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The 2012 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Summit is this weekend. While it may not be quite as big a deal to those of you outside of Chicago, it’s still a pretty important event–Chicago is the first American city other than Washington D.C. to host the summit. Here are some background resources:

The NATO website includes information about the organization, its members, and its activities. The site also includes an e-library with links to official texts and even NATO LibGuides!

If you’re in Chicago, or just interested in who will be there and what will be discussed at this year’s summit, check out the official Chicago summit site. There are even events open to the public if you want to get involved.

With all the talk about rising health care costs and the evil drug companies, people are tempted to try unproven treatments marketed in infomercials, online, and in magazines and newspapers. The marketers claim that they are safe, natural, and guaranteed to cure whatever ails you or your money back. Think again. If it is a “scientific breakthrough” that the “medical establishment” is ignoring, there is a reason. If you want to know more about health fraud scams, check out the Food and Drug Administration’s Health Fraud Scams page at http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ProtectYourself/HealthFraud/default.htm. It offers educational videos, press releases about dangerous products, lists of recalled and seized products, and information about its adverse effects reporting program. The site has information for consumers, educators, and health professionals. It has information in Spanish as well. So remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

In celebration of Booklist’s  “Mystery Month”, the web site of the week is honoring a great author of mysteries, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Sherlockian.net, originated by Chris Redmond in 1994 and still edited by him, provides information on all things Sherlockian.  Of course there is a list of all the stories, with links to additional information and availability of online text.  There are lists of stage, screen, radio and television adaptations of the stories, books and reviews and societies and events.  Useful links for educators are sites for teaching Sherlock Holmes.  “Elementary, my dear Watson.”

Many of our most popular mystery writes are women. Think about your favorites. Chances are they include Sara Paretsky, Marcia Muller, Sue Grafton, and P.D. James. Despite this, women have a harder time getting published. That is why a group headed by Sara Paretsky formed Sisters in Crime in 1986. This organization, an ALA Library Champion, has 3600 members in 48 chapters all over the world.

Members include both published and non-published authors, agents, publishers, booksellers, librarians, and mystery lovers. The organization promotes the professional development and advancement of women mystery writers. Their website, www.sistersincrime.org has many useful tools for writers and mystery lovers: news, links to author and bookstore websites, a calendar of events,and a resource list. The members-only portion of the site offers web links, information about promoting books, reports on the publishing industry and the monitoring project, which tracks the number of reviews of mysteries published by women in comparison to those published by men.

Booklist is one of the publications tracked by this project! The organization also publishes books on promoting mysteries. It is a great supporter of libraries, offering grants in their “We Love Libraries” Lottery. Details for entering are on the site. Local chapters are happy to have authors appear at library programs. My library recently hosted Cara Black and Rhys Bowen in a delightful program that was very well attended. Get a clue about the Sisters in Crime and have them do some sleuthing at your library.

Bachtrack is a neat app for the classical music fan.  It allows the user to search for concerts, operas and ballet performances by time, location, artist or composer.  The results are listed chronologically so it is possible to find where the works of Bach will be performed in the United States in July 2012.  For many results a Google map pinpoints the venue.  Some results also provide a link to the ticketing site.  A downside is the lack of some popular summer festivals.  At the time of the review no operas for Santa Fe or Glimmerglass  were included.  A plus are detailed directions on using the site.

Nominations for the 2012 Tony Awards will be announced on May 1 in a live webcast on www.tonyawards.com.  This website is packed with photos, videos and all kinds of theater history.  You’ll even find a gallery of poster from Tony award-winning best plays and musicals back to 1947.

Internet Broadway Database http://www.ibdb.com

Billing itself as “the official database for Broadway theatre information,” the IBDB “provides records of productions from the beginnings of New York theatre until today.”  Daily features include “Born on This Date” and “Opening Nights in History.”

Broadway.com http://www.broadway.com/

On this site you can buy show tickets as well as find “editorial coverage of theater on the web, including the latest news, interviews with actors and playwrights, opening-night coverage…” and much more.

The Dramatists Guild of America  http://www.dramatistsguild.com/ 

“The professional association of playwrights, composers, lyricists and librettists” defines itself as “a community of playwrights, composers and lyricists dedicated to protecting, informing, and promoting the interests of dramatists everywhere.”

Playbill  http://www.playbill.com

The online version of the ubiquitous theater magazine offers one-stop shopping for all kinds of theater information from show listings and photo features to background material and celebrity interviews as well as online shopping for tickets and Broadway merchandise.

