Library hosts ‘Ohio Means Jobs’ program

Col­lab­o­rat­ing, coop­er­at­ing and shar­ing of resources at the Delaware County Dis­trict Library are long-held and widely-used prin­ci­ples. We under­stand that we are entrusted with tax­pay­ers’ dol­lars, and using them wisely and in the most cost-effective man­ner is impor­tant to us. We pride our­selves on our abil­ity to get the biggest bang for your buck. Being good stew­ards of tax dol­lars often means shar­ing and coop­er­at­ing with other tax-supported agen­cies in pre­sent­ing pro­grams or buy­ing mate­r­ial. From 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. Wednes­day, Sept. 21, at the Library’s Orange Branch, 7171 Good­ing Blvd., and in coop­er­a­tion with the Ohio Depart­ment of Jobs and Fam­ily Ser­vices, we will offer “Ohio Means Jobs,” a pro­gram designed to help employ­ers con­nect with job seek­ers. The pro­gram will be pre­sented by Mark Birn­brich, Ohio Means Jobs Project Man­ager who will demon­strate the Ohio Means Jobs web­site, a free user-friendly online ser­vice that can assist in find­ing well-qualified Ohio based-talent. Birn­brich will demon­strate how to post job open­ings and employ­ment events, how to access resumes, how to cus­tomize resume searches and how to increase recruit­ment speed and effi­ciency. Please note that this pro­gram is for employ­ers, NOT jobseekers.

If you are an employer who would like to find out how to match jobs you have avail­able with poten­tial employ­ees, this pro­gram is for you. Con­tact Lona Hel­frich at 740–397-7177 X1315 or Lona.Helfrich@ jfs.ohio.gov to reserve your seat to learn more about the Ohio Means Jobs website.

How did Big Bot­tom State Park get its name?

Big Bot­tom State Memo­r­ial Park in Stock­port com­mem­o­rates the Big Bot­tom Mas­sacre of 1791, a skir­mish between Wyan­dot Indi­ans and Ohio Com­pany set­tlers that resulted in the deaths of 14 set­tlers. The Native Amer­i­cans attacked in part because they resented the set­tlers’ encroach­ment upon the large fer­tile area on the Musk­ingum River. A fer­tile area on a river flood­plain was com­monly called “bot­tom land,” and since the flood­plain was exten­sive, the set­tlers called it Big Bot­tom. I checked in Ohio’s State Parks Guide­book for this information.

Does fired coach Josh McDaniels have another job?

Accord­ing to Sports Illus­trated, Josh McDaniels’ record was 8–8 in his first year with the Den­ver Bron­cos, but he was fired in the mid­dle of a dis­ap­point­ing 4–12 sea­son in 2010. McDaniels, who landed the Den­ver job after serv­ing as the offen­sive coor­di­na­tor and quar­ter­back coach for the New Eng­land Patri­ots, agreed to become Steve Spagnuolo’s offen­sive coor­di­na­tor with the St. Louis Rams. Inter­est­ingly, Spag­n­uolo was the defen­sive coor­di­na­tor of the Giants when they slowed McDaniels’ offense and upset the Patri­ots in Super Bowl XLII.

Why are text­books so expen­sive com­pared to other books?

Pub­lish­ers offer an expla­na­tion that text­books are expen­sive to make. The hun­dreds of glossy col­or­ful pages, com­plete with charts, graphs and illus­tra­tions, cost more than putting black words on reg­u­lar white paper. The National Asso­ci­a­tion of Col­lege Stores has said that roughly 33 cents of every text­book dol­lar goes to this sort of pro­duc­tion cost, with another 11.8 cents of every dol­lar going to author roy­al­ties. Addi­tion­ally, the rel­a­tively small print runs of text­books keep pub­lish­ers from enjoy­ing the kind of economies of scale they get on a best­selling pop­u­lar novel. Pub­lish­ers also note that wide­spread sales of used books cut into their profit. How­ever, accord­ing to a study done by the Depart­ment of Education’s Advi­sory Com­mit­tee on Stu­dent Finan­cial Assis­tance, in the sim­plest eco­nomic terms, the high price of text­books is symp­to­matic of mis­aligned incen­tives, not exor­bi­tant pro­duc­tion costs. Stu­dents do not have the lat­i­tude to pick which texts they need because pro­fes­sors pick the course mate­ri­als, and they have no strong incen­tive to be price sen­si­tive when it comes to select­ing text­books. This lack of cost-control incen­tives for pro­fes­sors is a major rea­son that text­books are expen­sive. As a result of this study, a new fed­eral law went into effect that requires pub­lish­ers to notify pro­fes­sors of text­book prices and schools to inform stu­dents of nec­es­sary course texts dur­ing registration.

If you have a ques­tion that you would like to see answered in this col­umn, mail it to Mary Jane San­tos, Delaware County Dis­trict Library, 84 E. Win­ter St., Delaware, OH 43015, or call us at 740–362-3861. You can also email your ques­tions by vis­it­ing the library’s web site at delawarelibrary.org or directly to Mary Jane at mjsantos@delawarelibrary.org. No mat­ter how you con­tact us, we’re always glad you asked.