chosen by your "librarian without walls," Marylaine Block marylaine at netexpress.net

sponsored by my bulk mail provider,

April 2

NOTE: My new My Word's Worth column, "Rites of Spring," is available at http://www.qconline.com/myword/baseball.html.

Ceramics and Pottery
http://www.teachpottery.net/
A site for teachers, this includes a syllabus, and for each unit, assignments, handouts, online quizzes and activities, and a webliography. Also includes a gallery of student work.

City-Data.com - Stats about all US cities
http://www.city-data.com/
Compiles city statistics and other data from government and commercial sources. Amount of data available for any given town will vary, but for my city of 100,000, it includes demographic data, new building permits, crime statistics, monthly average weather data, available hospitals, universities, airports, public and private schools, and AM/FM radio stations.

Cyberjournalist.net: Best of Photojournalism Web Entries
http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/001048.php
The wide variety of stories told here with words, photos, audio and video, include those of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital, students in high school marching bands, Iraqi and Afghanistan civilians, Virginia Military Institute's women's soccer team, breast cancer victims, and South Africans ten years after apartheid ended.

The Effect of File-Sharing on Record Sales: an Empirical Analysis
http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/
FileSharing_March2004.pdf
This study by researchers from Harvard Business School and the University of North Carolina analyzes a large dataset of file sharing from the last third of 2002, compares downloads to sales of the same items, and finds that the effects on record sales have been minimal. Includes extensive charts of their data and a bibliography.

FreeFullText.com
http://www.freefulltext.com/
"provides direct links to over 7000 scholarly periodicals which allow some or all of their online content to be viewed by ANYONE with Internet access for free (though some may require free registration)." Alphabetical index only, so this is useful primarily for people who already have a citation to a journal article and want it free and immediately.

Mandate Monitor
http://www.ncsl.org/programs/press/
mandatemonitor.pdf
The National Conference of State Legislatures' report on the $29 billion cost to states of unfunded federal mandates.

Medieval and Renaissance Instruments
http://www.s-hamilton.k12.ia.us/antiqua/instrumt.html
Descriptions, pictures, and brief MP3s of instruments including the kortholt, sacbut, shawm, crumhorn, zink, etc.

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
http://www.9-11commission.gov/
Available here: staff statements, a calendar of hearings, archived videos and transcripts from previous hearings, and more.

National Issues Forums
http://www.nifi.org/
"The National Issues Forums (NIF) is a network of organizations joined together by a common desire to discuss critical issues." The organization publishes reports based on those discussions. Topics of recent reports include terrorism, agricultural biotechnology, and American immigration.

heGovernment.org - Americans for Less Secrecy, More Democracy
http://www.hegovernment.org/
This site is under construction, preparing for formal launch April 13. They'll welcome your thoughts.

Pocket Guide to Transportation, 2004
http://www.bts.gov/publications/pocket_guide_to_
transportation/2004/
From the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, pretty much any data you could want on any kind of transportation -- passenger miles, security, traffic fatalities, freight shipments, fuel efficiency ratings, etc.

Polymorf - Knowhere
http://www.polymorf.net/knowhere.htm
"Discover how the structure of space determines the shape of things," including the principles of geometry, atomic structure, structural engineering, and "gizmoneering" (mechanical engineering). This looks to me like a terrific math and science teaching tool.

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March 26

Airport Codes: The ABC's: An Explanation of Airport Identifier Codes http://www.skygod.com/asstd/abc.html
Explains the origins and why some of those strange three-letter airport codes make sense and others don't. For an actual list of all the identifiers, go to http://www.mapping.com/airportcodes.html and scroll down to the search box at the bottom of the page.

American Profile: Library Cats http://www.americanprofile.com/issues/20040314/20040314_3762.asp
A fun article.

BBC - Science - Hot Topics
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/
You'll want to point students to this as well as the Why Files <http://whyfiles.org/> for the science behind hot topics like animal experimentation, climate change, intelligence testing, etc. Each topic features a timeline of relevant scientific developments, key points in the argument, a review of the science, links to related BBC news stories, and often, audio and video clips.

