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

The Feline Health Center is one many useful websites produced by Cornell University.  A general information page gives cat owners ideas about choosing and caring for a cat, health hazards, etc. There is additional information on aging, cancer and other health issues, behavior, spaying and neutering and of course nutrition and weight control.  Both online [...]

The 125th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty was last Friday, October 28 and a part of the celebration on Liberty Island was 125  people from 46 countries taking the citizenship oath and becoming citizens of the US.  Another exciting event was the launching of four webcams -  the torch, harbor, crown and Lady Liberty [...]

Today is “Dictionary Day,” celebrating the “achievements and contributions of Noah Webster, the father of the modern dictionary.”  My favorite online dictionary is still Merriam-Webster.com but another good source is the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition, a part of Yahoo/reference.  This is a clean site devoid of flashing advertisements, etc. which [...]

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has just updated their web site.  There are now over 340,000 entries for paintings, sculptures, costumes and photographs in the museum many with images.  For the prospective visitor, floor plans of over 375 galleries  are clickable and zoomable.  There are suggested itineraries for a half day, [...]

After reading David Tyckoson’s recent blog on “Reference Sources That We Once Loved…,” it reminded me of one of my favorites, Taking Sides. For those of you who don’t remember or are new to reference (before the internet),  TS is a multi-volume set arranged by broad topics and then includes popular issues of the day [...]

eBird.org was developed in 2002 by Cornell University Lab of Ornithology and the Audubon Society. It is a database of  bird distribution and now accepts sightings throughout the world.  What makes it unique is that amateur birders are encouraged to report sightings of birds.  This provides scientists and researchers information for the study of the [...]

Fooducate – “eat a bit better,” will help those who want to eat healthier.  After taking a picture of a bar code of a product, the app displays the food’s value for health – rated from A to D. It also analyzes the nutritional information and notes if there is lots of sugar, trans fats, [...]

A Google a Day was launched by Google in April 2011 in partnership with  the New York Times.  A question is asked online each day, Monday – Friday and is also in the Times adjacent to the daily crossword puzzle.  The difficulty of the question increases each day.  It is an excellent way to increase [...]

87% of students feel online libraries and databases have had significant impact on learning According to a survey released last week by Cengage Learning, 87% of students feel that online libraries and databases have had the most significant impact on their overall learning. The survey, entitled “Instructors and Students: Technology Use, Engagement and Learning Outcomes” [...]

My last post dwelled on the morbid and eerie predictions that print books might soon become unnecessary, obsolete artifacts—and I’m still talking about it. As a library student, my classmates and I spend the majority of time in the class discussion boards obsessing over the future of libraries, books, and consequently, our future jobs. Not to [...]

Figment.com was developed by Dana Goodyear, a staff writer at the New Yorker and Jacob Lewis, a former managing editor of the magazine.  Its purpose is to provide a forum for young writers to have others read and comment on their writings.  The young authors may also comment on what others have written.  The sign-up is [...]

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 [...]

The Curriki blog has a nice post highlighting 10 sources for free textbooks online.  In addition to Curriki’s own site, they link to bookboon, flatworld knowledge, ck 12, open culture, Project Gutenberg, and others.  Several of these support open source textbooks.  If you are not familiar with open source textbooks, feel free to take a [...]

With school beginning very soon, elementary and high school teachers will find NASA eClips a useful resource.  The eClips are short videos exploring how discoveries used for space travel are interrelated with daily life.  Programs are divided by grade level - k-5, 6-8, 9-12 and the general public.  The material is based on curriculum standards of various teachers’ associations.   The [...]

 BigQuestionsOnline.com is a publication of the John Templeton Foundation which has the motto, “How little we know, how eager to learn.”  The foundation is also known for its grants to individuals and institutions in the areas of  creativity, freedom, gratitude, love and purpose.  It also annually awards the Templeton Prize with winners including Mother Theresa, Charles Colson [...]

Last December Gale release an iPhone app for the public library market based on their AccessMyLibrary service.  They are now releasing this same iPhone app for the school library market called, AccessMyLibrary School Edition.   The new K-12 version allows students to find their local school library – (grade schools, middle schools and high schools) and [...]

21st Century Explorer, a new product from Britannica, offers research materials designed for high school students with low reading levels or specific learning problems.  The database is also helpful for reluctant readers, English Language Learners (ELL), English as a Second Language (ESL) students and adult-literacy students. Designed to provide resources (dictionaries, atlases, time lines, encyclopedias), [...]

Visuwords.com is an online dictionary which shows in a graphical representation the connections between words.  Searching the word spring provides an animated diagram with different meanings of spring bouncing around.  The words and diagrams are color coded by type of speech, what the word  is similar to,  what it pertains to and its attributes.  Putting the mouse on a word, the definition [...]

With the rising availability of ebooks, and potentially etextbooks, how do we as libraries help our patrons to access these books?  The rising costs of textbooks makes education less accessible than before to students.  Yet, having textbooks on reserve causes problems – staffing, processing, replacing, checking for damage or missing pages.  eTextbooks would be a [...]

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 [...]