Databases At Your Fingertips

If you are interested in learning a foreign language, just scroll down the alphabetical list to Mango Languages and voila, you are there! We just added this to our database collection but this program has been very popular with patrons at other libraries and we expect you will love it. If offers 12 languages: Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Greek, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, ESL Polish (English for Polish Speakers), ESL Spanish (English for Spanish Speakers), and ESL Brazilian Portuguese (English for Brazilian Portuguese Speakers).

Read Marie Lydon's entire article in the Daily News Transcript this week.

One Dress - 365 Days

The Uniform Project - One dress and three hundred sixty five days. Very interesting. Have an accessory to recycle? It is now Day 60.

Massachusetts is Covered

Historic Aerials has Massachusetts covered with historic and modern aerial shots.

Coffee: Do It Right

Couldn't resist adding this. Let's get our coffee straight.

Created by LokeshDhakar.com.

The Drinking Bird

The University of Nottingham has a wonderful series of videos, Sixty Symbols, viewable via YouTube. Ever wondered how the heck the laws of physics allowed that Drinking Bird to get going forever? Watch the great video. In actuality, there aren't sixty complete videos - have a symbol you'd like explained by these brainiacs? Suggest one to them and they might make a video for their collection.

Astronomy, mathematics and physics, oh my.

The Sane In Maine

Whenever I go over the Piscataquis Bridge from New Hampshire to Maine everyone in the car with me must open their windows and let the “clean Maine air” fill the car no matter what time of the year. Then I wave my arms out the window and yell, “Yippee, I am in Maine!”

I always wonder what the people think in the cars behind us. My family smiles and humors me. Now I have my library friends doing the same thing!

I love Maine. Most of you head to Cape Cod and, yes, it is a shorter drive, it is nice off season, and the water is warmer, but the rocky coast of Maine is beautiful; and there are a multitude of unexplored places to enjoy down many of the peninsulas.

Read Margot Sullivan's entire article this week in the Daily News Transcript.

Need An Alice?

I signed up for Alice this morning. It just made sense. The founders (Brian Wiegand and Mark McGuire) of Alice ask "Why?" "Why do people run out of toilet paper?" I ask "Why?" too. At home we run out of tissue, toilet paper, dishwasher detergent, toothpaste, laundry detergent and assorted other non-perishables. We run out of perishables, too, but they are more evident and we stop by for them on the way home from work. For the non-perishables we make the emergency trip from home more often.

So, I'll see how it goes. The best part, of course, is that there are no shipping costs. And Alice will remind me that I need to buy. Let's hope she doesn't nag.

From the Alice web site: Alice provides you a better way to manage all of your household essentials online. You tell Alice what you buy—choosing from great deals on 1000’s of products—and Alice goes to work. We organize all of your products, find coupons and deals for you, remind you when you might be running low, and help you order just the items you need so you can avoid that trip to the corner drugstore or the big-box store. And all this convenience comes direct to your door with free shipping included.Best of all, you won’t over pay for the power and convenience of Alice. In addition to free shipping on every order, you’ll find great prices too. That’s because Alice isn’t your average retailer. You order from Alice just like you would a retailer, but behind the scenes we work like a marketplace, allowing manufacturers to sell directly to you. This direct to consumer model eliminates the retail middleman, saving lots of costs that can be passed directly on to you. And in addition to saving you money, the Alice marketplace allows your favorite brands to have a direct relationship with you—to reward you, personalize things for you, and work smarter for you. It is a win-win that gives you fantastic convenience AND tangible savings.

You can read articles about the Alice start-up here and here.

Twitter in Plain English

Commoncraft.com videos explain some things in plain English. Decide for yourself if Twitter would fit into YOUR life.

Tied in Knots?

Here's a great site if you need help tying neckties.

It's All In A Name

Near the turn of the 20th Century, and on the eve of the first Centennial of the library building, the Committee of One Hundred Names was formed in time for the celebration. The mission of this committee of seven was to find eleven more names. What a daunting task! A century of writers had been born since the building had been built. Some of the original names were hidden or lost during the ensuing years and the two additions. The committee noted that only four women’s names now graced the building and that most of the authors carved on its walls were writers for adults.
For three months the public was asked to nominate. Names came from elementary schools, from library users, and from the general public and 144 names were received. The file of nominations is several inches thick and includes testimony and heartfelt letters from an enthusiastic public.

