Points Of Reference

World Book introduces Dramatic Learning

Sue Polanka — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:45:11 +0000

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, and monologues. With the materials in Dramatic Learning, students act out the dialogue with the assistance of their teachers. Lesson plans, included for teachers, assist with setting objects and selecting materials as well as connecting the instruction to state and provincial curriculum standards. It allows students the opportunity to move, pretend, and be creative while learning about the content of a story. Over 40 scripts covering a broad range of reading levels are included. For more information, check out the sample video of a 4th grade classroom in action with Dramatic Learning. I’m impressed they are reading Hamlet in 4th grade!

Web Site of the Week: Epicurious

chris — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:30:37 +0000

I discovered Epicurious.com in the late 90’s when I was preparing for a class and looking for examples of reference books on the web. Much to my surprise, Sharon Herbst’s then new edition of The Food Lover’s Companion (1995) was part of the site. Well, it is still there but there is much more. If you are cooking for Thanksgiving and haven’t thought about it, this site will help. The home page leads to recipes for recipes for turkey, stuffing, potatoes and pies. Also there are suggestions for a meal for a buffet dinner for 16, an international dinner and a dinner for eight for $80. Epicurious is also a good place to find recipes and when you join the site (it’s free) you can have your own recipe box. If you enjoy cooking or want to learn, Epicurious will help.

The Web can make you sick

Barbara — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:42:24 +0000

As more people turn to the Web to find health and medical information, a new ailment has emerged: Cyberchondria. An article in the Washington Post on November 10th defined this condition as “baseless fueling of fears and anxiety about common health symptoms due to Internet research, or …Googling oneself into a state of absolute clinical hysteria over every last pain, itch, and strange freckle on your body.” It used to be called First year Medical Student’s Disease, thinking that one has every disease in the internal medicine textbook. In fact, it points out a very real problem that librarians can remedy. Using Google to find health information, especially if one does not know how to search and evaluate the information retrieved, is a very bad idea. People put in common terms such as “chest pain” , get lots of material about heart disease, and assume that they are having a heart attack. The fact that they are 25 years old, in good shape, and have no cardiac risk factors makes that unlikely, but Google does not reason, take a medical history, or do a physical examination. It ranks sites by what it considers relevant and by the number of hits that they get, so Dr. X’s miracle cure may be the first site that an anxious person finds. If that person were to come to the library and seek out a reference librarian, he or she could learn about MedlinePlus and other reliable sites to use. The librarian would also tell him/her that the Web is not a substitute for a physician. So, take two clicks and call your local reference desk in the morning!

Words of the Year

Mary Ellen — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:02:54 +0000

The New Oxford American Dictionary has announced its Word of the Year: unfriend. Also announced were 2009’s Notable Word Clusters, the majority of which have to do with President Obama: Obamanimics, Obamanation, etc.

Although there were Word of the Year contenders from the economy (freemium, for example), politics (death panel) and other categories, Oxford seems to draw most of its winners from technology. There’s a recent blog post on CrunchGear on Oxford’s 2009 pick as well as picks from past years and how accurately they’ve reflected the infiltration of tech into mainstream language.

Over Merriam-Webster way, the Webster’s New World College Dictionary 2009 Word of the Year is distracted driving.

Meanwhile, The American Dialect Society is accepting nominations for both 2009 Word of the Year and 2000-2009 Word of the Decade. Recent Word of the Year winners have included bailout (2008) and subprime (2007).

Video Break: New Librarianship

Mary Ellen — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:22:38 +0000

For those of you who, like me, didn’t make it to the Charleston Conference this year, here’s a video of R. David Lankes’ presentation on the future of librarianship. Links to other videos from the 2009 conference are here.

Reference sources for book discussions

Jessica Moyer — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 18:10:52 +0000

This winter I’ll be starting up the first ever book club at my local public library. As a veteran book club member I’m excited about starting a new group and getting to meet some fellow readers. But the librarians here have never done a book group and have lots of questions and I’d like to be able to suggest some reference sources. Since the initial group is going to be a crime focused group, we’ve requested a copy of Gary Neibuhr’s Read ‘Em Their Writes: a Handbook for Mystery and Crime Book Discussions.

Any suggestions for other book group related resources I can share with the library staff?

Web Site of the Week: Flightarrivals

chris — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:52:09 +0000

With some of the busiest travel days coming in less than two weeks, flightarrivals.com is another way to find out if a flight is on time. (See also HelloFlight.com.) Flightarrivals does not track flights on a map but does supply other useful information. The main page gives a number of options - search for arrivals, departures, delays, airport status and schedule changes. For arrivals and departures you may find a flight by airline and flight number but if you don’t know this you can search by city/airport, airline and airport or airline and airport pair. Once you find a flight you will see when and if it left, how long it has been in the air, its speed, altitude and when it is expected to arrive. The weather for the departure and arrival city is also listed. The airport status is a new feature which lists the average number of minutes flights may be delayed. On Friday afternoon, Nov. 13th, with wind and rain in NYC, arriving flights at LaGuardia may be delayed by 2 hours and 26 minutes. Best of luck for air travel at Thanksgiving!

The View from Alexander Street

Mary Ellen — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:59:01 +0000

Alexander Street Press has been producing outstanding research databases for years. Most of them are best suited for academic libraries (or large public libraries with research collections), but some of Alexander Street’s newer databases would be great resources for high-school students and a more general library clientele. One example is American History in Video, a collection of archival films ranging from U.S. government newsreels to documentaries from the History Channel and PBS.

I got immersed in American History in Video’s archive of World War II-era newsreels that were shown in movie theaters before the feature began. This was how most people experienced the war. It’s fascinating to view these newsreels and think about how they were produced and edited, and how they shaped public perceptions. It’s also interesting to think about how they differ from what we are presented with regarding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan–not least in terms of attention span. Would anyone sit through a 10-minute newsreel today?

Meg Keller, Alexander Street’s Director of Marketing, tells me that American History in Video has grown since Booklist’s reviewer last accessed it in September. There are 1,623 new titles including the rest of Ken Burns’ Jazz Series, films by Chris Hegedus and D A Pennebaker, and more newsreels from Universal Newsreel. The entire collection now includes 3,149 videos totaling 766 hours.

A free trial through December is available especially for Booklist and Points of Reference readers. Click here to register.

Credo Reference adds SAGE titles

Sue Polanka — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:35:16 +0000

Those of you who subscribe to Credo Reference can now purchase nearly 70 SAGE Reference titles in your subscription. The titles look great and include the very popular Ency. of Global Warming, Ency. of Disability, and the Ency. of Counseling.

In the Credo Reference press release, John Dove, Credo President said “Librarians have long called for the option of having reference content available on the platform of their choice. Adding almost 70 subject encyclopedias from SAGE Reference to Credo Reference means that we’re moving closer to that vision. Our librarians and end users will continue to experience Credo as one grand encyclopedia, now with even more subjects for inquiry.”

That’s music to my ears, John. In fact, I’m sure I’ve made that statement many times - all my reference content on the platform (one platform) of my choice. I’m glad to see that some publishers are moving in that direction.

More Publishers Go Mobile

Mary Ellen — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:57:47 +0000

Ths week, EBSCO Publishing and Alexander Street Press both announced that they are going mobile for patrons of subscribing libraries

EBSCO has released EBSCOhost Mobile, allowing people to search EBSCOhost databases using smartphones and other handheld devices. Features include search modes, full text limiting, and date ranges, plus limiting by peer-reviewed content or publication. Scrollable results lists have citations, Image Quick View, and access to full text articles. Users will be able to e-mail results and also search images.

Early in 2010, Alexander Street will release an iPhone application that will make their complete line of online streaming music collections accessible on an iPhone or iPod Touch. Eventually, everything on Music Online, including scores and full-text content, will be mobile. Mobile access to all Alexander Street video collections, including American History in Video and Theatre in Video, is also on tap for 2010.