Actors’ Equity Association  http://www.actorsequity.org

“Equity” is the labor union that represents actors and stage managers in the United States.  Even if you’re not a member, you’ll find a lot of interesting theater background on this site including a timeline and the history of the Gypsy Robe.

Ironfrog.com/catsmap.html is a work in progress but does have a list of libraries in the world that had or have a cat in residence.  The creator of the web site, Gary Roma, may be known to librarians as the author of the documentary, Puss in Books:  Adventures of the Library Cat.  Roma is also a speaker at conferences and conventions including the Massachusetts Library Association and public libraries in Florida, Louisiana and New Jersey.  The Library Cats Map is arranged by state with the name of the cat(s), dates of residence and library name and address.  Also included are statues of large felines such as Patience and Fortitude at the New York Public Library. Surprisingly Delaware and Wyoming  have no feline library residents listed.

April 23rd is the day we commemorate the immortal William Shakespeare.  In celebration, here is a trio of Will-worthy websites: 

The Shakespeare Resource Center http://www.bardweb.net/ supplies links to a variety of sites and includes ‘Ask the Bard,’ where you type in a question and get a line of Shakespeare in reply. 

Internet Shakespeare Editions http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/ offers original and modern versions of the plays and poems, ‘Shakespeare in Performance,’ a searchable database that includes a current performance calendar and performance materials from more than 1000 stage and film productions. 

The Folger Shakespeare Library’s website http://www.folger.eduoffers online resources for teachers, highlights of the collection, interactive features and games for children, abstracts of articles in the Shakespeare Quarterly and much more.

April 23rd is also the feast of St. George, patron saint of England.  In Shakespeare’s ‘Henry V’ the title character exhorts his troops to ‘Cry, God for Harry, England and Saint George!’  Here is a version of that speech from  Act 3, Scene 1 featuring someone who has never been a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ss8qTCpazo

The Pulitzer Prizes, established by Joseph Pulitzer, have been awarded since 1917 and are annually announced in April.   There are twenty-one categories including newspaper journalism (in print and online), arts, letters and fiction.  Pulitzer.org provides lists of all the winners.  Since 1995 there is the full text of the winning entries in journalism and photography.  The 2002 Breaking News Photography award was given to photographers of the New York Times “for its consistently outstanding photographic coverage of the terrorist attack…”  Viewing these stunning photos returns the viewer to the images of the horrific events of 9/11.  There are also selected materials from winners in the fields of letters, drama and music.  Examples include the composer’s notes of Steve Reich’s Double Sextet which won the music prize in 2009.  Pulitzer.org  is a year-by-year snap-shot of excellence in the humanities.

As part of the sesquicentennial commemoration of the Civil War, the Terra Foundation for American Art, in partnership with the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago History Museum, the Chicago Park District, the Chicago Public Library, the DuSable Museum of African American History and the Newberry Library, launched a new website, The Civil War in Art: Teaching & Learning through Chicago Collections http://www.civilwarinart.org/

A selection of objects, including period photographs, oil paintings, sculpture and lithographs, was digitally photographed and the resulting online image gallery features a zoom function that allows viewers to examine the pieces in close detail.  There are also links to numerous additional resources, such as Civil War websites and lesson plans. 

These Booklist feature articles may also be of interest:

Core Collection: Civil War Reference by Brian Odom http://www.booklistonline.com/ProductInfo.aspx?pid=4830119

Reference on the Web: The Civil War by Carolyn Mulac http://www.booklistonline.com/Reference-on-the-Web-The-Civil-War-Carolyn-Mulac/pid=4810185

Today is National Holocaust Remembrance Day. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website, the date comes from the Hebrew calendar and corresponds to the anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1943. The museum’s website also includes a Holocaust Encyclopedia that contains articles, photographs, maps, and audio clips, as well as an ID card archive with images and personal histories of victims and survivors of the Holocaust.

The Web has become an important tool for preserving rare items. Recently the Vatican and Oxford University announced a joint project to digitize 1.5 million pages of Greek manuscripts, 15th-century printed books and Hebrew manuscripts and incunabula. With a grant from the Polonsky Foundation, these treasures will soon be available to scholars who cannot afford to travel and to anyone who wishes to see them. Closer to home, Dartmouth College has produced the Dartmouth Jewish Sound Archive, which preserves songs, broadcasts, and interviews reflecting the range of Jewish life. You will find it at http://djsa.dartmouth.edu/index.php.