Ed Hume's Year-Round Garden Projects Calendar
http://www.humeseeds.com/projndx.htm
Even if, like me, you don't dare to plant yet because blizzards are still possible, check out what you CAN be doing in your gardens now.

The High Cost of Not Finding Information
http://www.kmworld.com/publications/magazine/index.cfm?action=readarticle&Article_ID=1725&Publication_ID=108
Susan Feldman details the expense in money and corporate goals when people can't find the RIGHT information in a timely manner. An article to route to your administrators.

Home Maintenance Calendar and Checklist
http://www.demesne.info/Home-Maintenance/
If you're new at home ownership, you probably don't know what routine maintenance you should be doing and when -- cleaning gutters, draining water heaters, inspect your siding, etc. This calendar will help.

InventorEd's Kids Inventor Resources
http://www.inventored.org/k-12/
A terrific starting point for curious, inventive kids. Includes advice on safety and the skills inventors need, inventors' stories, and resource links.

KillerInfo
http://www.killerinfo.com/
This clustering search engine has a quick peek feature and multiple channels that allow you to search exclusively through trusted sources in business, science, kids' sites, etc.

MacJams.com: an Apple GarageBand User Community
http://www.macjams.com/
Includes news forums, a buyers' guide, and a Garage Band resource library. I can't vouch for it personally since I'm not a Mac person, but it seems like it should be useful for people who make music on their Macs.

State of the News Media, 2004, from Journalism.org
http://www.stateofthemedia.org/
An important study of how the economics, audiences, and traditional practices of traditional news media are changing. Analyzes in detail each segment of the media: newspapers, magazines, network TV, etc.

Telling the Library Story Tool Kit
http://www.silo.lib.ia.us/for-ia-libraries/tell-library-story/
The State Library of Iowa provides background info, "scripts," sample press releases and brochures, and more, to help libraries explain the value they bring to their communities.

the Unofficial Yahoo Weblog
http://yahoo.weblogsinc.com/
A good place to find out about new features on or through Yahoo!

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March 19

Boy Meets Book
http://www.geocities.com/talestoldtall/BoyMeetsBook.html
Michael Sullivan, author of the new ALA publication, Connecting Boys with Books, here offers a list of titles boys will enjoy and tips for parents of boys.

Brown v. Board of Education Archive
http://www.lib.umich.edu/exhibits/brownarchive/
"documents and images which chronicle events surrounding this historically significant case up to the present" focusing on "Supreme Court cases; busing and school integration efforts in northern urban areas; school integration in the Ann Arbor Public School District; and recent resegregation trends in American schools."

Burpee Seed Catalog Cover Gallery
http://www.burpee.com/jump.jsp?itemID=598&itemType
=CONTENT_ARTICLE&apage=1
This attractive sampling of catalog covers between 1884 and 2003 is a nice demonstration of how illustration styles and marketing concepts have changed over time.

Conflict with Iraq - BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/middle_east/2002/
conflict_with_iraq/default.stm
An outstanding backgrounder, including current news stories, key documents, a "who's who in Iraq," a timeline, a day by day guide, and images and video.

Dictionary of Canadian Biography
http://www.biographi.ca/EN/
Note that the current range of coverage includes "persons who died between the years 1000 and 1920 or whose last known date of activity falls within these years." The biographies are lengthy, and include bibliographies.

International Religious Freedom Report for 2003
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2003/index.htm
Information gathered and submitted to Congress by the US Department of State.

Invest Wisely: an Introduction to Mutual Funds
http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/inwsmf.htm
"This brochure explains the basics of mutual fund investing — how mutual funds work, what factors to consider before investing, and how to avoid common pitfalls."

Kitchen-Table Computers: Resources and Information for Ordinary People Who Want To Build Their Own PCs
http://www.kitchentablecomputers.com/
The folks at a computer service firm called Geek on the Run have provided a user-friendly guide, with plenty of diagrams and definitions, that assumes nothing about your technical know-how. They haven't quite finished it yet -- "assembling your computer" is said to be coming soon.

