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.