For the eleventh consecutive year, the Machine-Assisted Reference Section (MARS) of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) has put out a list of the best free reference websites. This annual series was initiated “to recognize outstanding reference sites on the World Wide Web”, a task which it has once again performed admirably. This year there are over two dozen sites listed, specializing in all manner of information.

Looking for a job? Check out the Dept. of Labor sponsored Careeronestop. It offers career resources and workforce information, such as salary data, where to file unemployment insurance, locations of career centers, self-assessment tools, and resume advice. The site also includes links to other useful resources, such as the online version of the Occupational Outlook Handbook.

Need help with measurement conversions? Try Onlineconversion.com, which boasts over 5,000 units and 50,000 conversions, lending credence to their claim to be able to “convert just about anything to anything else.” Whether you are attempting to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius or are interested in more esoteric conversions, like comparing clothing sizes across countries or finding our how much you’d weigh on different planets, this is the site for you.

Tired of defective online translation services mangling your intended message? Head over to Lexicool, a directory of “all” the online bilingual and multilingual dictionaries and glossaries freely available on the internet (currently numbering over 7000), many of which have been created by translators working in specialist fields.

Are you a sports fan? Sports-reference.com is “a combination of sites providing top notch statistics and resources for sports fans everywhere. Our aim is to be the easiest-to-use, fastest, most complete sources for sports statistics anywhere.” With sections devoted to baseball, basketball, football, hockey, and Olympic sports, the site has something for sporting fans of all varieties.

Or perhaps you are interested in procuring locally grown and/or organic food in your area. If so, you can utilize Local Harvest to find farmers’ markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food. Search by zip code or state, or use the interactive map. Other offerings include a monthly newsletter, recipes, and blogs by members.

Want more sites? Check out the combined index of lists from 1999-2008.

With school starting back today, homework is not far behind for the students of DeKalb County. How many times as a parent have you had your child come to you early in the evening and say  “I have an assignment due tomorrow morning, and I need to go to the Library!” I know my first thoughts are I don’t want to go out now.  My second thought is usually, the library will be closing shortly or is already closed.

We have a variety of electronic resources that may help you or your child with homework from home. They can be found on our Reference Database page.  For elementary and lower middle school children, many of the resources can be found on our Children’s page. You will need your DeKalb County library card number and your personal identification number (PIN) to access these resources. (The PIN is a 4 digit number.)

For general research help, we have online encyclopedias such as Groliers and Britannica. For social studies homework, there is Grolier’s Passport, Sirs Researcher, Student Resource Center for middle school and younger. For high school or older students, we also have CQ Researcher available.  For Science homework, there is Student Resource Center, Encyclopedia of Animals, and the National Science Digital Library  (available through GALILEO).  For literature homework, there is Literature Criticisms Online and Literature Resources from GALE.

Although the Learning Express Library is listed under test preparation, this resource has several tutorials, tests and diagnostic tests that can help with homework. For instance, they have practice and diagnostic tests for reading comprehension, a variety of math for all levels and vocabulary for high school students. This resource also has a few courses available such as Middle School Writing Courses, and some basic math courses.

Searching for newspaper or journal articles? We have a couple of resources for this type of research. The easiest way to search is to go to GALILEO.  (It will ask you for your library card and PIN numbers and then give you the current password. You will then type in the password to proceed.)  If you click on the search button and type in your keywords, it will search for relevant articles.  These are just a sampling of electronic resources that you have available at your fingertips from home.  Feel free to browse our database page or GALILEO.  If you need specific help on where to start your search, don’t forget to use our Email A Librarian service. It can be found under the Research tab on our home page.  Be sure to select “I need help finding information.”

At a safety training session this week, our speaker had a great story. He said he was driving on I-285 when he felt Something Big crawling up his leg. He was in the fast lane, so he trapped the big thing with his hand, keeping it from climbing any higher.  He managed to ease over to the roadside where he faced a dilemma – to strip or not to strip? Fortunately for the passing drivers he managed to trap the Something Big with one hand and force it out of his pants with the other, whereupon he discovered he’d had a large Dung Beetle moving up his leg.

