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Fellow Points of Reference blogger Chris Bulson sent me this link to an article from the Boston Globe about a project to digitize the archives of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. The four-year project, called "Access to a Legacy," is completing its initial phase, and the first batch of materials, including  documents, photos, [...]

Back when I worked in a public library, this was the time of year when we hauled the boxes of holiday books out of their corner in the store room and set them out by the circulation desk. While there are scores of Christmas books, I've only come across one reference title devoted to Thanksgiving: [...]

Readers of  Booklist Online or Points of Reference may not realize there is an "app for this."  The "Review of the Day" on the main page of Booklist Online is available as a free app for iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.  If you are interested in what may be popular in the weeks ahead in fiction, non-fiction [...]

As we all head to the kitchen for that great cooking marathon called Thanksgiving, here are some tips that will make the occasion safer. www.foodsafety.gov is full of information about the safe preparation and storage of food. If you are not sure how long it will take to thaw a frozen turkey or how long [...]

Springer is launching a new product line SpringerBriefs. Featuring cutting-edge research and practical applications in compact volumes of between 50 and 125 pages, SpringerBriefs will be available as eBooks and in print. SpringerBriefs will cover a wide range of content from professional to academic across a variety of subject areas including business and economics, computer [...]

Facts On File recently announced a content update to Ferguson’s Career Guidance Center database.  New data provided by Peterson’s Nelnet, LLC, on more than 4,000 schools that offer two- and four-year degrees in the United States and Canada, is now searchable in Ferguson's. Users can filter school search information in a variety of ways: by [...]

If you have any musical ability and want to identify a piece of music, Musipedia.org may help.  It was developed in 1997 and first called "Melodyhound."  Although it isn't part of Wikipedia, it is similar in that users may add or modify the collection. To identify a piece you may whistle, sing, play a virtual [...]

If you missed this week's webinar, Encyclopedia Evolution, the archive is now available.  I'm always a little nervous about moderating a webinar. You'd think it would be easier to sit alone in an office in front of a computer than to speak in front of a live audience, but I've found I have to be just as [...]

Just about every field of study has its big encompassing encyclopedia, and for religion (which we've selected as the focus of this week's peek to tie in with Booklist's November 15 Spotlight on Religion) it's Encylopedia of Religion, which was edited by Mircea Eliade and published by Scribner in 1987.  As we noted in our review (which I [...]

In case you missed it in yesterday's New York Times, here's an interesting article about digital scholarship; specifically, digital humanities. It's the first in a series about "how digital tools are changing scholarship in history, literature and the arts."  Though the article doesn't mention this, such digitization projects can make some previously hidden or hard-to-find [...]

We all get questions about cancer. Usually it is about the diagnosis and treatment of specific cancers, but sometimes people need more. To get an idea of what is happening locally, the National Cancer Institute offers information about cancer prevalence, clinical trials, and budget expenditures by state. at http://www.cancer.gov/aboutnci/servingpeople. The site also has very useful [...]

The Global Language Monitor  (they're the ones that  use a proprietary algorithm to track words and phrases in the media and on the Internet, including blogs and social media) just announced the top words of 2010.  The top 10? Spillcam is first, followed by vuvuzela, the narrative, refudiate, Guido and Guidette, deficit, snowmageddon, 3-D, shellaking, and simplexity. The [...]

Duke University has an amazing number of digital collections in broad subjects of Advertising and Consumer Culture, African American History, Art, Literature and Music, Documentary Photography, Transcultural Experience and Women's History.  Ad*Access is a section of Advertising and Consumer Culture.  It contains over 7,000 advertisements from the US and Canadian print publications from 1911-1955.  They [...]

Here's an article I found on the Chicago Tribune site today about the challenges libraries are facing in the digital age. Another example of how quickly the e-book phenomenon has made its way into the mainstream. Though e-books have been around for a long time, until just recently they've also been easy to ignore, relegated to [...]

This is the first in a series of posts digging into Reference Books Bulletin's substantial review archive. Since today is Veterans Day, I'm looking back at the extensive library of military history published by ABC-CLIO and edited by Spencer C. Tucker. Tucker, who has written or edited numerous books on military and naval history, taught for [...]

As I work on collection development, I stop and wonder - should all book award winners and 'mentions' be automatic acquisitions? Where does one draw the line? Two examples that come to mind are the Stonewall Award Winners, http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/news/ala/ala-adds-glbt-youth-literature-award-prestigious-youth-media-award-announcements and those by the Association for Jewish Libraries, under Awards at http://www.jewishlibraries.org/ajlweb/ These are specialized, GLBT [...]

There's still time to register for the Booklist Webinar, "Encyclopedia Evolution," which will take place on Tuesday, November 16, at 1PM CST.  Encyclopedia publishers have gone through enormous changes over the past 15 years or so, and representatives from the three that are still standing--Michael Levy (Encyclopedia Britannica), Evan St. Lifer (Scholastic, home of Grolier) and Sarah Bright (World [...]

Stem cells are in the news almost daily. They are touted as the miracle cure, but, in fact, most of the wonders are still in the early experimental stage. For those who are considering treatment with stem cells, there is excellent information on the website of the International Society for Stem Cell Research. The organization [...]

As I work on lessons, and read through materials, I start to wonder, what is the purpose of reference - to provide the materials, or to provide the guidance to the materials? I might have asked this before, but it comes to my mind often. I recently presented a preconference workshop and realized that the [...]

From an OCLC Press Release:  OCLC and EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO) have expanded their partnership to enhance the discovery experience for users of WorldCat Local and the EBSCO Discovery Service through an expanded data exchange agreement. The new agreement will create more value for libraries that subscribe to services from OCLC and EBSCO. WorldCat Local libraries [...]