Libraries and Museums Online

MakeUseOf.com has a nice round-up of some libraries and museums that have digitized collections. Included are the Library of Congress, National Library of Scotland, Smithsonian, British Museum, British Library, The Hermitage, and the Louvre.

Another resource MakeUseOf points out is the European Virtual Museum. This collaboration among 20 museums has these features:

• Browse historic items from over 20 museums across Europe.
• View items by country, museum, time period BC and categories.
• Each item has it is own page with detailed related information.

Wordle Trick

Here is a handy trick for Wordle--you can keep words together in phrases if you use the tilde between words. Here is a blog post that explains it http://www.jamiekeddie.com/602.

And here is my Wordle using the trick!

Dear Snta Clas--

Even Santa is into texting, apparently. For a "nominal fee," Santa will send a child 3 text messages prior to Christmas and, for an additional fee, one on Christmas morning. According to a Burnsville Mall spokesperson:

We thought [Santa texting] was clever, something fun, trendy and different that would appeal to children. We think it adds to the whole holiday experience for the kids.

Read more here.

In other Santa communication news, the US Postal Service reversed its earlier decision to block Santa's mail sent to North Pole, Alaska. The nationwide Operation Santa program uses volunteers to answer the letters. USPS made the decision after one of the volunteers answering the letters turned out to be a registered sex offender. USPS has tightened security and screening for volunteers.

Canadian children can write to Santa, who has his own postal code HOH OHO, or email their requests via a form on Canadian Post's web site.

And, just to brag about my own relationship with Santa--I taught him how to email and search the Internet when I was teaching the Senior Techies program in southeastern Minnesota. Actually--I taught two different guys in two different towns who claimed they were Santa. They had pictures and everything! How is that possible?!

An Interesting "What If?"

What if the earth had rings like Saturn?



Can't really find out more about who did this, but it is interesting.

Flu Resources

From Minitex Reference Services blog:

Both Gale and EBSCO have begun offering free, authoritative information on the H1N1 and seasonal flu for both health practitioners and the public. This content is pulled from each vendor's proprietary resources, but is available to all at no cost.
www.gale.cengage.com/flu/
www.ebscohost.com/flu/

Thanks to both EBSCO and Gale for their quick response to this need. Please share these links with colleagues, family, and friends (and consider plugging Gale's widget into your library's website).

More on the ELM Blog.

Free Bookmarks

Just in case we haven't given you enough bookmarks--or not the ones you want--the Federal Reserve has a series of historical figures bookmarks available free. Shipping is free, too. Since they are from the Federal Reserve, most of those featured on the bookmarks are also on US coins or bills, but there are a few others. You can order up to 400 of each. You can also download a PDF of each bookmark. The entire Federal Reserve Publications Catalog is worth browsing for other resources on financial education, banking history, economics, and more. Most publications are free.

Copyright Resource

Columbia University Libraries/Information Service has re-designed and updated it Copyright Advisory Office. From the site:

The Copyright Advisory Office of Columbia University has a central mission to address, in a creative and constructive manner, the relationship between copyright law and the work of the university in order to best promote research, teaching, library services, and community involvement. To that end, this office:

• Addresses issues of fair use, copyright ownership, and publishing arrangements in furtherance of higher education and the advancement of knowledge;
• Provides copyright information and education resources for the university community;
• Supports innovative policies, practices, and contracts to foster the creation, preservation, and accessibility of information resources; and
• Undertakes research and exploration of copyright issues to provide original understandings of the law and its importance.

The site includes an extensive section on Fair Use, including a fair use checklist (PDF).

Useful Resources

The Shakespeare Quartos Archive

The Shakespeare Quartos Archive is a digital collection of pre-1642 editions of William Shakespeare's plays. A cross-Atlantic collaboration has also produced an interactive interface for the detailed study of these geographically distant quartos, with full functionality for all thirty-two quarto copies of Hamlet held by participating institutions.

Asked & Answered: Everyday Mysteries: Fun Science Facts from the Library of Congress

Everyday Mysteries will help you get the answers to these and many other of life's most interesting questions through scientific inquiry. In addition, we will introduce you to the Library of Congress' rich collections in science and technology.

Everyday Mysteries is both browsable by question or keyword searchable. All of the questions presented on this Web site were asked by researchers and answered by librarians from the Library's Science Reference Services.

Question & Answer Center: US Census

The database can be searched by keywordor browsed a page at a time (there are 169 pages). You can also ask a question and there is an RSS feed so you can be alerted to new database entries. Questions and answers cover a wide variety of topics.

Here are the Top 10 Census Questions Asked--and answered with links to the source. Very handy.

USA.gov Frequently Asked Questions
USA.gov, the portal for US Government information and resources, has a FAQ section with more than 2500 asked questions--and the answers. You can search by keyword or by topic from a drop down menu. In addition you can ask a question via email or use live chat to find information.

On the Plus Side for Social Network

This morning on MPR's Future Tense, Jon Gordon discussed a University of Minnesota study on how online social network sites such as Facebook can engage youth in world events, build community, and generate real world impact. The research has been funded with a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (New Facebook Applications to Engage Youth in News).

Early findings show that these networks can have a positive impact on student engagement and learning. Dr. Christine Greenhow, lead investigator on the study, responded to Gordon's question on why educators have not incorporated more social networking into their teaching by mentioning the same things we hear in MILI--fear of the unknown, lack of training, privacy issues, and time. MILI participants will be able to put some of those fears to rest. You can listen to the segment at the Future Tense link above.

A new study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project dispels some of the myths that social networking, mobile phones, and other Internet use do not lead to social isolation, as some previous research suggested. In fact, there's plenty of evidence that people who spend a lot of time online have fuller social lives. People’s use of the mobile phone and the Internet is associated with larger and more diverse discussion networks. When researchers examined people’s full personal network – their strong and weak ties – Internet use in general and use of social networking services such as Facebook in particular are associated with more diverse social networks.

Apostophe Police

Authors of all those signs in store windows that say, "Apple's 4/$1" or "Pant's 50% off," can avoid the apostrophe police if they consult this flowchart to determine whether or not an apostrophe is necessary. http://apostrophe.me/ Students, however, will still need guidance from a style manual.

In some style manuals, you do not use an apostrophe for plurals of an abbreviation or a number, which contradicts the first example:
The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers: "Do not use an apostrophe to form the plural of an abbreviation or a number." Examples include acronyms such as PhDs and VCRs.

The Chicago Manual of Style: "So far as it can be done without confusion, single or multiple letters, hyphenated coinages, and numbers used as nouns... form the plural by adding s alone." Examples are SOSs, CODs and IOUs.

As the flowchart says, be consistent.

Want to Read a Vook?

I learned about "vooks" at the recent Minnesota Library Association Conference in a presentation on copyright. The publisher Simon & Shuster has introduced a combination book and video--Vook--that let you read and watch the content blended into a complete story. According to the Vook web site:

You can read your book, watch videos that enhance the story and connect with authors and your friends through social media all on one screen, without switching between platforms.

You can read (watch? ratch? wead?) the content in a browser-based application that does not require a download or you can download an app from iTunes for your Apple mobile device. With a vook you can:

• Read your book
• Watch videos that highlight key moments in the story
• View visual how-to’s
• Connect with authors and other readers.

One can see the potential for an all-in-one-experience for students that expands written text with videos, explanations, and more. Offering browser-based options eliminates one barrier that ebook readers (Kindle, Sony ebook reader, and Nook, the new B&N ebook reader) create.

The whole paperless/online/ebook world is one to watch for education. This latest entry faces some challenges--limited titles available, Apple mobile only, at least for now, ebook readers already in some peoples' hands, and probably a few more. Including the reluctance I have to call anything a "vook."

Readers for Life

James Patterson, the prolific author of thrillers and mysteries for adults as well as several series for young adults, has created a Web site "dedicated to making kids readers for life." Called Read Kiddo Read, it is packed with recommended reading lists, reading guides, a community forum, a newsletter, and much more. Take a look; there is a lot there!

Mr. Patterson is a big supporter of libraries. At the recent AASL Conference in North Carolina, he told the crowd,

It’s time for librarians to start making a lot more noise. School libraries are not a luxury, they are a necessity.

You can read more about his speech here.

Primary Source? "It makes me sneeze."

BlogU at Inside Higher Education has an interesting post on helping students (and professors) define "primary source." The post "FUNQs: Won’t Ask, Won’t Tell" describes the scenarios with students:

First, there is silence and a close examination of fingernails and keypads. Then a brave soul or two will dig deep and recite a version of the memorized definition. But when I ask them to elaborate or provide an example of a primary source in the context of their course, I am apt to hear such assertions as that a primary source is (a) what they are supposed to read first, (b) the most important piece of their research, (c) the item they should list at the top of their bibliography, and (d) the earliest treatment of their topic. My favorite response of all time came from a class smart aleck who announced, “I’m not sure what a primary source is, but I figure it must be one if it makes me sneeze.” Lunacy or profundity, do you think?

Be sure to read the comments, too.

What are you searching for?

Libraries are for everyone!

How Do You Say Google in French?

MakeUseOf.com has several suggestions for helping you learn a second language. One is to use popular Web sites in the language you are learning. So...Amazon or Google in French? Here is what MakeUseof says,

Make a list of the five largest websites you use regularly. I’m willing to bet that Google is in there. EBay is likely to have made the cut. Maybe even Amazon? Basically just jot down your favourite sites and start using them in a foreign language. ...these large websites generally use simple sentences and popular words. Take EBay; it doesn’t have many long rambling paragraphs, rather just plain words and phrases. ...

Using sites such as Google and Yahoo can give you some more basic words as well as seeing some of the French news headlines. This is not an intensive way of learning a language. In fact, it’s fairly passive and doesn’t require too much effort

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What are 21t Century Skills?

Here is another video that can start discussion on what our students need to know and how we need to prepare them. It was created by Weymouth (MA?) High School Social Studies Department.

It is also a nice demonstration of using screencasting and other tools to create a dynamic video!