As of March 1, 2010, recycling fees associated with the drop-off of computer monitors and television sets will be added to current monthly Frisco water bills. Computer monitors will incur a $10 charge and television sets will incur a $15 charge. No form of payment will be accepted at point of drop-off. Proof of Frisco residency is required.

Frisco Public Library lets you download e-books, audio and video.

By Bill Sullivan

Recently, the Frisco Public Library had an opportunity to tap into some federal stimulus money to get $75,000 toward expanding and deepening its downloadables collection. As part of the application, Director Shelley Holley had to show that the money would have a positive environmental impact.

Downloadable books are green?

You bet.

“Production of books is still production,” she explained. “You’ve got the hauling, transportation, the space they take on the shelf – all those kinds of things. We recognized downloadables not only as a green option, but as a time and space saving option, too.”

In ways you may not have imagined, Frisco Public Library is doing its part to make the city just a little greener. Thanks to ever-improving technology, you don’t even have to come to the library to get a library card anymore.

“You can apply from home, be given a library card number, and you can turn around and check out digital books from home,” Holley says. When you come to the library to check out other kinds of materials, you can pick up your card to do so.

“We’re trying to make library materials as easily accessible as possible.”

The recent expansion of the downloadables collection was highlighted at January’s Town Hall Meeting. The Library currently works with three vendors to offer a wide range of titles and content:

• Overdrive offers downloadable print e-books, some video, and some music.
• MyiLibrary Audio (Ingram) offers the bulk of the Library’s audiobooks.
• NetLibrary is almost exclusively e-books.

Titles can be downloaded on most e-readers. Items can be accessed through the Library’s Web page. Using the Internet from home, a customer can download material on any compatible device.

Image: Frisco Public Library

Users can choose between seven and 14-day checkouts. When that time is up, the content “checks itself back in” by expiring from the patron’s device.

To avoid issues, be sure that the format of the book matches the device you are loading. An MP3 format, for instance, can transfer easily to MP3 players and iPods. Amazon’s Kindle, however, is programmed to work only at the Amazon Kindle store.

At the moment, the Sony e-reader is the most flexible because Sony has not contracted with a source.

“We’re still a little bit in the middle of whose format is going to win out,” Holley says. “Currently, when you buy an e-reader or an MP3 player, you’re making a choice about some formats. You need to make sure you’re aware of what you’re excluding and what you’re including, what are easier to download free items with, what are more difficult to download items with.”

The Friends of the Library have helped move the project down the tracks, providing funds to purchase a variety of e-readers for staff to evaluate.

“We’re trying to stay on top so that we know which ones are best for which formats,” Holley says. “So anyone who might be interested in buying an e-reader and is also interested in availing themselves of the free items that are provided in the library, it’s not a bad idea to come to the library and talk about what kind of device you’re interested in, what your price range is, and how important it is that you don’t have to buy everything you read in an e-reader.”

With increased inventory and greater awareness, the downloadables collection enjoyed a 70 percent jump in circulation between December 2008 and December 2009. While purists may lament the threat to the traditional format, Holley insists the Library is “not advocating the death of the book any more than people were advocating the death of the clay tablet or the scroll.

“We want people to be able to get the information they need in whatever format works best for them. But in an area where time is ever-increasingly an issue, not to mention transportation, a downloadable is a real answer to that.”

Older citizens haven’t always embraced new technology, but Library staffers have noticed a difference when it comes to e-books. A large number of technical support questions regarding downloadables have come from the AARP crowd.

“I really didn’t think that was going to happen, but I’ve had a lot of technical support questions from people who don’t navigate their computer that well but love their e-readers,” says Adult Services Librarian John McNaughton, who added that he fields about 20 downloadables-related inquiries a week.

For older readers, downloadables have plenty of appeal: No trips to the Library in bad weather. No need to arrange for transportation if they don’t have their own. No items to return. No wasted gasoline commuting back and forth to a central location, and no need to replace lost, worn or damaged printed materials.

All in all, a win-win for the library, its patrons, and — last, but hardly least — the environment. Just another way in which forward thinking helps Frisco be a little more green.

By Barbara Kessler

Winter is not when we typically think strategically about trees. We may notice the glittering displays of icicles draped from their branches as we re-stack the firewood pile and shovel the front walk. But tree maintenance? It shifts to the bottom of our checklist.

And yet, the winter months are an excellent time to train an eye on our arboriculture — to check for cracking or peeling bark, identify broken branches and address damage from ice and snow storms.

Let’s consider first those broken branches. There are likely to be many this winter as the nation endures repeated onslaughts of arctic winds and weather.