Libr.org and Library Juice Swag
http://cafeshops.com/libr
Rory Litwin not only produces the free e-zine, Library Juice, but also provides server space for the Progressive Librarians' Guild, the Social Responsibilities Roundtable, and other good causes. Purchases of these librarian-themed products support his server costs.

National Science Digital Library - Collections
http://crs.nsdl.org/collection/
"a digital library of exemplary resource collections and services, organized in support of science education at all levels." Browse alphabetically by title or search by keyword; for a broad subject guide, use the visual NSDL collection browser.

Paper Toys, Paper Models
http://papertoys.com/
Print, cut, fold and glue these paper models to construct your own Wrigley Field (minus ball-snatching fans), Mississippi riverboat, Globe Theatre, Bill Gates' house, etc.

SMEALSearch
http://smealsearch.psu.edu/
This search engine from the Smeal College of Business at Penn State searches for articles, white papers, and reports on business topics that are freely available on the web. [Note: I have had occasional difficulties accessing this service.]

Technovelgy.com: Inventions from Science Fiction Books and Movies
http://www.technovelgy.com/index.htm
"Explore the wide variety of inventions and ideas of science fiction writers - over 600 are available on-site. Use the Timeline of Science Fiction Invention to see them all, or see the category of science fiction invention that interests you." Entries are brief excerpts from the novels which gave rise to the ideas. Also includes a "science fiction in the news" section.

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March 12

AARP Research Center
http://research.aarp.org/index.html
"research results and reference information to answer your questions about a variety of subjects related to aging," in the areas of health, economic security, independent living, consumer issues, and demographics and reference. Also includes the Ageline Database, which indexes over 300 professional and general interest journals for articles of interest, and includes some pre-prepared bibliographies on hot issues like Alzheimer's, Medicare reimbursement, etc.

BBC Audio Interviews
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/
Interviews drawn from the long history of the BBC include major cultural, political and scientific figures of the 20th and 21st century, including Virginia Woolf, Noel Coward, Aaron Copland, Freeman Dyson, Agatha Christie, Mohandas Gandhi, Werner Heisenberg, Margaret Thatcher, Desmond Tutu, Charles Schulz, George Bernard Shaw, etc.

The Book of Revelation, Apocalyptic Literature, and Millennial Movements
http://clawww.lmu.edu/faculty/fjust/Revelation.htm
Professor Felix Just, S.J., has compiled a remarkable set of resources here, including art, images, and original materials on the Book of Revelations (by chapter), as well as his own topical study guides and annotated links to related web sites. You might also wish to explore his links to Biblical Resources, Church Documents, Religious Art, etc.

Drugs@FDA
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cder/drugsatfda/
"Drugs@FDA provides one place where you can search for official information about FDA approved brand name and generic drugs," and trace their regulatory history.

A Guide to Understanding Mutual Funds
http://www.ici.org/pdf/g2understanding.pdf
This guide from The Investment Company Institute explains what mutual funds are, what the different kinds of funds are, and how they work. It also explains how to establish an investment plan and become an informed investor.

Guide to Wheelchairs and Assistive Technology: USA TechGuide
http://www.usatechguide.org/
"A Web Guide to wheelchair and assistive technology choices, wheelchair views and reviews, and related information and articles. Promoting user involvement in the selection of appropriate assistive technology."

How News Travels on the Internet [Stephen VanDyke]
http://stephenvandyke.com/2004/03/08/how-news-travels-on-the-internet/
"A visual analysis of website interaction," but do read the glossary to find out who the major players are.

John Peter Zenger Lives
http://johnpeterzenger.easycgi.com/
Kate Fox, "recovering journalist," each day links to online editorials and columns, by topic, by news source, and by columnist. She thoughtfully provides links to primary sources to shed light on the opinions.

Keeping Things Found Survey
http://kftf.ischool.washington.edu/surveys.asp
Here's a chance for you to help create knowledge: tell the survey your methods for retrieving information once you've found it.

Links to the Past: National Park Service Cultural Resources
http://www.cr.nps.gov/
I'd recommend using the site map to explore this rich collection of guides to archaeology, mapping, museum exhibits, historic landmarks, military history, etc. The offerings on rehabilitating historic buildings are especially impressive, as are other kinds of technical assistance and training opportunities.