It is a treasure trove of songs in Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, Arabic, and other European and near-eastern languages, ancient and modern, along with Japanese (surprise!). In addition to music, there are radio broadcasts, humor, folk tales, and poetry.  Due to copyright issues, no downloads are permitted. Those outside the Dartmouth community must register online and receive permission to use the archive.  Collections such as these remind us that technology can be wonderful even though it may drive us crazy.

The Boston Marathon is the oldest annual marathon founded by the Boston Athletic Association in 1897.  This year will be the 116th marathon.  It was originally held on April 19 or 20 to celebrate Patriot’s Day.  Now the Marathon is on the 3rd Monday in April which is also a state holiday in Massachusetts.  In 1897 there were 18 entrants, 10 who finished the 26 mile course and this year more than 25,000 are runners are expected. Bostonmarathongmediaguide.com and baa.org (Boston Athletic Association) provide information on this race which begins in Hopkinton MA.  The course continues through suburbs of Boston including Ashland, Natick, Wellesley, Brookline and ending at Copley Square in the Back Bay area of Boston.  For anyone interested in the Boston Marathon, check out these sites.

Have you caught Titanic fever?  There may be a cure!

The Henry G. Bennett Memorial Library at Southeastern Oklahoma State University created this comprehensive website: http://libguides.se.edu/titanic .

Still thirsty for more?  Then try this topic page from The New York Times,  which includes historical news stories, or this Titanic roundup from Smithsonian Magazine.

The Internet Archive has added a collection of about 14,000 historical medical texts, The Medical Heritage Library. The digitized rare books are available free to read online or download as PDFs.

Funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, with a Scholarly Advisory Committee of scientists and professors from major universities and research centers, the collection offers a wealth of fascinating material. Users may search by via the general Internet Archive search box or browse the collection by author, title, subject, or date at http://archive.org/details/medicalheritagelibrary. They will discover wonders such as an eighteenth-century French treatise on smallpox, a nineteenth-century American fitness guide, and a treatise on the medical and veterinary significance of cockroaches. Of course Krafft-Ebbing’s classic Psychopathia Sexualis is there, too.

Users may sort material by date and relevance and subscribe to a blog to receive notices about new additions to the collection. The site also has tools for digital research, including text analysis and visualization, online collections, research tools, blogs, and conferences and organizations. This is a valuable resource for anyone doing research and anyone interested in medical history.

Sustainable living is an “in” idea. The public is now aware of over-fishing and endangered fish. With the free Seafood Watch app from the Monterey Bay Aquarium you may search by the popular name of a fish on a menu or in a grocery store.  A best choice is listed in addition to good alternatives and what to avoid.  There is also picture of the fish, a description, alternate names and where or if it is farmed.  A “Project FishMap” encourages contributions of restaurants and stores where sustainable seafood may be found.  For those not familiar with fishing terms there is a small but useful glossary.  The web site of the Aquarium (montereybayaquarium.org) has seafood recipes and pocket guides for six regions in the US.

With all of the screaming and political misinformation hitting the media at the moment, it is easy to think that there is nothing good going on in the health care arena. However, the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation, working with nine other medical specialty boards, has developed a group of lists for doctors and their patients. These lists name tests and procedures that are often done unnecessarily and provide guidelines for using them appropriately. You can find the lists at http://choosingwisely.org/?page_id=13. Next time you visit your physician and he or she suggests a test, have a polite and informed conversation about the need for it. You will both learn something and save money, too. “Wallet biopsy” is always an unnecessary procedure!

Genealogically minded patrons will be excited to learn that the National Archive released the 1940 U.S. Census records today (after a mandatory 72-year waiting period). They’re available online through a partnership with Archives.com. More than 3.8 millions digital images of the records can be accessed at http://1940census.archives.gov/.

The International Edible Books Festival takes place every year on April 1 (or so). This “celebration of the ingestion of culture and a way to concretely share a book [that] is also a deeper reflexion on our attachment to food and our cultural differences” involves–you guessed it–book artists and others creating edible works that represent, are inspired by, or, often, are a play on a title or author.

Check out these photos of past entrants, or look for local events in your area. Bon appetit!

Next Monday, April 2, is World Autism Awareness Day.  Autism now affects 1 in every 88 children in the US, according to a report released this week by the Center for Disease Control.   An additional startling figure is that the cost of autism in the US is greater than that of the entire GDP of 139 countries.  Autismspeaks.org was founded in 2005 to promote awareness of the disease and sponsor research on its causes and treatment.  The site provides information for families including tool kits, resource guides and even housing and residential support.  The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH.NIH.org) is another site for information about autism as well as other diseases that afflict children including attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.