Gale Reference Center Gold

Many of you are probably aware of the databases available on Minerva, a statewide virtual library. However, the Bangor Public Library has a couple databases that are only available to Bangor Public Library card holders. These are Gale Reference Center Gold and The Biography Resource Center. They can be reached by going to http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/bang45018 If you are accessing the database from home you'll need the password. I'm not allowed to divulge it on line (it would make Gale unhappy) but we can give it out in person or over the phone (947-8336 and ask for reference).

So what do these databases do? Well Gale Reference Center Gold is "a general interest database that integrates a variety of source - newspapers, reference books, magazines, and trade publications." For example if you do a search for "economic stimulus package" you will get 556 results from periodicals like Journal of Commerce and New Orleans City Buisness. You can limit your search to full text articles and to academic journals. You can also search for a specific journal by clicking "publication search" at the top of the page.

Biography Resource Center provides full text articles from various biographical reference sources including Marquis Who's Who. Don't know who you are looking for? Well on the left side of the page is a list of browseable subjects like American Presidents and Notable Women. If you typed in say Harriet Beecher Stowe you will get biographical sketches on Stowe from Encyclopedia of World Biography, Contemporary Authors and Dictionary of American Biography. All the entries have a similar format: a short biographical sketch, list of further reading, how to cite the information in a paper, and (if available) a picture of the person.

Below are some screen shots of the databases. As always if you need any help let us know.

Jim Riordan (jriordan@bpl.lib.me.us)

The Wonderful World of Free Software

I am a big fan of the open source movement. For those not already familiar with this it is basically the idea of giving free access to computer software and the source code behind it for constructing new applications. For a more complete definition check out The Open Source Initiative. My reasons for supporting it go beyond getting free software though. As a librarian I support any movement that works to narrow the technology gap in our society. I have also found in many cases open source software is more innovative and adaptable than the commercial equivalent (like firefox).

I was quite happy therefore when I saw the following article in the online version of PC Magazine, "The Best Free Software." It is a review of free software available to the public along with the basic system requirements. There are some things that you have probably already used or heard of like Adobe Reader and Firefox Web Browser. There are a lot of other things as well like OpenOffice.org which is similar to and compatible with Microsoft Office. I use this one on my computer at home and love it. The article also includes web based resources like Google Reader and Zoho which are worth checking out. There were also a bunch I hadn't heard of before and am looking forward to trying. Make sure to read the comments on the article to since they have some other suggestions that weren't included. We'd also love to hear your comments or experiences using any of this software.

Jim Riordan jriordan@bpl.lib.me.us

Famous Mainers At the Maine State Library

I was reading the Waterboro Public Library's h20boro lib blog (http://www.waterborolibrary.org/blog.htm) and they had a post about a new database from the The Maine State Library. It is called Famous Mainers and Famous People With Maine Connections. On the main page there is an alphabetical list of individuals with some Maine connection, their dates and a category they fit into. For example James Blaine is listed as a Political Figure who lived from 1830 to 1893. If you click on the name of the individual, you will get a brief list of their achievements and some useful books and web sites about them (take a look at the image to the right). The books are ones found in the Maine State Library but if we don't have copies of them here at BPL we can get them for you. There is also a search field on the right side of the page. Its a great place to start if you have to come up with a famous Mainer for a paper. Many thanks to the Waterboro Public Library for noticing this and blogging it.

Jim Riordan jriordan@bpl.lib.me.us

Car Repair Online

I just saw an article in the latest edition of Searcher Magazine (the "magazine for database professionals" yes I know I'm a geek :) evaluating automobile repair websites.

Here's the Citation:
McDermott, Irene E. "Baby You Can Drive My Car (If You Can Get It Started) Auto Repair on the Web" Searcher 16(2) February 2008 pgs 8-12.

This is a topic near if not dear to my heart. A few months ago I bought a used car after going over a year without one so I'm getting back into the habit of spending money on it. The article is pretty comprehensive including repair manuals, web sites to help evaluate whether repair costs have exceeded the a car's value, web sites to help you read the On Board Diagnostic Codes, auto repair in Spanish, and even the Car Talk Guys web site.

The article is available online, however, because of copy right restrictions and firewalls I can't link directly to the article. I can tell you how to get there though. You'll either need to have a Maine library card or be using a computer in a Maine library. First go to Marvel "Maine's Virtual Library." Click on Academic Search Premier (first link in the list). If you are doing this at home you will need to enter your library card number at this point. Now type in the title of the article and it should pull it right up. Or you could just ask your friendly neighborhood reference librarian to print it for you.

Although I can't link you directly to the article I can link you to a list of the automotive websites in the article.

If you have a favorite automotive website not listed in the article please share it. And as always let us know what you think.

Jim Riordan, jriordan@bpl.lib.me.us

Cyberbullying

What is Cyberbullying?

A growing concern as more & more of our communications occur online is cyberbullying. Teens & younger children are particularly suspectible to this type of online intimidation.

Cyberbullying is, according to the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, "sending or posting harmful or cruel text or images using the Internet or other digital communication devices." Cyber bullying may occur directly, such as when a hateful message is sent to a target, or indirectly, as when a message, website, or photograph is sent to others and results in later bullying behavior toward the target (source: http://www.unicel.com/standup/adults_intro.html).

