Booklist Online: Book Reviews from the American Library Association

Have you ever tried to read a text mesage and given up because all of those acronyms made no sense? help is on the way. Ryan Jones, a web designer and marketing strategist at ZAAZ has create a site that explains all. Go to www.noslang.com to find a translator and dictionary of messaging acronyms. You can enter a term in the esarch box or search alphabetically. The site also has a Netspeak Guide with lists of the most common terms, Twitter terms, and sexting terms. it also has tips for parents who want to monitor their children’s online activities. There are specialized lists of British slang, drug slang, and World of Warcraft Slang as well as a “bad words filter” for translating swear words. The site also offers slang quizzes and links to a text and URL shortener and a free text messaging site. This is a useful and practical tool for reference and for online existence.

Time has published its 50 Best Web Sites 2010. You can find it here. 

Of course, not all of the 50 sites have much reference or educational value but there are several that might be worth bookmarking. Among them are sites with brand names that give them instant authority; for  example, Mayo Clinic, MIT OpenCourseWare, and National Geographic. Among other sites, Sports-Reference.com aims to be the easiest -to-use, fastest, and most complete source for statistics and other information on baseball, football (pro and college), basketball (ditto), hockey, and the Olympics. Livemocha, the collaborative online language learning site, made the list. And check out the Guardian, described as “one of the best designed newspaper Web sites in the world.” 

If you just want to shop, eat, play games, and share stuff with friends, there are plenty of sites on the list that serve those purposes too.

Oxford University Press said on Sunday that it may phase out the print edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Here’s a link to a story in the Washington Post.

To tell the truth, I’m less surprised by the announcement that the print version of OED may go away than by the fact the Oxford is still considering a print version of the next edition at all.

Reference Books Bulletin’s  team of encyclopedia reviewers, Barbara Bibel and Shauna Yusko  and I, just wrapped up the 2010 Encyclopedia Update, which will appear in September 15 issue of Booklist. The Encyclopedia Update is almost 30 years old and the updates that have appeared over the years shine a light on how encyclopedia and reference publishing have changed.

The Annual Encyclopedia Roundup, as it was first called, started in 1984, but included just five titles. The Roundup really took off in 1985, when 10 encyclopedias were represented: Academic American Encyclopedia, Collier’s Encyclopedia, Compton’s Encyclopedia (which my grandmother used to sell foor-to-door), Encyclopedia Americana, Funk & Wagnall’s New Encyclopedia, Merit Student Encyclopedia, The New Book of Knowledge, The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, New Standard Encyclopedia, and World Book.  How many of these names are familiar to you?  Only Compton’s, Americana, The New Book of Knowledge, Britannica, and World Book still survive in any recognizable form, and only World Book still comes out in a new print edition every year. 

The limitations of print publishing made it impossible for publishers to change every article every year, and RBB regularly took them to task for uneveness in revision.  The first glimpse of what the future might hold came in our 1988 update, when we noted that “the editorial process for many encyclopedias today is computerized, making it even easier to update entries.” Who knew back then what the information contained in that simple sentence would really mean?  

In the run up to the publication of our 2010 Update, I’ll be looking over more of our past updates and posting my thoughts.

The September issue of Wired has an interesting cover story called The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet. According to the authors, we are now living in a post-HTML, apps-dominated environment, and they describe this as “one of the most important shifts in the digital world” over the past few years.

A number of reference publishers have already started to respond, focusing less on creating new reference databases and more on new ways to push content out  to users. Britannica Mobile, EBSCOhost Mobile, and Gale’s AccessMyLibrary are just a few examples. It’s all about discovery.

EBSCO Publishing recently announced the added feature of text-to-speech support for all EBSCOhost^® databases. The read aloud function is available at no cost through technology from Texthelp Systems.

The functionality allows users to read along while a human-sounding voice speaks the text on the screen. Users have the ability to read-aloud by selected text, sentence, paragraph, or continuous reading with dual color synchronous highlighting (highlighting of the passage being read with a second color highlighting the specific word being read aloud at that moment).

User control of read-aloud personalizes the learning experience for each user. Users can control reading speed as well as select between three different high-quality voices—American, British, or Australian. These options also enable teachers and professionals to incorporate the features as a tool for teaching English and reading.

