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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 [...]

 As I was about to write the “Web Site of the Week,” I checked Points of Reference,  and saw Sue Polanka’s entry of today, “How Do Today’s Students Research?”   “How to Find Anything Online:  Become an Internet Research Expert”  from webdesignerdepot.com may be used by high school students and undergraduates in their online research.  In this rather [...]

Biopix.com is a Danish site of photographs taken with digital Nikon or Olympus cameras.  The majority were taken by an ecologist, forester, biologist and two teachers.  The beautiful color photos may be searched by category – birds, butterflies, domestic animals, fungi, mosses, plants, geology, landscapes, people in nature, weather, etc.  The large database of photos may be used [...]

Whenever I see cool products for children and young adults, I’m always envious of the librarians and teachers who get to work with these tools.  What’s gotten my envy this time is World Book’s new product, Dramatic Learning.  It is a classroom tool to help with reading fluency and comprehension, based on play scripts, skits, [...]

Mark Moran the CEO of  findingDulcinea.com says it is a “small company with an ambitious agenda.”   Called “The Librarian of the Internet,” it was suggested as a “Site That will Matter in 2009″ by readers of  PC World.  There is something here for everyone.  The daily home page gives an idea of what Dulcinea does.  Today (10/24) continues a series [...]

Featured as this month’s Reader’s Corner, the review for the 2nd edition of the Readers’ Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction appears in the October 15 Booklist. As previously mentioned, this is a classic readers’ advisory and staff development tool and the 2nd edition has been eagerly awaited by librarians and educators.

A few days ago, during a library orientation of 6th graders, the subject of pink dolphins came up.  A teacher had asked her students to produce evidence that they did or did not exist.  (The teacher had turned a student’s question into an assignment for the class.) On the big screen, we searched the phrase “pink dolphin” [...]

Being inundated with information about the life of Edward Kennedy over the last two days got me thinking about biographical sources.  What role does print still play in biographical information?  Is there even a place for it? Every time I teach reference I include a couple of biographical questions; one about a living person, one [...]

The first time I taught the required introductory course on reference and information services I only briefly mentioned library instruction and information literacy.  In hindsight, this felt this was a serious oversight as instruction had always been a large and important of my work as a reference librarian.  Now I’ve added an assignment and class [...]