As the excellent Unicel site on the subject suggests, "when it comes to broadcasting negative information, the cyber world has become the new bathroom wall." Cyberbullying is occurring across many of our newer technologies: instant messaging services, camera phones, chat rooms, e-mail, Web logs, social networking sites and cell phone text messaging.

The nameless, faceless nature of much of digital communication seems to be empowering folks to say hurtful things or transmit threatening images to others that they would never think to say in a face-to-face situation. Many people are, like the guy in the Brad Paisley song are "so much cooler online." The dark reality is, though, that many people are also decidedly "so much crueler online."

While the damage caused by cyberbullying usually ends at hurt feelings, the consequences can become much more dire, as a recent case in Missouri attests. This case may be an extreme example, but it is an eye-opener as to the bearing the threats or abuse can have on young people lives.

While some states (Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Washington) have laws specifically addressing cyberstalking, many states are struggling with ways to place the same legal penalties verbal threats & physical threats carry to cyber threats. What Can I Do to Protect Myself or My Child?

The National Crime Prevention Council suggests the following guidelines:

*Refuse to pass along cyberbullying messages

*Tell friends to stop cyberbullying

*Block communication with cyberbullies

*Report cyberbullying to a trusted adult

*Blocking communication with the cyberbully

*Deleting messages without reading them

*Talking to a friend about the bullying

*Reporting the problem to an Internet service provider or website moderator

You can also help prevent cyberbullying by

*Speaking with other students, as well as teachers and school administrators, to develop rules against cyberbullying

*Raising awareness of the cyberbullying problem in your community by holding an assembly and creating fliers to give to younger kids or parents

*Sharing NCPC’s anti-cyberbullying message with friends

The most critical of the NCPC's recommendations are below:

*Never post or share your personal information online (this includes your full name, address, telephone number, school name, parents’ names, credit card number, or social security number) or your friends’ personal information.

*Never share your Internet passwords with anyone, except your parents.

*Never meet anyone face-to-face whom you only know online.

*Talk to your parents about what you do online.

Web Resources for Cyberbullying

For more information & tips, go to http://www.ncpc.org/newsroom/current-campaigns/cyberbullying.

Or, checkout the information provided on the Unicel site at http://www.unicel.com/standup/index.html. The Get Involved section is particularly worth checking out.

A series of short information videos about Internet safety produced by the South Carolina Association for Educational Technology for what it calls the "cyber generation" can be found at http://www.scaet.org/csafety/video/wbsc_video.htm.

One last recommended site is http://www.stopcyberbullying.org/.

If you have questions or suggestions, respond to this blog or email me at playne@bpl.lib.me.us.

Presidential Election of 2008

Without getting too personally politically, let's just say that I am pro-voting. So, what follows isn't my harangue on why I'm voting for whom or why this other candidate would equal unequivocal doom for the United States. Instead, what lies beneath are means of locating more about the political or otherwise background of the current Presidential candidates.

Want to know how the current presidential candidates voted in Congress? Take a look at this website: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/. This site provides an easy to navigate means of getting to how Obama, Edwards, Clinton, McCain, not to mention all other Representatives or Senators, voted in Congress. A good feature of this site is that it readily makes available whether the Congress person voted strictly along party lines, even offering a percentage of times someone voted with his/her party.

If you'd like more detailed information about each Congress person (or want to double-check a voting record elsewhere besides the Washington Post -- because you find it too far to the right or too far to the left; pundits evidently are currently debating that it is both), you can get the same information at http://thomas.loc.gov/home/rollcallvotes.html. This site is particularly good for quickly totaling up the yeas & nays (click on the highlighted Vote or Roll #) by individual name & briefly explaining what exactly each vote is about (click on the highlighted issue # i.e. H R 6).

You can link to official web pages about the current candidates who are serving in the Senate at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm. This site offers video of speeches on the Senate floor, synopsis of each Senator's political stance on a variety of issues, links to voting records, brief biographical information, the committees the Senator serves on, contact information for each Senator, & more.

If you are truly aching for a wealth of information about the federal government's legislative body, http://thomas.loc.gov/ will keep you busy for quite a while.

If you are pro-elephant, at least in the Republican Party sense, you will find a sizable amount of in-house party rhetoric & news at http://www.gop.com/.

If you choose a party for whatever reason represented by a donkey (actually, I looked this up; click here for the reason), view the official Democratic Party at http://www.democrats.org/.

[Particularly amusing to me is that each of the major parties' sites feature a "bash a member of the other party currently running for President" type feature on their home page. I guess this is par for the course in 2008: let's blame the other party rather than focus on our party's strengths].

Because there are more than two political parties -- yes, it's true! -- you might also want to check out the ideas offered by a few of the so-called third party candidates. There are links to dozens of official third party sites such as the Green Party, Libertarian Party, the United States Pacifist Party, & others at this link: http://www.politics1.com/parties.htm. This site offers a relatively unbiased synopsis of politics in general in the United States. I would recommend this site actually over both of the major parties own sites if you are truly looking to tone down any in-house rhetoric.