The Micropolitan Museum of Microscopic Art Forms
http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/micropolitan/index.html
From Microscopy UK, "home of enthusiast microscopy." Choose the Freshwater or the Marine Collection to begin your exploration of these strange and beautiful life forms.

Otis White's Urban Notebook
http://www.governing.com/notebook/today.htm
A daily column about the strategies cities are using to improve financial management and enhance public services. You may want to share some of these ideas with your own local officials.

Trendwatching.com Newsletter: Global Consumer and Marketing Trends
http://www.trendwatching.com/newsletter/newsletter.html
Read current and archived issues online or subscribe to the free e-mail newsletter. Recent topics include feeder businesses, consumer-generated content, "maturialism," "mass class," etc.

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March 5

Aerospaceweb.org
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/
Provides "information regarding a wide range of aerospace-related fields, including aircraft design, spacecraft design, aerodynamics, and aerospace history." Includes pics from the Aircraft Museum, articles on aircraft design issues, an "ask the rocket scientist" feature (with an archive of previous answers), and more.

EFF: Voluntary Collective Licensing of Music File Sharing
http://www.eff.org/share/collective_lic_wp.php
How do we reconcile the reasonable desire of performers and composers to be paid for their music, and the desires of file-sharers to continue to download? EFF's proposal to resolve the conflict might just work. See what you think.

Games We Play
http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/games/
Cornell's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections explores the evolution of games since 1800 in this exhibition of antique and contemporary games, and rare books.

Growth without Growth: an Alternative Economic Development Foal for Metropolitan Areas
http://www.brookings.edu/dybdocroot/es/urban/
publications/gottlieb.pdf
This paper suggests that increasing per capita income without population growth might be a better economic goal for metro areas than unrestrained growth, and lists 23 cities that have done so. This study should be of great interest to your public officials.

Internet Alerts Subject Tracer - Information Blog
http://www.internetalerts.info/
Yet another contribution by Marcus Zillman, this provides links to issuers of all kinds of alerts: computer security, medical hoaxes, food safety, recalls, etc. It also links to Zillman's other resources.

KidsGardening! http://www.kidsgardening.com/
Designed for families and teachers, this includes a Q&A library, classroom activities, a teaching themes library, a guide to grants and funding sources, guides for building a school greenhouse and creating wildlife habitat in the schoolyard, and more.

Paper Topics for MLIS Students, from Library Juice
http://www.libr.org/Juice/topics.html
Rory Litwin offers "a list of potential paper topics, or ideas for paper topics, that library school faculty could use or adapt in order to make library school more interesting, challenging, and intellectually rewarding for their students, and that students might want to pursue on their own." Practicing librarians could benefit from thinking about them as well.

The Passion of the Christ [BeliefNet.com]
http://www.beliefnet.com/index/index_525.html
A round-up of criticism and debate about the movie from theologians and scholars of all faiths.

PictureAustralia
http://www.pictureaustralia.org/
"Search for people, places and events in the collections of libraries, museums, galleries, archives, universities and other cultural agencies, in Australia and abroad - all at the same time."

ReadWriteThink
http://www.readwritethink.org/
from the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English, a guide to lesson plans, standards, web resources, student materials, and more.

Same Sex Marriage: a Selective Bibliography
http://law-library.rutgers.edu/SSM.html
While the majority of the citations are to print articles, this is a good start on researching the issue in scholarly articles and legal sources (with some representation of advocacy organizations).

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February 27

Animation on the World Wide Web
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~rllew/animelinks.html
An annotated guide to resources on Japanese, American and world animation, television animation, festivals, technical processes (including several guides for amateurs), and online video and book stores. Its creator, Richard Llewellyn, also maintains a chronology of animation history at http://www.public.iastate.edu/~rllew/chronst.html

Crochet Pattern Central
http://www.crochetpatterncentral.com/
Links to free patterns (limited to those that are illustrated), and tutorials (note the tutorial specifically for left-handers!).