This is a great story only because it didn’t happen to me. But let’s say you’ve trapped an interesting bug in your pants and you’d like to identify your new friend. One place to start might be What’s That Bug? Two Los Angeles artists identify bugs from photos and letters sent in by the terrified and the fascinated. They don’t pretend to be bug experts but I still find it helpful, especially for identifying bugs commonly found around the house. If the WTB folks are stumped they often refer you to Bugguide.net, an amateur naturalist site created by Georgia resident Troy Bartlett and now hosted by Iowa State University.  Bugguide is more formally organized than WTB, with many useful links and books and some great photos (click on the Dung Beetle link above).

If you are interested in learning more about these creatures (not a bad idea since they seriously outnumber us) you might enjoy one of the following titles:

An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles by Arthur V. Evans and Charles L. Bellamy

Broadsides from the other orders: a book of bugs, by Sue Hubbell

The Superorganism: the beauty, elegance and strangeness of insect societies by Bert Holldobler and Edward O. Wilson

Of course the library also has insect guides that you can check out and take home. I generally recommend the take-home method as you may disturb other library patrons if you bring in Something Big in a jar.

With just a smidgeon of summer remaining, there is still plenty of fun to be had.  One event on the horizon is the 20th Annual National Black Arts Festival that begins today, July 29 through August 2. Among the notable performers, speakers and guests on the roster are actor/filmmaker/producer Robert Townsend (check out his independent film classic Hollywood Shuffle),author Nelson George and a tribute to one of my favorite singers Nina Simone by great vocalists such as Dianne Reeves and Lizz Wright. This promises to be a truly special event in celebration of African cultural heritage in through film, theatre, dance, literature, music and art. Check out the festival’s website for more information . Don’t you wanna go?

The internet is full of many fascinating resources which combine educational material with a dynamic and entertaining format that can capture the interest of individuals of all ages. A great example of this is the Universcale. It is an animation which allows us “to view all entities, from the microworld to the universe, from a single perspective. By setting them up against a scale, we are able to compare and understand things which cannot be physically compared.”
Truly epic in the scope of its examination, it begins with the largest objects (the known universe, galaxies, etc.) and descends down to the infinitesimal extremes of the subatomic level. The animation illustrates the incredible range of size across the spectrum of existence, allowing us a unique perspective on the diversity of our reality by going to the edge of and beyond the limits of normal human perception.

In a similar vein, the DCPL catalog boasts materials in a variety of media covering subjects ranging from the microscopic (Life on a Small Scale, Microaliens) to the astronomical (The Universe DVD series).  Expand your mind by exploring our universe.

This month the feature database is Consumer Health Complete. This database is one of the many sources the DeKalb County Library cardholders have access through GALILEO. All of these databases can be found on our Reference Databases page.

Have you or someone you loved been diagnosed with a disease by the doctor? Have you wanted to know more information but were afraid to ask the doctor? Consumer Health Complete is a good resource to learn more about diseases and health information.

Consumer Health Complete contains many electronic versions of Reference books that we have on the shelf like the Complete Guide to Prescription & Nonprescription Drugs. You can browse the electronic versions of the Reference books or you can keyword search the books. Consumer Health Complete also has the type of documents it contains broken down by category such as Pamplet & Fact Sheets, Encyclopedias, Evidence-Based Reports, Images and Diagrams and Alternative Sources to name a few.

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Money is tight these days and lots of people are looking for ways to save a few dollars where they can.  If do-it-yourself auto repair is something you’re interested in, the Library has a couple of sources for auto repair information.  The Chilton’s series of auto repair books are available in most branches; some are available for checkout while some volumes are available for in-house reference use only.  If the book you need isn’t available, the Library has another source you might check into for car repair assistance.  Whether you’re wondering how to replace the tailgate on your ‘72 Chevy El Camino or looking for a service bulletin for your ‘08 Honda CR-V, Auto Repair Reference Center is a great source of auto repair information.

In addition to service bulletins, repair information, and wiring diagrams, Auto Repair Reference Center also provides an Auto IQ section, which provides video descriptions of vehicle parts and systems.  You can find general car care and repair tips, as well as a troubleshooting section.  There’s also an option for printing information.

To use the database, click on Reference Databases from our homepage.  Scroll down to “Consumer” databases and click on Auto Repair Reference Center.  You’ll need to enter your library card number and PIN, then you’ll be given a list of databases to choose from (just select Auto Repair Reference Center again).

Once you’re in the database, just click on the model year for your vehicle, then select the make and model.   Model years begin in 1945 for Jeep only, but more manufacturers show up in the database beginning with the 1960s.

