Booklist Online: More than 130,000 book reviews for librarians, book groups, and book lovers - from the trusted experts at the American Library Association

A lot of ink has been spilled recently over the growing power of Google. The current New Yorker has an article discussing the question of whether Google is getting too big.  Last week a New York Times article on the Google Books settlement referred to Google as “the 800-pound  gorilla of digital information”; today, there’s an op- [...]

Selected Web Sites for Audio Books Readers’ Advisory Audible, Inc. http://www.audible.com A subsidiary of Amazon.com, Audible is a subscription service and the leading provider of spoken audio materials (books, newspaper, magazines, original work, radio and television programming). Works with Apple and Microsoft programs. Also available for use on Amazon Kindle. The complete catalog (over 60,000 [...]

Since 1998, the Machine-Assisted Reference Section (MARS) of RUSA has been compiling its annual list of  “Best Free Reference Websites.” The 2009 list, just published in the Fall issue of Reference & User Services Quarterly, has 29 sites. A few are for advanced researchers, but most are eminently practical tools. Check out OnlineConversion.com and Traffic.com, for example.

While trying to figure out what to talk about this week so that I could start reading the new Sara Paretsky without guilt, it occurred to me that we reference librarians are detectives. We interrogate our patrons (reference interview) to help them find whatever is missing, be it a citation for their bibliography, the information [...]

EBSCO Publishing recently announced a new database indexing the scholarly journals of Brazil and Portugal, Fonte Academica.  Over 130 journals are indexed, including abstracts in multiple languages and full-text in pdf format.  For more information and a full title list, visit the informational page on EBSCO.  Here is a sampling of the journal titles: Acta [...]

I’ve come across two thought-provoking articles that discuss Wikipedia and Google,  forces that have radically altered the way people seek and find information and, by extension, the way libraries provide reference service.  The article on Wikipedia, “Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success?“ (from Time magazine), examines why Wikipedia’s growth has flattened in recent years. One reason [...]

If you’re ever looking for a central source of books, periodicals, and online resources relating to Texas and things Texan, I highly recommend Texas Reference Sources Online.  It is, according to the home page, “a continuation and update of the 5th edition published by the Texas Library Association in 2004.”  The site provides full bibliographical [...]

Although DisneyDigitalBooks is a commercial site with a subscription price of $79.95 a year,  school and public librarians may be hearing about it from elementary school students.  Disney Publishing is putting their whole children’s catalog online and selling it to parents.  The books are arranged by reading level beginning with the look and listen section read [...]