What do you do when the Internet goes down? With the growth of e-materials, how can we help patrons? Ebooks and databases are great, don’t get me wrong, but when these resources aren’t available, how can we help our patrons find what they need? Should we continue to purchase print materials for this situation, or should the libraries hope their Internet never disappears?

The National Library of Poland is now online with many digitized special collections.  Go to http://www.polona.pl/dlibra/collectiondescription2?dirids=12 to find the library’s treasures including manuscripts such as Ptolmey’s Cosmographia, the Chopin collection which will eventually include digital versions of all of his manuscripts, the history of Warsaw, archives and periodicals covering World War II in Poland, and a Yiddish literature collection. There are also collections of children’s literature, underground publications from World War II, and serials from the 19th and early 20th century. Historians, musicians, and scholars in Slavic and Jewish studies will find a wealth of material here.

Many college freshmen are off to college this month and they and their parents may wonder how they can save money once they are enrolled.  CollegeScholarships.org will help.  The site is best know for its information on scholarships and how to successfully receive them.  It also provides information on student loans and grants.  In the section “College Saving Tips”  there is a feature article  ”118 Ways to Save Money in College.”  It gives suggestions on managing money with topics such as alcohol (don’t drink), books (borrow or buy them used),  food (eat healthy), computers (look for student discounts), transportation (don’t drive to campus), and many more useful ideas.

The Public Library Funding and Technology Access Study from ALA’s Office for Research and Statistics just released their 2009-10 statistics.  Included in this report was  U.S. public libraries providing access to ebooks–which was 65.9%

A sampling of the % of Libraries Providing E-Books In:

• Florida–86.9%
• Hawaii–100%
• Illinois–46%
• New York–71%
• Ohio–83%
• Oregon–70.8%
• Washington–48.6

Note: Since e-books are listed in the Internet category we’re assuming these are books downloaded off the Internet from services like OverDrive, Safari, NetLibrary, Books 24×7, ebrary, and others. We’re trying to find out how these numbers and ones to come will count books downloaded once to a Kindle, iPad, nook, or other device and then loaned to many users.

Thanks to Resource Shelf for this information.

Rosen spent much of Spring and Summer updating their award winning Teen Health & Wellness resource with an abundance of new features.  The first interface was already a great one, so I’m glad to see even more features added.

Here’s a summary of what’s NEW with Teen Health & Wellness for Fall 2010:

• Instant translation into 50 languages, including French and Spanish
• Social bookmarking and RSS feeds
• Customizable hotlines for local community resources
• Video throughout, including student created PSAs (public service announcements)
• Redesigned home page featuring user generated/student content, highlighting the Personal Story Project
• Expanded photos, illustrations, and charts
• Health calculators–Body Mass Index (BMI,) budget, blood alcohol content, and more
• New articles (50) including the teen brain, concussions, first aid, being part of a military family, hate crimes, foster care, being GLBT
• All entries have a 2010 update date with the bulk updated between June and August 2010
• Site optimized for Smartphones

Thanks to No Shelf Required for the information.

With school beginning very soon, elementary and high school teachers will find NASA eClips a useful resource.  The eClips are short videos exploring how discoveries used for space travel are interrelated with daily life.  Programs are divided by grade level - k-5, 6-8, 9-12 and the general public.  The material is based on curriculum standards of various teachers’ associations.   The producers of eClips hope that they will help prepare students to be successful in science, technology, engineering and math. There are new videos each week during the school year.  A recent addition to the site are Educator’s Guides which are lessons plans based on the videos.  The eClips for the general public include NASA in Your Home and NASA and Pro Athletes.  This is another example of a positive use of government funds.

The WPA murals in New York’s Harlem Hospital were commissioned in 1936. They were the first major U.S. commission awarded to African American artists. The murals depict both African American and medical history, covering topics ranging from ancient and modern medicine to surgery and anesthesia to recreational activities in Harlem. After many years of neglect and decay, they were restored in the 1990s. Now they are available for viewing at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/iraas/wpa/index.html. The site also provides background information and video clips about the murals.