A Dozen Primers on Standards
http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/feb04/primers.shtml
This useful article from Computers in Libraries demystifies those mysterious acronyms for standards, like ARK, DOI, METS, etc. It explains each standard's purpose, who's behind it, whether it replaces an existing standard, what stage of development it's in, and its pros and cons. Bookmark it, because you'll want to refer to it while you're catching up on professional reading.

ElCOSH - Electronic Library of Construction Safety and Health
http://www.cdc.gov/elcosh/
This searchable index to news stories, videos, training guides, etc. can also be browsed by specific hazards, trades, and kinds of job sites. Much of the material is also available in Spanish and other languages. Includes an annotated set of links as well.

Gadgetopia
http://www.gadgetopia.com/
"Geek and ye shall find..." An interesting tech-centered blog.

I Hear America Singing
http://www.loc.gov/ihas/
"This Web site invites visitors to experience the diversity of American performing arts through the Library of Congress's unsurpassed collections of scores, sheet music, audio recordings, films, photographs, maps, and other materials."

Library in the Sky - Educational Web Resources
http://www.nwrel.org/sky/
An interesting searchable collection of annotated links, organized by departments (science, language arts, ESL, library, etc.) and materials (education games, lesson plans, grants, etc.); also has special portals for students, teachers, parents, and librarians.

On the Shelf
http://www.noblenet.org/danvers/weblog/blog.htm
A "blog for avid readers" from the Peabody Institute Library, featuring links to reviews, articles, book-related events, author interviews, etc.

PALS: Performance Assessment Links in Science http://pals.sri.com/
"The National Science Education Standards (NSES) outline what students need to know, understand, and be able to do to be scientifically literate at different grade levels." "PALS is an on-line, standards-based, continually updated resource bank of science performance assessment tasks" that measure student performance on those and various other standards frameworks.

ResearchWorks [OCLC Research] http://www.oclc.org/research/researchworks/
"ResearchWorks demonstrates a few of our ideas for applying new technologies to organize information. In some cases, they serve as examples of things you can develop or incorporate into your own systems." Among the projects: bookmarklets to go from an online title to a search of your own library's catalog for the book, a Fiction Finder, a search through theses and dissertations in the OCLC database, and more.

Soople
http://www.soople.com/soople_int.php
Makes Google's advanced search transparent with a series of drop-down menus.

Space for Nature: wildlife gardening
http://www.wildlife-gardening.org.uk/
News, feature articles, galleries, and links on creating gardens that attract wildlife.

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February 20

The 30 Most Romantic Films Ever
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2004/
02/14/bfromantic14.xml&sSheet=/arts/2004/02/16/ixartleft.html
Even if Valentine's Day is over, this makes a good movie rental list. Each film gets a capsule description, along with a "heartstopping moment."

eHistory.com
http://www.ehistory.com/
Newly located at Ohio State University, this site "for history fans, enthusiasts and students," includes "over 130,000 pages of historical content; 5,300 timeline events; 800 battle outlines; 350 biographies; and thousands of images and maps."

English Accents and Dialects
http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/collections/dialects/
"extracts taken from two large audio resources held in the British Library Sound Archive: the Survey of English Dialects and the Millennium Memory Bank," conducted during the second half of the 20th century." Includes about 130 extended selections which, as best I can tell, are all from Northern England.

First Amendment Library
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/faclibrary/index.aspx
This documentary resource which aims to be "the nation’s preeminent clearinghouse for information concerning the five freedoms" has recently added dockets for this term's First Amendment Supreme Court Cases.

Great Presidential Candidate Selectors [CyberJournalist.Net]
http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/000903.php
Interactive quizzes help you choose the candidate whose views best match your own. Here are four. Take them all, because they ask different questions; there's a good chance you'll end up with different rankings.

JURIST - Hot Topics
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/issues/indexh.htm
"Continuously-updated coverage of hot topics in legal news," including judicial nominations, the death penalty, PATRIOT ACT, insider trading, etc.