The first thing to do when seeing a tree in trouble, says Arbor Day Foundation arborist Robert Smith, is to carefully assess the damage, and be realistic and safe in how you deal with the problem. Smith often advises homeowners to take a binoculars out and examine large trees for immediate weather damage, as well as existing problems that may not have been evident when the tree was in full foliage. But he stresses that a tree owner should stay grounded.

“If you’re going out and inspecting the tree, the first consideration always is safety,” Smith said. “If it’s a young tree planted in the last couple years that’s out on your property and there’s some damage and there’s work that could be done from the ground… you could remove cracked or down branches.”

If you find yourself heading to the garage for a ladder, however, stop yourself, says Smith. Taller trees require the expert attendance of a certified arborist, who will have the appropriate equipment.

Not only do most homeowners lack the proper saws to make the necessary clean cut needed so the tree seal off the wound, they probably have no training in safe arbor care, and many have been seriously injured or killed in falls, says Smith.

Even though it’s winter, don’t hesitate to call an arborist, says Smith, because a tree expert can actually get a lot accomplished in these chilly months when the trees are in their latent stage.

Trees can be successfully pruned in the winter, and may even do better being pruned in advance of the growing season.

Most importantly, a certified arborist can best advise you about how to proceed with a tree that’s been damaged. Often there’s a way to save the tree, and that’s not just tree-hugger talk.

Smith remembers an early season blizzard that slammed Lincoln, Neb., where Arbor Day is based, 12 years ago. It began with a sudden freezing rain, hitting trees that were still green and growing. Within 24 hours, they were coated in ice and weighted with snow. Many of the trees must have looked beyond recovery, to the unstudied eye, he said. But more than a decade later, Smith can see many that survived that early winter blast. They’re the ones that were properly trimmed and given a chance to continue growing.

So don’t give up on 20 or 30 years of natural shade unless you’re certain the tree has been fatally compromised. A key to helping the tree recover is that clean cut. “Trees don’t heal, they seal. They actually wall off or compartmentalize injuries. They don’t heal like you and I do, they don’t heal, they actually wall off injuries,” Smith said.

Arbor Day offers specific guidance on cutting trees limbs. The tree advocacy non-profit also issues guides on assessing damaged trees, such as its step-by-step Can They Trees Be Saved guide, to help tree owners determine how to proceed with an impaired tree. This guide acknowledges that sometimes trees are injured beyond help, and offers depictions of what that sort of damage looks like.

The group also issues tips on what Smith calls “tree triage” or first aid for trees. This guide urges homeowners to approach the problem with caution, gives specifics about pruning branches and argues for a conservative approach to save trees when possible. It advises:

• Removing the jagged remains of smaller sized broken limbs is one common repair that property owners can make after a storm. If done properly, it will minimize the risk of decay agents entering the wound.

• Smaller branches should be pruned at the point where they join larger ones.

• Large branches that are broken should be cut back to the trunk or a main limb by an arborist. Cut first a short distance out from where the branch meets the tree; then closer in. (See details at Arbor Day’s webpage on pruning. )

Some other dos and don’ts from Smith and the Arbor Day Foundation:

• Don’t let a passing work crew “take out” your damaged tree before you can have it professionally assessed. The tree might be salvageable, but the people soliciting your business are likely to be more interested in earning some quick cash than the long term viability of your landscape.

• Recognize that you don’t have to make an immediate decision about whether a tree should be removed. “There are times when people can come in and prune a tree that’s been severely damaged and then evaluate the health and condition of that tree over a period of years, then with an arborist make a decision whether or not it should remain in the landscape,” Smith said.

• Water trees in winter? Sure. Even better, deep water them, around the fall line away from the trunk, in late autumn, says Smith. That’s when you also should place mulch around the base, though not up against the trunk, which can invite pests. Mulch keeps soil moist and warm in the cold season, just as it helps during the summer to moderate the soil temperature. If winter is dry and windy where you are, water trees just as you might in warmer weather. You can also shield trees, especially new ones, from winter winds by surrounding them with a mini-fence of chicken wire, set out from the trunk, and covered with burlap, as Smith does.

• But when it comes to extra pruning, just say no. “Topping” a tree by cutting its canopy, can be harmful to decorative trees or any specimen. “Topping trees is always a bad idea,” says Smith. It never helps, and often hurts the health of the tree. Even those crape myrtles in the South are damaged by the winter shearing that many undergo. In the business, Smith said, this popular but ill-advised practice has been nicknamed “Crape Murder”. Read more about shearing back on shearings at the website Plant Amnesty.

So tend to those trees in winter — on calm and sunny days, and you may be rewarded with a bounty of spring foliage.

Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network