loss of everything he holds dear. A wonderful story: funny, touching and brimming with real life challenges.
  • DVS-00301 "Perpetration of the Crime"
    It seems like such a simple plan: three college students use spring break to kidnap a coed and demand a ransom from her wealthy dad. But, as they soon discover, even the simplest of plans can go awry-and do they ever in this wildly offbeat comedy of errors.
  • DVS-00302 "Charade"
    Cary Grant is the mystery man intent on helping Audrey Hepburn find a fortune hidden by her murdered husband-if she can survive the lethal competition from his ex-partners in crime. Also starring Walter Mathau, James Coburn, and George Kennedy.
All descriptive videos are on loan to patrons for one week. Please be kind and return the videos within that time frame so that others have a chance to receive them. Remember, you are responsible for videos that are on loan to you. If you experience any problems with the video or have questions about descriptive videos, please contact Judy at 1-800-423-6665.


Magazine News
The Travel Holiday magazine is no longer available. If you are a current subscriber to this magazine, you will automatically receive Travel + Leisure instead.

As of the August/September issue, the print version of the Country Music magazine has ceased publication. This magazine will not be replaced with another at the present time. If you are currently a subscriber to the Country Music Magazine, and wish to receive a different magazine in its place, please contact your reader advisor to see what is available.


In the Spotlight
Hi! My name is Margaret Gelhaus. I am one of the volunteers for reading the newspaper on the radio for the Braille and Talking Book Library. This is very rewarding and I enjoy it immensely. The library staff is so friendly and fun that it is a pleasure for me to come here every Wednesday and Thursday mornings.

I hope to devote more hours here in the fall and winter months.

I am a retired school teacher having taught in Webster and at the Pierre Junior High School. I love to travel and have been to the British Isles, Ireland, Italy, Germany and Austria, as well as many places in the United States.

I have three sons, and five grandsons. None live near me, but I try to see them often. I volunteer at the Visitor's Center at the Oahe Dam and work in the church. I am also a Reading Buddy for young children during school time.

I am always urging my friends to get involved as there are so many places that welcome extra help.


Holiday Closings
The Braille and Talking Book Library will be closed on the following holidays. Please place your book orders in advance so that you will have a plentiful amount of books on hand.
Veterans Day, November 11, 2003
Thanksgiving Day, November 27-28, 2003
Christmas Day, December 25, 2003
New Years Day, January 1, 2004
Martin Luther King Day, January 19, 2004

Prairie Trails Memorandum The Prairie Trails Memorandum, is published quarterly, it is our means of communication with our patrons. The Prairie Trails Memorandum is available in Braille, Cassette or on a diskette upon request and is also posted on our website.

If you wish to request this newsletter in an alternative format, please contact the Braille and Talking Book Library at 1-800-423-6665.

If you have any questions or comments that you would like to share with us about the library program, please contact us.

Write to: South Dakota Braille & Talking Book Library
800 Governors Drive,Pierre, SD 57501

E-mail: talkbkreq@state.sd.us

Call: 1-800-423-6665

The Braille & Talking Book Library does not endorse any product or service listed in this newsletter.