Happy New Year! It’s the first day of the first month of the Gregorian calendar year, Anno Domini 2009. It’s also Haitian Independence Day, it’s J.D. Salinger’s birthday, it’s the Rose Bowl and it’s the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution.

Oh, and January 1 is the start of National Hot Tea Month.

What?

I’ve been looking through Chase’s Calendar of Events, a standard library reference book that celebrates its 51st anniversary this year. William D. Chase, a newspaper librarian, started keeping a file of calendar events, holidays and anniversaries, using it to help writers and editors make their deadlines and fill some columns. With the help of his brother, wife and children, the file became a book and a self-publishing success story that’s in just about every library. Google is fantastic, but Chase’s was designed by a librarian to perfectly answer the question — what’s important about today?

Over the years, Mr. and Mrs. Chase selected historical events they thought worthy of notice and wrote little entries for them. They accepted submissions for special days from groups looking to promote an idea or product. Mr. Chase has said they deliberately added a “whimsical” quality to a book that would otherwise be a dry compilation of dates and events. The end result mixes the profound and the picayune for a surprisingly enjoyable browse.

Discovering someone declared January to be California Dried Plum Digestive Health Month makes me laugh. But reading that January 1 has only been observed as New Year’s Day since “the British Calendar Act of 1751, prior to which the New year began March 25th” makes me curious. What? You mean January 1 hasn’t always been New Year’s Day? Hmm, I need to look this up.

Chase’s Calendar of Events comes with a searchable CD-ROM but no online version; so if you want to know what else happened on your birthday, you’ll have to come to the library OR you can post your birthdate (year optional) in the comments area . When the library reopens on Friday, January 2,  I’ll check Chase’s to see who or what shares your special day.

Like this:

June 20 – “LIZZIE BORDEN VERDICT: ANNIVERSARY Spectators at her trial cheered when the “not guilty” verdict was read by the jury foreman in the murder trial of Lizzie Borden on this date.”

Wait — they cheered? Didn’t she give her mother 40 whacks? Excuse me, I need to go look this up.

With money being tight this year, I am sure if you are like me, you have thought about canceling that magazine subscription. Do not fret; you might still be able to read People, O, The Oprah Magazine, Ebony or a variety of other titles AND still cancel your subscriptions.  There are several options worth checking out.

The Library

The Library subscribes to over three hundred magazines. You can check older issues out at all of the branches EXCEPT Decatur. Decatur keeps back issues of everything the branch subscribes to for at least one year, often longer. If you need to find out what magazines your Library subscribes to, call us or use our Email a Librarian service.  We try our best to respond to emails within forty-eight hours, but we usually respond within a few hours. Be sure to select the “I need help finding information” option.

Cannot find that older issue at a branch or Decatur is too far to drive to?  The Library subscribes to many online resources that carry the articles printed in numerous magazines and journals.

The titles available can be found two ways:

1. From the Library’s home page: Go to the Research tab, and click on Magazines & Newspapers. Under General Magazines, there is a link to Magazines Available Online. Here you can search for a particular title.

2. From GALILEO:  Go to the GALILEO icon on the home page.  After signing in, click on the Magazines A-Z tab.  Again, you can search for a particular title.  A warning about this access, since publisher give access to the vendor and GALILEO, some of the magazines can have a three month or so delay before they are available. Some magazines, such as People, you can access the current issue electronically.

Online

Many magazines have an Internet presence. Unfortunately, due to the economy, some publishers have made the decision to produce a magazine totally online. Two of the biggest publications are Christian Science Monitor and PC Magazine. Several publishers have started digitizing back issues. Not all back issues are currently available, but it might be a good place to start.  Some examples are Every Day with Rachel Ray, Dance Magazine, Esquire, Discover and The New Yorker.

Google announced and added on Wednesday, December 10, an archive search to their Google Book Search. You will be able to search the archives of many magazines such as New York Magazine and Popular Mechanics. The archived articles are also available through the publisher’s websites, but this search feature should be helpful.

If you have not renewed your subscription or you always wanted to read a particular magazine but could not justify the expense, please check your library or one of the other options listed above.

Finding what you’re looking for on the web can be a daunting task. Now, the folks at Common Craft have created another excellent short video in their “plain english” series that deals with just this subject. Enjoy: