Sunday, October 31, 2004

Stormy Weather

This National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration site, the official source of space weather alerts, warnings, and forecasts, provides current information on geomagnetic storms, solar winds, solar flares, and aurora activity.

Parle Vou France?

This BBC site provides resources to help you learn Spanish, French, German, Italian, and other languages through online lessons. You can also learn holiday phrases in 34 languages and more.

Saturday, October 30, 2004

The Bell Curve

A free metasearch engine and virtual reference desk accessing tens of thousands of academic reference and research sites recommended by teachers and librarians! The Academic Index was created and is maintained by Dr. Michael Bell, former chair, Texas Association of School Librarians. The Academic Index is a true meta-search tool that includes results from mega-information databases that index only research-quality reference and information sources selected by professional librarians, educators, and educational and library consortia. At the present time the Academic Index provides access to approximately 137,000 quality information web pages.

Friday, October 29, 2004

Do You Know Your Vertical Market?

The Encyclopedia of Economic and Business History is designed to provide students and laymen with high quality reference articles in the field. Articles for the Online Encyclopedia are written by experts, screened by a group of authorities, and carefully edited. A distinguished Advisory Board recommends entry topics, assists in the selection of authors, and defines the project’s scope.

Thursday, October 28, 2004

Vote for Marcia Brady!

Ontheissues.org provides non-partisan information for voters in the Presidential election, so that votes can be based on issues rather than on personalities and popularity. They get their information daily from newspapers, speeches, press releases, and the Internet

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Breaking 80 Years of Silence

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Priori

Blawg Republic is a real-time search engine that monitors the legal blogging community every hour. People can browse excerpts on discussions, from Appellate Law to Technology Law. They can keep up with their favorite legal bloggers and track evolving discussions moving through the blawgosphere - the world of legal oriented weblogs. All weblogs in the Blawg Republic Index have been categorized into one of over 30 law categories. Tracking a weblog or legal meme is easy via RSS feeds that are available for any search, and for each law category. Each weblog in the Blawg Republic Index is listed in the Directory along with its ATOM or RSS feed.

Monday, October 25, 2004

Know Your Rights

The United Nations Documentation: Research Guide is designed for researchers and information professionals with an interest in United Nations documentation. It presents an overview of the various types of documents and publications issued by the Organization (e.g, reports, resolutions, meeting records, sales publications, press releases) and gives guidance on how to work with them. The Research Guide also provides information on actions taken by the General Assembly as well as the Security Council and introduces researchers to major fields of UN activities: human rights, international law and peacekeeping.

Sunday, October 24, 2004

Like a soul without a mind, and a body without a heart

Human Body and Mind , is a BBC site in their Science and Nature series, features resources on the human body and mind with topics ranging from organs and muscles to psychological tests and mental disorders.

Saturday, October 23, 2004

No Myth

The Project for the OLD American Century is a non-profit grass-roots organization that strives to protect and strengthen our democracy through disseminating truthful and unbiased independent news stories untainted by corporate ownership.
The Project was founded in 2002 in response to a rigged election, reduced civil liberties, a high-jacking of our domestic and foreign policies by the energy/defense industries, and a compliant corporate media that refused to make these problems prominent in our national consciousness. All while claiming the evils of a non-existent "liberal media". Our country had been taken over in a peaceful coup by the energy and defense industries and the American Media barely raised a peep.

Thank you to Eric at Think Responsibly for pointing me to this great resource.

Friday, October 22, 2004

Classic Ephemera

Sears was where many Americans bought their first suit, their engagement ring, furniture for their home, and toys. For over 100 years, Sears, Roebuck and Co. served the needs of middle America through its stores and "wish books." In this site, rich in history and anecdote, you can trace the development of a nation as reflected in the growth of a merchandising icon. Sears plans and kits for houses (outhouse sold separately) helped an expanding middle class fulfill the dream of home ownership. And from its earliest, the company offered original works of art to the general public. Although it opened its first store in Chicago in 1925, Sears has opened its vast archives to you. Shop around.

Thursday, October 21, 2004

Ephemeral Electronica

Yes, because my throngs of readers have demanded it, I have created another blog! I will hopefully be using the space to post that ephemeral electonica that passes so quickly out here in cyberspace. Those things that only have meaning in the topica of the moment, the flashes of news, mp3's, animations and even jokes. I expect that years or even months down the line many if not most of the links will be broken. If this blog succeeds I may even post on the topic of electronic ephemera and the efforts to preserve it. I have asked a few people to join me in making posts, I hope to create a community of posters and readers, and encourage people to comment and interact with the posters. If you would like to post, just leave a comment and we'll see if we can work something out.

SsHHhhh..said the librarian in a silibant whisper

The Bloomsbury Research centre is a FREE on-line database of reference books. Over 17,000 entries are cross-referenced providing a wealth of information all linked and all fully indexed. Use the search engine to search on a wide range of subjects including literature, art, myth, human thought, quotations and a thesaurus or browse through each book at your leisure.

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Aloha Info

Wikipedia is a free content encyclopedia written collaboratively by contributors from around the world. The site is a wiki, which means that anyone can edit articles, simply by clicking on the edit this page link.
Wikipedia was started on January 15, 2001 by founders Jimmy Wales, Larry Sanger, and a few enthusiastic English-language collaborators. A bit over three years later, in March, 2004, there were 6,000 active contributors working on 600,000 articles in 50 languages. As of today, there are 370068 articles in English; every day hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world make tens of thousands of edits and create thousands of new articles.

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

And the Law won

The Guide to Law Online, prepared by the U.S. Law Library of Congress Public Services Division, is an annotated guide to sources of information on government and law available online. It includes selected links to useful and reliable sites for legal information.

The $64,000 Dollar Question

Information Please has been providing authoritative answers to all kinds of factual questions since 1938—first as a popular radio quiz show, then starting in 1947 as an annual almanac, and since 1998 on the Internet at www.infoplease.com. Many things have changed since 1938, but not our dedication to providing reliable information, in a way that engages and entertains. Information, Please! ran as a weekly quiz show on NBC from 1938 to 1952, and was the most literate, long-running radio show of its day. Information, Please! was one of the most popular shows in the Golden Age of radio. The show elevated intelligence and wit as cultural values and allowed everyday Americans to show their smarts. It went on the air just as the United States was emerging from the Great Depression, carried through World War II, and ended as the Golden Age of television began in the Eisenhower 50s.

Monday, October 18, 2004

They linger on, these memories

The Memory Hole launched a companion blog on March 10, where the author will focus on breaking news and information. The Memory Hole exists to preserve and spread material that is in danger of being lost, is hard to find, or is not widely known. The emphasis is on material that exposes things that we're not supposed to know (or that we're supposed to forget).

The Inner Circle of Justice

Radiolovers.com offers hundreds of vintage radio shows for you to listen to online in mp3 format, all for free. Before the days of video games, shopping malls, MTV, and the Internet, families used to sit in their living room each night to listen to radio shows such as Abbott and Costello, Batman, The Avenger, Gunsmoke and many others. When TV become popular in the 1950's, most of these shows went off the air, but they now live on at websites such as this one.

Sunday, October 17, 2004

Land of the free and home of the brave

American FactFinder (AFF) is an online source for population, housing, economic and geographic data that presents the results from four key data programs: Decennial Census of Housing and Population - 1990 and 2000, Economic Census 1997 and 2002 (coming in the Spring of 2004), American Community Survey - 1996-2002, Population Estimates Program - July 1, 2000 to July 1, 2002. Results from each of these data programs are provided in the form of data sets, tables, thematic maps, and reference maps.

Saturday, October 16, 2004

People are people

The Biographical Dictionary covers more than 28,000 notable men and women who have shaped our world from ancient times to the present day. The dictionary can be searched by birth years, death years, positions held, professions, literary and artistic works, achievements, and other keywords. Do you pride yourself on knowing about historic figures and their accomplishments? If so, then try the Master Biographer challenge!

Friday, October 15, 2004

Get a book from the shelf

wordIQ.com is a comprehensive and searchable reference tool on the web. They offer search results from a diverse array of dictionary, encyclopedia, thesaurus, and other valuable references. Their goal is to provide a valuable and free learning tool for students, parents, and teachers alike. They also hope to provide useful tools that will get young adults interested in reading and learning.

Thursday, October 14, 2004

Starry starry night

The best way to learn the night sky is to have someone standing right next to you, pointing out interesting objects. Tonights website was created to impart a bit of that feeling with Tonight's Sky: a star chart and paragraph of information for each day. Every day's segment is designed to guide your eye to something you can see that night, or the next morning before dawn. It might be a constellation, a star, or a planet. Or it might be a celestial event, such as an eclipse. You don't need any special equipment to enjoy Tonight's Sky. You just need to look up.

Schoolhouse Rock

ScienceDaily is one of the Internet's leading online magazines and Web portals devoted to science, technology, and medicine. The site brings you breaking news about the latest discoveries and hottest research projects in everything from astrophysics to zoology. For three years in a row, ScienceDaily has been chosen by the editors of Popular Science magazine as one of the "Top 50 Web Sites."

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Our house, in the middle of our street

On this day in 1792 during a ceremony in the District of Columbia, President George Washington laid the cornerstone of the executive mansion, later known as the White House because its white-gray Virginia freestone contrasted strikingly with the red brick of nearby buildings. Washington died before construction was completed. In 1800, President John Adams became the first president to reside in the White House. The official White House site offers a virtual tour of the building, with historical notes.

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Hail the Pages Turning

Today in Literature features a new original biographical story each calendar day about the great writers, books, and events in literary history. Articles are supplemented with links to recommended websites where you will find author biographies, electronic texts, reviews, quotes and other reference materials of interest to avid readers, members of book clubs, students, and teachers.

Monday, October 11, 2004

I'm Like a Bird

Find out which one on Avibase it is an extensive database information system about all birds of the world, containing over 1.4 million records about 10,000 species and 22,000 subspecies of birds, including distribution information, taxonomy, synonyms in several languages and more.