Read my entire article this week in the Daily News Transcript.

Big Bankruptcies

Good Magazine, has a very interesting transparency map on the largest bankruptcies in history. Lehman Brothers was big, very big on September 15, 2008. You can see other Good transparencies here.

Libraries Are the Best

On The Today Show:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Gone With The Wind Remembered

Sometimes it’s a bit difficult to remember back half a day let alone nearly a half-century. After our visit to the Margaret Mitchell House last Saturday we rented the 226-minute epic movie in all its glorious color. Watching it brought back memories of Kleenex-fisted hours mourning Scarlett’s mother, father, and daughter and the epic and historically conjured scenes of Atlanta and Civil War.
Viewing it again after many years I realized that I’d somehow forgotten some of the details of the book and the momentous movie. I did remember, however, exactly where I’d shelved the book at home and wondered if I will pick it up now that I know where Margaret Mitchell sat in her apartment and where she placed the many editions of the varying manuscripts. Frankly, my dear reader, I just might.

Read my entire article this week in the Daily News Transcript.

Libraries Still Matter

"It isn’t that Mrs. Eosco’s argument fell on deaf ears. As a teacher of pre-Kindergarten children, she well knows the importance of fostering the love of reading and books among her young charges. She recognizes the importance of teaching respect for the many volumes she borrows from the Morrill Memorial Library to encourage a love of reading at an early age.
But it was hard for Town Meeting to say yes to the additional funding in light of cuts in the budgets of many town departments.
Still, one wonders how the services of the local library can be relegated to second-tier status in tough economic times, when library services are more in demand than ever."  Candace Leary

Read Candace Leary's entire column, Libraries Still Matter, Even In Tough Times, published in the Daily News Transcript

Forbes: Tetris Turns 25

Watch part of the BBC documentary here.

 

Forbes writer David Ewalt, includes a link to all six parts of the documentary.

Quiz Thyself

Take this PEW Research quiz on current events.  Find out how you did compared to your peers.

Summertime and the Reading Should Be Easy

My eldest daughter spent her whole summers reading from first grade on. What always amazed me was the fact that she brought many of her elementary favorites along with her everywhere we traveled even into high school. Roald Dahl’s “BFG” (or known as Big Friendly Giant) hung on among her summer reading collection that included Michael Crichton’s “Jurassic Park” and Stephen King’s “Carrie.” I must admit my raised eyebrows annoyed her but she, as usual, knew what she was doing. Today she is an educational consultant, and not surprisingly, an extremely prolific reader who actually reads while she is walking to her ride on the T in Boston.

She learned the best lesson there is: that reading could be easy and fun, especially in the good old summertime.

Read my entire article this week in the Daily News Transcript.

A Better Bing For Your Buck?

We saw the debut of two search engines - competition for Google - this past week. Wolfram Alpha is a 'computational knowledge engine,' 

"the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone."  Quoted from the WolframAlpha website

I had some fun with Wolfram Alpha this past weekend after reading about the Easter Eggs hidden on the site. (Ask "Where have all the flowers gone" or "Where are my car keys" or "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck?")There are real uses, however, and the suggestions are great. (Home town, etc.) The information is better than a whole page of Wikipedia and beats the ads at Google when all is want is quick information.
The other is the beta version of Microsoft's search engine, Bing. People seem to be playing with it; the drop-down window works like Google and suggests a query. So I asked 'Why Bing?' And the answer?

"You probably didn't wake up today expecting an entirely new search experience. But — Bing! — here it is. So, why a new search engine? Why the new name? Why now? .... It's time search caught up. So we had an idea. Start over. And we did.
We took a new approach to go beyond search to build what we call a decision engine. With a powerful set of intuitive tools on top of a world class search service, Bing will help you make smarter, faster decisions."  Quote from the Bing Team at Microsoft.