In the past couple weeks, dozens (if not hundreds) of patrons have called or visited the library asking about the 2009 Michigan tax forms: Well, your wait is over!! Find supplies of all of the most common Michigan 2009 tax forms and instruction booklets (including MI-1040 and MI-1040CR-7, better known as the Home Heating Credit Claim) on the large work table inside our Copy Center. These are in addition to the 2009 Federal tax forms and instructions, which have been in stock for the past few weeks. For the less common tax forms, you'll find binders containing all reproducible 2009 Michigan and Federal tax forms (photocopy charges apply to these reproducibles) in the Copy Center, which also has a computer work station featuring direct links to Federal, Michigan, Other States' and City of Detroit tax form websites.

The United States Congress has approved a bill that will allow taxpayers to deduct recent contributions to the Haiti relief effort on their 2009 tax returns. To qualify the donation must be monetary and be made to a qualifying charity assisting in Haiti. For more details on how you can help visit the USAID website.

Connecting to Success: Using resources to make your business more competitive and Successful will be held Wednesday, January 27, 7:30-9:00AM at the Summit on the Park Banquet Center. The featured speaker will be Turkia Awada Mullin, Assistant County Executive and Chief Development Officer of Wayne County's Economic Development Grow Engine.

Please register in advance by Friday, January 22 by phone to the Canton Chamber of Commerce at (734) 453-4040.

This workshop will be the kickoff of the Strategies of Success seminar series sponsored by Canton Township and is free to Canton businesses and Canton Chamber members.

Make this your priority stop when looking for information on Detroit.
This information portal is all about Detroit and its surrounding communities. Local news items, jobs, special reports and obituaries are also included.

Tend to procrastinate? Need to improve your time management skills? If so, take some advice from Brian Tracy, author of Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time. His secret to ending procrastination? Tackle the biggest, most challenging task of your day first thing. That's your "frog," says Tracy. If you're like many people, you'll instead try to complete several quick, easy and/or enjoyable tasks first thing in the morning. You'll learn why it's so important to "eat that frog" first, along with loads of other useful time management tips. No time to read a book, you say? No problem! Listen to the audiobook (on CDs) in your car while driving to work or running errands.

Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage is an excellent business reference. If you're looking for company financials and research, industry surveys, and investment information, give this great database a try! For an in-depth investment advisory tool, click on The Outlook. There's even a business education section. It's one-stop shopping for many of your business needs.

If you think you might not have received some money that was due to you, you may want to pay a visit to Missingmoney.com, a free service offered by the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators. Missingmoney.com searches governmental databases to track down any money that has been reported unclaimed. Simply enter your name and state to find out if you have stocks, bonds, uncashed checks or wages, certificates of deposit, trust funds or any other lost forms of money waiting for you. This could be just the holiday gift you've been waiting for!

The U.S. Department of Commerce has opened the very first CommerceConnect office in Plymouth, Michigan. This new service center, located in the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center on Haylard (near M-14 and Beck Road), is designed to connect business people with resources offered by the federal government - including research, analysis, market advice & financing options.

Millions of taxpayers started taking home more money in their paychecks this past April thanks to the Making Work Pay Tax Credit. However, changes to the IRS withholding tables cannot take into account single workers with multiple jobs or dual-income married couples for example. All these changes could mean a smaller refund or larger balance due next year. Now is the time to review and adjust your W-4 and ensure that you are withholding the correct amount. This IRS Withholding Calculator can help you avoid an unpleasant surprise come tax time.

One of the most important parts of any successful job search is thoroughly researching potential employers. Such a task can be daunting, especially if you are unfamilar with the resources available. Researching Companies Online is an excellent business research tutorial that will help even the most inexperienced user find free company and industry information on the World Wide Web.

Did you know Canton Public Library's three public-use copy machines also double as document scanners? Because the machines have auto sheet feeders, they are great (and fast) for scanning and saving multi-page documents in either pdf or tiff format. You'll need to have an email address, because scanned files are sent electronically to the email address(es) you enter. The Copy Center also offers two letter-size flatbed scanners, which work well for photos and other graphics because you can save your scans in the popular jpeg or a variety of other formats. The flatbed scanners also have OCR (optical character recognition) capabilities, which allow you to scan text pages that convert easily to Word documents so you can edit them. There is no fee to use any of the Copy Center scanners.

The wind turbine pictured here is one of 32 harnessing clean electricity on Harvest Wind Farm in Elkton, MI. (I took this photo during a summer trip to the Thumb Area.) Michigan Wind 1, with 46 turbines, is another wind farm located just north of Elkton in Ubly, MI. Major energy companies like DTE and Consumers Energy are tapping into these and other wind farms in Michigan to supply electric power to their customers. Combined, both wind farms generate about 122 megawatts of electricity — enough to power roughly 35,000 homes.

Wind, solar and geothermal are among the most promising methods to generate clean, renewable energy. You can learn more about a clean energy future by reading Hot, Flat and Crowded, by Thomas Friedman, best-selling author and Pulitzer-prize winning columnist from The New York Times.

TIECon Midwest 2009 will take place Friday, October 23 at the Ritz-Carlton in Dearborn, MI. The conference is designed for entrepreneurs who "think creatively, innovatively and resourcefully to create their own future regardless of economic conditions and uncertainties."TiECon Midwest 2009 will focus on four vertical educational tracks including: Cleantech, IT, Healthcare and Emerging Concepts.

Phone or in-person registration is now open for the Investing 101 program with radio and print personality, Rick Bloom. Mr. Bloom will discuss the basics of developing a retirement portfolio in these difficult financial times. With years of expertise and experience, Mr. Bloom will surely get us all on the right track to a comfortable retirement.
Call 734.397.0999 to register for Thursday, September 24 at 7:00 pm in the Canton Public Library community room.

Our Job Resource Center from Newsbank lists current Detroit area job openings. You can browse the entire listing or search for a specific job. This database also offers various job hunting help, including resume and interviewing tips.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. In this best-seller, Malcolm Gladwell, a staff writer for The New Yorker, weighs the factors that determine good decision-making. Drawing on recent cognitive research, Gladwell concludes that those who quickly filter out extraneous information generally make better decisions than those who discount their first impressions.

Do you often find yourself with more month left than money? Does your budget look good on paper but frequently doesn't work in reality? In these uncertain economic times it is more important than ever to know how to budget your money and to keep track of expenses. Money tracking software programs have been available for many years but now there are websites that perform the same functions at no cost. Sites such as www.feedthepig.com and www.networthiq.com can help you keep track of your expenses and stay on budget.

Success stories are inspiring. In Outliers Malcolm Gladwell explains how several factors are important for a person to become really successful in any field. It is a fascinating read.

Free, Chris Anderson's new book about the future of content distribution, is causing quite a stir.

Malcolm Gladwell started the debate with a lengthy review criticizing many of Anderson's analogies for how scarcity and abundance operate in a market economy. Seth Godin then responded with a few choice rebuttals, sure to spark further discussion.

Along with this, Waldo Jaquith levies allegations that the book contains overt plagiarism. Anderson himself has responded in kind to the blog post, and it appears some additional notes will be available to coincide with the book's release.

While some of this buzz may be viral marketing, the subject matter still sounds quite interesting. Free will be available for sale in stores July 7, though you can put it on hold at Canton Public Library today.

If you enjoy Heaths' Made to Stick or Godin's Small Is the New Big, you might also like:

1. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
2. Glut by Alex Wright
3. The Myth of Multitasking: how doing it all gets nothing done by Dave Cranshaw
4. Reality Check: the ir