Library and Archival Exhibitions on the Web
http://www.sil.si.edu/SILPublications/Online-Exhibitions/
A site you could get lost in for hours at a time. Exhibitions are browsable and searchable by title, sponsoring institution, and keyword. A small random sample from the M's illustrates the remarkable range of the collections: "Making Valentines: A Tradition in America," "Mapping Early Modern Worlds," "Medical Instrument Gallery," "Medieval Treasures: Books & Manuscripts from the 9th to the 15th Centuries," "Most Dangerous Service: A Century of Royal Navy Submarines, "Mexico: From Empire to Revolution," and so much more.

NORD Rare Disease Database
http://www.rarediseases.org/search/rdbsearch.html
The part that's free gives you browsable, searchable databases of descriptions of the diseases and organizations and support groups concerned with them, news briefs, and information on medication assistance programs. Full reports are available by purchase or through institutional subscriptions.

Project on Government Oversight
http://www.pogo.org/index.html
This organization "committed to exposing waste, fraud and corruption in the following areas: defense, energy & environment, contract oversight andgovernment," has forced some useful changes in government practices.

SOSIG: EuroStudies Gateway
http://www.sosig.ac.uk/european_studies/
This subdivision of the Social Science Information Gateway is searchable and browsable by country or region. Its selectively chosen links include lengthy annotations.

Television Captioning: Approved/Disapproved Programs
http://www.nad.org/ouse/action/alerts/
captioningcensorship/list.html
The US Department of Education recently restricted its support for closed captioning. These alphabetical lists tell you which programs the hearing-impaired will and will not have captioned access to. Among the deletions: NFL Films, Law and Order, The Simpsons, Bewitched.

Waypath
http://www.waypath.com/
type in a web site, find books on related topics. Some books are pretty bizarre choices -- lii.org yields a book on music history, marylaine.com yields a book on ways to improve your writing (are they trying to tell me something?) -- but others are germane.

Wireless Gaming Review
http://www.wgamer.com/
Search or browse to find specific games, hottest new releases, games for specific carriers, recent reviews, game articles and previews, etc.

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February 13

Car and Driver Magazine
http://www.caranddriver.com/
This magazine is for people who adore cars, but even if you're not one of them, you'll want to consult its Buyers' Guide for reviews, comparisons and prices of new cars, Blue Book values on used ones, comprehensive test results, the vehicle history reports on used cars, and feature articles like the current review of 4-door pickups.

Center for Public Integrity
http://www.publicintegrity.org/dtaweb/home.asp
This nonpartisan organization aims to "provide the American people with the findings of our investigations and analyses of public service, government accountability and ethics related issues." Topics of recent reports include the privatizing of public drinking water systems, the PATRIOT ACT, who owns the media in any town in America, and who bankrolls Bush and his Democratic rivals.

Drawing from Life: Cartoons and Caricatures in American Art
http://www.sil.si.edu/ondisplay/caricatures/
A historical collection, viewable by topic (marriage, political cartoons, fishing, etc.), from artists ranging by date from William Hogarth (considered the father of the genre) through Art Young.

EdTechPost
http://www.edtechpost.ca/mt/
A blog on "Technologies for Learning, Thinking & Collaborating"

Free Wi-Fi Hotspots Wireless Internet Access List
http://www.wififreespot.com/
"a listing of Wi-Fi locations that offer Free Wireless Internet Access - Wi-Fi - utilizing 802.11 technology. The locations listed in the Wi-Fi-FreeSpot Directory are business locations like cafes, restaurants, coffeeshops, hotels, airports, downtown business districts, malls, retail stores, etc."

Obits Archive
http://www.obitsarchive.com/
"ObitsArchive.com is the largest and most comprehensive collection of newspaper obituaries and death notices in the United States." Obits are searchable by the name of the deceased person, and by key words in the text (a search for "Herblock" worked nicely to bring up political cartoonist Herbert Block). Coverage goes back at least as far as 1990 and possible before (there were several tributes to muppeteer Jim Henson, who died in 1990).

Ornithological World Literature [OWL]
http://www.birdlit.org
"a compilation of citations and abstracts from the worldwide scientific literature that pertain to the science of ornithology. A major attraction is its coverage of the 'grey' literature, which are not abstracted by commercial databases such as Zoological Record or the Science Citation Index."