Don't know much about geography

The Geography Network is a global network of geographic information users and providers. It provides the infrastructure needed to support the sharing of geographic information among data providers, service providers, and users around the world. Through the Geography Network, you can access many types of geographic content including dynamic maps, downloadable data, and more advanced Web services.

Sunday, October 10, 2004

Tales Of A Librarian

Did you ever wonder why a camel has a hump? If you can really tell the weather by listening to the chirp of a cricket? Or why our joints make popping sounds? These questions deal with everyday phenomena that we often take for granted, but each can be explained scientifically. Everyday Mysteries will help you get the answers to these and many other of life's most interesting questions through scientific inquiry. All of the questions presented on this Web site were asked by researchers and answered by librarians from the Library's Science Reference Services.

Saturday, October 09, 2004

Sneakin' Out the Hospital

CaringBridge is an organization offering free personalized Web pages to those receiving care since 1997. The CaringBridge story began after an unbelievable reaction to a Web page created for a premature baby. CaringBridge has grown steadily since 1997 and by the begining of 2004 has hosted more than 16,000 personalized CaringBridge pages, with more than 65 million visits, and more than two million guestbook entries.

Friday, October 08, 2004

Television Man

I’m one of those people that LOVES to read the footnotes at the bottom of the page. If you have ever been excited about the extra details offer by footnotes you’ll appreciate today’s selection. The New York Times has called FootnoteTV "smartly written and scrupulously sourced," and Yahoo! says that its "intelligent and lucid footnotes elevate TV from mere boob tube to a source of thoughtful discussion." The Houston Chronicle says the articles are "beautifully written" and USA Today.com said that FootnoteTV could be the next "online phenomenon." FootnoteTV is a fun way of organizing the news that is only possible on the Internet and that is perfect for today's modern audiences.

Thursday, October 07, 2004

Pictures at an Exhibition

Sniggles.com covers a lot of strange ground - the author thinks there exists something that connects religion and Barbie Liberation Organization, P.T. Barnum and the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, the Pieman and O.J. Simpson. He gives whatever that thing is the name "sniggle," and I think that whatever you call it, it merits study. I found the sections on Art Forgeries and Scams and Frauds to be particularly interesting.

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

Dyno-mite!

Nobelprize.org contains information on all 766 Prize Winners to date. You get to know the Prize Winners through Nobel Lectures, interviews, speeches, articles, and much more. This is the official online source where you first learn the names of the new Nobel Prize Winners in October each year. In December, as the Prize Winners arrive in Stockholm or Oslo to receive their awards, Nobelprize.org reports about their activities. The Nobel Festivities and the Nobel Lectures can be experienced through live broadcast, or at your convenience through video on-demand.

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

Don't take my Kodachrome away

Designed by photojournalists for photojournalists, Best of Photojournalism annually attracts tens of thousands of entries from photojournalists, photo editors and web editors from leading media around the world.

Monday, October 04, 2004

I write the songs

Goto second hand songs to find out who performed the original version of a particular song, or who covered that song. The database contains 25,333 songs (7,498 originals, 16,776 cover songs and 1,059 songs with samples), 10,028 albums and 14,002 artists (performers and songwriters).

Some artists probably aren't even old enough to remember the '80s, but that's not stopping them from revisiting that infamous decade of big hits and even bigger hair. Do these classic new wave tunes sound even better the second time around? You be the judge--listen now!

Sunday, October 03, 2004

Is there anybody out there, just nod if you can hear me

The Online Dictionary of Mental Health is a global information resource and research tool covering all of the disciplines contributing to an understanding of mental health . There are no definitions; instead there are links to many sites offering different viewpoints on issues in mental health, which are accessible using the A-Z links. For a range of general and medical dictionaries, a thesaurus, and many other internet links and search tools try The Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies library.

Dance Hall Days

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame presents The Visual Timeline an interactive, animated compendium of rock and popular music history. Discover unexpected connections between artists. Track the growth of a musical movement. Zoom in on the day the Beatles invaded America, or out to a bird's-eye view of the blues' sweeping influence. It's all here.

Saturday, October 02, 2004

Paradise by the Dashboard Light

Dashboard of best webcams on the net. This dashboard makes it possible to cast a glance on the world in a few minutes with the images available at present on the best webcams of the Internet. There are enough webcams here to satisfy even the bigest voyuer among you! (and no you won't find any cheerleader shower cams here!)

Books Are Burning

The American Library Association brings us Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, the annual event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted.

Found a fellow Blogger who went through the trouble of linking each and every one of the one hundred banned books to amazon, go look at the list, buy one for yourself, then buy another for somebody you love (perferablably somebody still in school).

Friday, October 01, 2004

Blowing in the wind

Since 1792, The Old Farmer's Almanac has published useful information for people in all walks of life: tide tables for those who live near the ocean; sunrise tables and planting charts for those who live on the farm; recipes for those who live in the kitchen; and forecasts for those who don't like the question of weather left up in the air. The Almanac is North America's oldest continuously published periodical and comes out every year in September.