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I live in the northeast and with the fourth major storm this month bringing 14 inches of snow today with more promised for tonight, I am ready for spring training!  Based on the book, The Complete Guide to Spring Training, (2nd edition, 2009) springtrainingonline.com provides schedules for the Grapefruit  and Cactus Leagues, describes the stadium for each team, gives [...]

When libraries are downsizing--or rightsizing--their print reference collections to just a handful of titles in some cases, are there any print reference titles that are still essential enough to keep out of circulation? Recently, Dave Tyckoson posted an answer to this question, sent by someone who attended the  Twenty-First Century Reference Collection Webinar held in [...]

Libraries who subscribe to OverDrive will be happy to hear about the release of an audiobook app for Blackberry smartphones.  The app was released to the public in beta format and can be downloaded at: http://www.overdrive.com/software/omc.  The app allows users to wirelessly download mp3 audio book files from libraries and three online retailers.  OverDrive is [...]

We are concerned about eating well. Watching the amount of sugar that we consume is an important part of this. We can read labels to find out how much sugar something contains, but that is hard to picture. Sugar stacks provides a visual image that makes it more concrete. http://www.sugarstacks.com/ lets users see the amount of [...]

Grzimek's Animal Life went online in 2009 (starred review in Booklist and 2009 Editor's Choice, Reference Sources) and already has a number of new features added.  These include: Complementary content from UXL Encyclopedia of Biomes, 2nd Edition, has been integrated to provide coverage on 12 of the earth's major biomes.  Each biome is explained through [...]

Recently, many bookstores and online publishing outlets are offering students the option to rent their textbooks.  This trend stems from a federal grant established to encourage bookstores to offer textbook rental in order to offset the high cost of textbooks.  Rentals usually run about 40-60% cheaper than the purchase price.  Barnes and Noble piloted the [...]

I'm a big fan of the Olympics and try to watch as much of the TV coverage as I can, but there are always things I miss. I didn't see much of the pairs figure skating competition, for example, and I missed the two top men's figure skating short programs. I also didn't get to see [...]

I agree with Dave and I think that by doing all of those things, we empower our patrons. Teaching them to use the library and its resources is vital. Since one of my primary responsibilities is consumer health information in a public library, teaching patrons to evaluate information can literally be lifesaving. A few years [...]

At the Booklist webinar on 21st Century Reference Collections, an academic librarian from Texas asked: Q: What does David think the role of the reference librarian is today? A: This is one of my favorite topics and one that I could talk about all day long. Fortunately, I will spare you the long version and [...]

Sitting at the reference desk of an academic library, glimpsing guiltily the growing group gaining guidance, the question arises, should we teach the patrons to find the information themselves, using a reference question as a teaching opportunity, or should we simply point them to the right resource quickly to be able to get to the [...]

Guide to Reference, the online-only 12th edition of what used to be called Guide to Reference Books  (or called Mudge, Winchell, Sheehy, or Balay, depending on which of them edited the edition in question and how far back a librarian goes), has added four instructional video tours to help users navigate the site: Browse, Single-box Search, and Advanced Search; Editor's Guides; [...]

In a recent post,  Historical Maps In Print And Online,  Mary Ellen Quinn mentioned mappinghistory.uoregon.edu.  This new site illustrates historical trends through maps, charts and graphs.  Faculty at the University of Oregon, with collaboration of the German Univeristat Munster, developed Mapping History.  It contains modules of American, European, Latin American and African History subdivided by topic.   The topics are chronological with [...]

  At the Booklist webinar on 21st Century Reference Collections, a librarian at a consortia in Nebraska asked: Q: Is this the "eliminating the silo" movement I've heard of? A: I have not thought of the subcollections within the library as silos before. If we allow reference books to circulate, we are not really eliminating [...]

The topic on today's New York Times Room for Debate forum is Do School Libraries Need Books?  This discussion was first sparked a few months ago when Cushing Academy announced that it was giving away all of its 20,000 books and going all-digital. Here on Points of Reference there is a similar discussion; during  last month's Twenty-First Century [...]

Historical atlases are a useful, if ancillary, part of the history reference collection, complementing encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other sorts of reference tools. Two standard examples are the Atlas of World History published by Oxford University Press, and the Times Atlas of World History published by Hammond. At one time these were considered "must-haves" for most reference collections, but they [...]

February is here and so are the tax forms. Our library, like many public libraries, offwers free tax assistance to seniors and low-income citizens filing uncomplicated forms. We have long lines at the door when we open and people fighting over who will be first since there are no advance appointments. We also get tax [...]

A public librarian from Virginia asked these questions at the Webinar on the 21st Century Reference Collection: Q: What are you doing with all the unused reference books? Is space an issue? Can you justify using much-needed space for unused items? A: This is a very practical question. We continue to shrink the reference collection [...]

With the Super Bowl today, some fans are thinking about the odds of who will win.  A new web site of 2009, bookofodds.com, is advertised as the first source on the odds of anything.  What about the odds of a cow having its' hide in the Super Bowl?  There is an explanation of  the method used to determine that the odds are [...]

The ALA Glossary of Library Terms defines a reference work as as one "designed by its arrangement and treatment to be consulted for definite terms of information rather than to be read consecutively." Or, as I once heard someone put it, "A to Z , yes; chapters, no." Of course, there have always been books that have [...]

This is another question asked at the Booklist webinar on 21st Century Reference Collections Q: To Tyckoson: I have heard free information online being referred to as the "democratization of information." It seems like you don't believe this is a positive thing. Can you give me some reasons why? A: Free online information is indeed [...]