With luck, you'll find this information helpful whether you are a pessimist like the late rocker Jerry Garcia who said "Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil" or a optimist like long ago President John Q. Adams who said "Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost."

Patrick Layne

playne@bpl.lib.me.us

Fun Stuff for Your Time Off During the Holidays

The holiday season usually offers many of us more leisure time than we typically have. Also, given the icy weather we've been having, perhaps you are spending a little more time at home.

If you find yourself bored over the holidays or got lucky enough to get a new computer for Christmas that you want to use, here are a few suggestions for some online fun.

Art

If you are an art fan, give the Smithsonian American Art Museum a try online at http://www.americanart.si.edu/index3.cfm. The Collections & Exhibitions tab on this page opens to a multitude of possible areas to explore. I found much of historical interest & visual delight under the Online Exhibitions link. I particularly enjoyed the American Impressionism & Scenes of American exhibits. Music

Although I remain a fan of what Pandora (http://pandora.com/) can do, I like what Deezer can do even more. Like Pandora, Deezer does not allow downloading of songs. But, Deezer allows a user to pick individual songs or individual artists, allowing a user to created individualized playlists.

Complete albums can be added to your Deezer account. So, if you really like Pink Floyd's The Wall, but don't own it, just create a Deezer account & add it to your playlists. Warning to true music nerds: songs on albums are not in the original album sequencing, so you might want to check All Music.Com to re-sequence an album.

Lastly, many artists entire catalog of songs can be found on Deezer. I have, for example, almost all Beatles songs I want in my Beatles playlist. However, other artists, such as U2 have almost no songs freely available. So, finding what you want can be hit or miss, but this is still a good & fun resource to give a look -- or listen. Online Games

A quick & fun game you might like to try is Guess-The-Google. This game is a simple web application that uses Google's image search to generate a large gridded montage of images based on keywords (search terms) entered by the user. Guess-the-google reverses this process by picking the keywords for you, the player must then guess what keyword made up the image - it's surprisingly addictive. Okay, that explanation makes it seem like less fun than it is. Give Guess-The-Google at http://grant.robinson.name/projects/guess-the-google/.

ArcaPlay (http://arcaplay.com/) is a good directory for quick & easy games covering a variety of game types: puzzle, action & adventure, & sport . One game under the Puzzle category that I like is Numbers, maybe because I was on the math team in high school. Yeah, I was really popular. Another unique game under Action & Adventure is called Wire Skeleton. The sound is out on the computer I'm working so I can't exactly tell what's going on ... but it looks very cool whatever it is.
Literature

One Sentence.org ( http://www.onesentence.org/) features post of one-sentence long stories. The site is equal parts weird, fun, funny, subversive, sad, & disturbing. And this is a good thing. Make sure to checkout the all-time best of the site (http://www.onesentence.org/stories/popular/all/).

If feeling slightly more ambitious, check out 400 Words. com (http://www.400words.com/). The site collects true stories by ordinary people on assigned themes, asking people for the documentation of everyday life by saying a lot while only saying a little. The site stands pretty firm on its own as a literary community, but it also offers recommendations of dozens of other intriguing sites.

Conclusion

If you get bored in the coming months or get confined to your home due to bad weather (if this is what late fall is like, we may be in for a rough winter), give some of these fun online sites a try. Maybe you'll find one to be exactly what you've been looking for or maybe one will lead you to finding or remembering something else.

If you have suggestions for others about sites you like, please feel welcome to share them on this blog.

If you have questions or comments you'd like to direct only to me, you may email me at playne@bpl.lib.me.us or phone me at 207-947-8336 x127.

PENOBSCOT READS 2008

That's right we are rapidly approaching January '08 and our annual community read. The selection for Penobscot Reads 2008 is Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair the first book in the Thursday Next Series. Take a look at the PR08's website where you will find a calender of events, games, links to Fforde's website, and links to all the libraries participating in this years Penobscot Reads. Some of the sites features are still being added so make sure to keep checking back. A few of this years events include: book discussions, lectures on fantasy writing, jeopardy tournaments, and much more.

http://www.bpl.lib.me.us/penobscotreads2008.htm

Jim Riordan jriordan@bpl.lib.me.us

We've Added a Blogroll

Our blogroll (a list of featured web sites) is devoted to other Maine Library blogs. This will let you see what's happening at libraries all over the state. You can find it in the sidebar under the archive. If you are a Maine Library and have a blog you would like to see listed let me know and I'll add you.

Jim Riordan jriordan@bpl.lib.me.us

Search The Catalog From Our Web Site

We've just added an URSUS search window directly to our site. You can now search the catalog from any of the Bangor Public Library's web pages. It is preset to search the whole URSUS catalog (The University of Maine System, Maine State and Bangor Public) so if you want to narrow it to just the Bangor Public Library click on the URSUS icon and it will take you to the main URSUS page. Once there you can select just Bangor Public. If you are using one of our public access computers make sure you erase any text in the search box before you leave to preserve your privacy. And as always let us know what you think.

Jim Riordan jriordan@bpl.lib.me.us