Rare Books from the Missouri Botanical Gardens Library
http://ridgwaydb.mobot.org/mobot/rarebooks/index.asp
This ongoing project features 46 digitized volumes; 16,133 pages and 2,050 botanical illustrations are currently available. Browsable by title or author. Many of these beautifully illustrated volumes date from before the photographic era.

Researching Family Law
http://www.virtualchase.com/articles/family_law.html
Genie Tyburski uses a case study to illustrate a strategy for researching a family law topic.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Database
http://lib-oldweb.tamu.edu/cushing/sffrd/
"An online index to over 60,000 historical and critical items about science fiction, fantasy and horror," which is an extension of several editions of Science Fiction and Fantasy Reference Index, covering 1878 through 1995.

Searching the Internet for Images [TASI]
http://www.tasi.ac.uk/resources/searchingresources.html
An excellent systematic tutorial on finding images, which includes reviews of the different image search engines and links to major general and topical image collections.

World Poetry Audio Library
http://www.english.eku.edu/Pellegrino/worldpoetry/
A limited selection, but useful, since poetry is designed to be heard, and a good recitation unlocks meaning.

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February 6

10 Emerging Technologies That Will Change Your World
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/
emerging0204.asp?trk=top
2004 edition of Technology Review's annual list.

Elections 2004
http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/elec2004.html
A round-up of candidate information, policy issues, and more, from Grace York of the University of Michigan Documents Center.

Evidence-Based Guidelines for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in Women
http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/
01.CIR.v1.pdf
The new guidelines announced today by the American Heart Association to stave off the biggest cause of death in American women. A summary is available at http://americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3018804.

Folk Dance Association http://www.folkdancing.org/
Includes a calendar of camps, cruises, festivals, etc., a directory of folk dance classes for the US and Canada, a library of (some) articles and web sites on different types of folk dance styles, and more.

Governors' Legacy Project http://www.nga.org/governors/1,1169,C_SEARCH_GO%20V,00.html
"a new database for the public to find information about state governors going all the way back to colonial times." Searchable by name and state (a state search brings up all its governors). You can also click on various "trivia" -- fast facts on governors, female governors, governors who have died in office, etc.

Government Performance Project 2004 -- Health Care
http://www.governing.com/gpp/2004/intro.htm
Part of Governing Magazine's continuing series, this report, titled "A Case of Neglect: Why Health Care Is Getting Worse, Even Though Medicine Is Getting Better," examines problems with public health, long-term care, mental health, children's care, insurance coverage, and prescription drugs. You can also check out summaries for individual states.

International List of Scale Model Related Web Sites http://scalemodel.net/
That's scale models of everything -- trains, planes, architecture, dollhouses, roller coasters, farm equipment, science fiction figures, etc. Also includes guides to manufacturers, hobby shops, modeling techniques, clubs, photos, magazines, newsgroups, etc.

the Life of Birds
http://www.pbs.org/lifeofbirds/
The companion web site to the PBS series with David Attenborough provides essays, pictures and audios for each program installment: bird brains, evolution, champions, parenting, and songs.

Low Carb Recipes
http://www.low-carb.great-recipes.tv/
Given the popularity of Atkins, you probably have a demand for this at the reference desk these days.

Political Patterns on the WWW
http://www.orgnet.com/divided.html
Using the "customers who bought this also bought these books" feature on Amazon and other online bookdealers, the site's creators demonstrate pretty conclusively that authors of political books on the left and right are preaching to their choir, not persuading anybody outside the fold.

The Revealer: a Daily Review of Religion and the Press
http://therevealer.org/contents.php
"a publication of the New York University Department of Journalism and New York University's Center for Religion and Media," whose "goal is to develop and broaden scholarship, pedagogy, and public knowledge of religion and media, in all their forms." Includes articles, an archive, discussions, and links to the religious media and media about religion. A useful supplement to news media that act as if religion is not a normal part of American life.

Space.com -- Something Amazing Every Day
http://space.com/
This gorgeous and fascinating site deserves to be browsed at length, since many of its most intriguing features (virtual tour of the universe, interviews with authors of books on space, downloadable wallpapers and screensavers, program schedules for US planetariums, the Space TV Archive, etc.) are not visible from the navigation menus.

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