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

I just finished reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. It tells the story of the HeLa cell, which was the beginning of a great deal of important biomedical research using human tissue culture. HeLa cells came from a tumor in Henrietta’s body, but neither she nor her family consented to any [...]

According to the OCLC study How Libraries Stack Up: 2010, everyday 300,000 Americans get job seeking help at their public library.  Perfect timing for Wilson’s new Career Database I’d say.  The database, part of the Current Issues database series, is designed to provide articles and information for those launching or changing careers in today’s tough [...]

In just a few days (drumroll, please), Wikipedia will begin to roll out its redesign. Changes to the “user experience” will include a new layout (called “Vector”) intended to make navigation easier, and a new editing tool bar. For more information on the changes, you can read this New York Times article, and visit the Wikimedia Blog.

Ever since Rosetta Stone announced in 2007 that it was discontinuing online access for libraries to its popular language-learning program, libraries have been searching for alternatives. One of those alternatives, Mango Languages, had a big presence at the just-concluded Public Library Association conference in Portland OR. They were a Gold Partner, and their booth always seemed be [...]

I’m here in Portland OR at the Public Library Association conference. Earlier today someone from a public library outside Chicago stopped by the Booklist booth to tell me he’s been following the posts on this blog about shifting books out of the reference collection and onto the circulating shelves. He just started that process in his library [...]

Credo Reference subscribers will soon have access to over 10,000 topic pages, designed to provide a subject orientation and context for students doing research.  The pages include definitions, encyclopedia entries, images, and much more from the Credo collection.  These should prove to be a great starting point for research on a variety of topics – [...]

It is spring and holidays are upon us. Nowruz, the Persian new year, which marks the first day of spring and the beginning of the year just occurred. People celebrated by cleaning their houses, visiting relatives, and jumping over bonfires. Wikipedia has a detailed article about this holiday. Passover begins on Monday. Jews commemorate the Exodus [...]

What would you guess is Earth’s most successful species? According to Christopher Lloyd’s What on Earth Evolved?, it’s not humans. Written for a general audience,  the book is subtitled 100 Species That Changed the World, and Lloyd starts by profiling species, including influenza, ants, earthworms, rats, and slime mold, that evolved through natural selection.  He then goes on to profile species [...]

Gale/Cengage and ABC-CLIO announced this week that 250 ABC-CLIO titles are available in the GVRL interface.  The 250 titles cover history, humanities and general interest topics and include the Greenwood, Praeger, and Libraries Unlimited imprints as well.  For more information please visit Gale’s Re:Sources blog.

Over ten years ago MIT announced that they would make available online all the syllabi and course lectures that are taught at the univeristy.  By 2007 MIT’s complete curriculum was available  with 1,800 courses online.  Now a Yale graduate, Richard Ludlow, has created AcademicEarth.org  that gives access to anyone interestsed in courses or lectures from leading universities [...]

OCLC announced yesterday the sale of NetLibrary to EBSCO.  According to the press release, EBSCO will acquire the eBooks and eAudiobook collections from NetLibrary.  The content will remain available on the NetLibrary platform, but EBSCO also plans to offer it on the popular EBSCOHost platform.  Several FirstSearch databases were also licensed to EBSCO in the [...]

Time magazine has published its list of 50 Best Web Sites of 2009. Although some, like Wikipedia and WorldWide Telescope, have real reference value, most of the sites are related to activities–shopping, file sharing,  making dinner reservations. I’m going to try drop.io, which lets you share files between your work and home computers; and Fonolo, which does all the work [...]

Every day, it seems that some commentator is telling us that we are overweight, out shape, and as a result at risk for diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. We know that we need to eat less and exercise more, but we just can’t seem to do it. The National Heat, Lung, and Blood Institute has [...]

C-Span, the set of networks that broadcasts government proceedings as well as some public affairs programming, has been in the process of putting its full archive–23 years and more than 160,000 hours of footage–online. The completion will be formally announced on Wednesday. Not only is the archive online, but it’s searchable. Programs are indexed by subject, speaker names, titles, affiliations, sponsors, [...]

Have you responded yet to our survey about your essential reference titles? These are the print titles that you have kept–or would keep–in the reference collection, even after radically scaling it back. If you haven’t started the shift away from print reference, there are two articles that can get you started. ”Right-Sizing the Reference Collection” by Rose M. Frase [...]

Although there is still over a foot of snow on the lawn, the crocus by my back door are blooming so it is time to think about gardening.  Garden.org is a great site for both the beginner and experienced gardener.  One of the best features of the site is the plant finder where you may [...]

Gale/Cengage just announced that libraries may have free access to 4 databases during National Library Week (April 11th through 17th). Gale is offering this in support of library advocacy.  All libraries need to do is download a search widget to their website after April 1oth, for one click access to the following databases: Career Transitions [...]

H1N1 is the plague du jour, but history is full of them. A new online exhibit from the National Library of Medicine gives us insight into some of the diseases that public health officials work to prevent. They are still with us, but it is interesting to see how they have been viewed in the [...]

I’ve been working on the annual update of Reference Books Bulletin‘s Atlas Roundup, and I’ve come across some interesting stuff that map lovers might appreciate. On the Times World Atlases Web site, I learned about a series of interviews coming up on BBC Radio 4 with Mike Parker, author of a book called Map Addict.  In 10 [...]

Here at Reference Books Bulletin, we’re still reviewing new reference titles the old-fashioned way–in their print versions, even if they are also available as e-books (as most of them now are). It’s what we’re used to, it’s what our system is set up for, and our reviewers get to keep the print book or set in return for writing a review. But [...]