Smartphones, the iPad or other handheld devices appear to be replacing computers for some people so we’ve decided to add an “App of the Month” to the blog.  Please let us know if you think this is a good addition to Points of Reference.  Public Radio Player is available for the iPhone, iPad or iPad touch.  The player is a free download in the iTunes App Store.  It was developed by PRX (Public Radio Exchange) and streams audio from 481 stations in the US. You may search by featured  (a sample of what is on the air at the moment) state, local (within 50 or 250 miles) or program.  In addition to live streaming there is an on demand feature where you can hear recent NPR popular programs such as Wait wait, Don’t Tell Me, Car Talk, Fresh Air, etc.  I now vacuum listening live to classical music on WQXR in New York, WFMT in Chicago or Classical Minnesota Public Radio.

I had a great time testing out the new Rosen Online Publishing interface, Rosen Learning Center.  This center currently features 12 titles that spotlight Texas.  History, government, land, resources, and missions are just a few of the topics covered in the 12 titles, which are designed for 3rd grade reading levels.  The books meet the TEKS Standards (Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills Standards).   The interactive books offer a wonderful variety of options including: Read the rest of this entry »

Maps are both useful and fascinating. Seeing how people viewed the world in the past is an important part of history. The David Rumsey Map Collection contains over 150,000 maps from the 18th and 19th century: atlases, globes, wall maps, pocket maps, school geographies, and maritime charts as well as books of exploration. 22,000 of them have been digitized for viewing at  http://www.davidrumsey.com/. They are mostly maps of North and South America, but there are a few world maps and maps of Europe, Asia, and Africa as well. Users may search the index of thumbnails, click on a map, and enlarge it and pan to browse in detail. They may also purchase reproductions from the collection. The site also links to other map collections such as the Japanese Historical Map Collection at UC Berkeley’s East Asian Library and the Farber Gravestone Collection. This is a wonderful resource for historians, genealogists, and anyone who enjoys maps.

As the new funding year looms, I start to wonder how others decide what to purchase.  Do you depend on patron input (i.e., faculty or teachers), trends in the circulation (how do you gauge this), book reviews, or some other method?  Generally, much time is spent reading reviews, but while these are great insights into the value of a book in theory, how does this measure up to the usefulness to the intended population?

Great news for libraries using OverDrive.  They now offer (in beta) the ability to download public domain, EPub titles from Project Gutenberg to a library’s virtual branch.  These titles don’t require authentication and have no hold lists or check out periods.  Boston Public Library was the first to implement the Project Gutenberg titles, adding 15,000 of them last Friday. Users can download the free ebooks to any EPUB compatible reader and an assortment of options are available in the beta site.

OverDrive is looking for comments on this new feature and ask that users go ahead and give Boston Public Library’s Project Gutenberg webpage a try and let them know what you think on their blog.

Libraries interested in adding a Project Gutenberg collection to the virtual branch should contact OverDrive at partnerservices@overdrive.com.

There are a number of free online dictionaries but my choice is Merriam-Webster Online.  The publisher claims that it is the “direct lexicographical heir of Noah Webster.”  The online dictionary is based on the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed., 2003, rev. 2008).  A search box is prominently displayed with the resulting search providing a format that looks very much like a print definition.   Interesting options on the home page are  “Word of the Day,”  “Open Dictionary” and a “Top Ten.”  Today’s word was twee which reminded me of  tweets that provided only ”chirping note” as a definition.   However I was referred to  Britannica.com for more information.  That gave a history of  Twitter and the origin of tweets.  The “Open Dictionary” was also a help since it contains current words submitted by the public.  Tweet was there plus definitions for tweeter and tweetox.  There are a number of  “Top Ten” which you can scroll through - Top Ten Words of Summer, Top Ten Words Born of Conflict, Top Ten Mashup Words, etc.  M-W.com will lead you way beyond just a definition of a word.

The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (YIVO stands for Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut, or Yiddish Scientific Institute), published in 2008, is a major work of scholarship. Now, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research has launched a free online version. The online edition includes the contents of the 2008 edition, plus interactive maps, more color photographs, rare letters and documents, and newly added video and audio clips.

This is a very rich site with multiple access points. Articles can be searched or browsed A-Z and there are separate searches for maps, multimedia, and documents. Another way in is to explore a topic: arts, daily life, places, and more. A page for educators provides lesson plans for middle- and high-school classrooms. And it’s all free. The YIVO Institute is to be commended for making this resource available to the public.