Facebook Twitter Pinterest Flickr Google+ YouTube Instagram
Written on: October 12th, 2009 by: in Blog Posts
Or maybe a Jynnan Tonnix would be a better choice to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Douglas Adams’ seminal and hysterically funny science fiction classic. Read the article on Wired’s GeekDad blog at this link.
At this point, I would have to admit that HHGTTG was one of my first literary loves, and after hearing about this anniversary I’ll have to dig them out of a box and read at least the first couple. I also think that the original radio dramatization has some of the finest theme music ever written, and it still gives me a chill to listen to it- partly in that it raises a nostalgic sense that the next half-hour was going to be spent in a rare and fantastic universe far from the ordinary:
Written on: October 12th, 2009 by: in Blog Posts
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and throughout the month we’ll be featuring some of the resources available to help the almost 200,000 women and their families diagnosed annually learn about the condition and make decisions about treatment- your public libraries include incredible resources on all kinds of health topics, although of course are no substitute for expert advice from a medical professional.
The National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute and National Library of Medicine/MedLine+ sites include comprehensive information on diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer, including an interactive tutorial. The Centers for Disease Control’s resource page is also a useful and reliable reference. The site offers this informative downloadable flyer with basic information about breast cancer detection and treatment: click here to view it in a new window and print it out.
UPDATE: Click on this link for local events to commemorate Breast Cancer Awareness Month
UPDATE: HHS and the National Cancer Institute have released an updated version of Understanding Breast Changes in time for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Early detection remains a tremendously significant factor for a successful outcome- one of the key goals of awareness month events is to increase access and acceptance of routine screening for breast cancer- and in Delaware eligible uninsured or underinsured women can access low- or no-cost cancer screenings through the DHSS’s Screening for Life program. You can also send a mammogram reminder e-card to your friends and family at this link.
This tutorial from Nucleus Medical Media demonstrates some of the more common breast cancer surgeries, in a clear and straightforward 3-D animation:
Next week, we’ll feature some of the library books, magazines and other resources available from your Delaware Library Catalog library related to detection and treatment of breast cancer. You can see the post at this link.
Written on: October 8th, 2009 by: in Blog Posts
A couple of weeks ago we wrote about the recommended reading list for military personnel preparing for deployment to Afghanistan (you can see that link here). On further exploration, there is a whole world of recommended reading for all branches of the military, by rank and theater, occupation, and many other categories. The following list is by no means complete, but is a sample of some of the titles popular across different lists, particularly interesting or having broad appeal.
Steven Sample’s Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership was the 2007 Commandant’s choice for the U.S. Coastguard. Two years earlier, Collins’ Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies was the selection. General interest titles on the Coast Guard list include Robyn Meredith’s The Elephant and the Dragon, an analysis of the rise to international economic and political preeminence of China and India, and W. Chan Kim’s Blue Ocean Strategy, a study of how modern business practice is transcending traditional competition-based market paradigms.
The U.S. Army War College published its 2009 reading list here. It includes Rick Atkinson’s The Day of Battle and James Carroll’s House of War, a chronicle of the Pentagon’s rise to influence. The list also include James Dobbin’s Beginner’s Guide to Nation Building, which is available on the RAND Corporation’s website (click here to open this document in a new window) and Fukuyama’s Nation Building: Beyond Afghanistan and Iraq
The Chief of Staff of the Air Force also produces a reading list, as does the Navy which recommends a variety of titles by the reader’s rank- from Ender’s Game and Flags of Our Fathers for junior enlisted men and women to the Art of the Long View
and Michael Lewis’ Moneyball: the Art of Winning an Unfair Game– the story of how the Oakland A’s used Billy Beane’s embrace of unorthodox baseball analyses and strategies to create a winning team.
The Center for Military History and Center for Army Leadership sponsor our final lists. Once again they are an intriguing mix of traditional recountings of military clashes and the biographies of the officers who fought them, along with provocative and controversial books on business leadership, innovation, and foreign relations.
Written on: October 6th, 2009 by: in Blog Posts
Click on the links below to get lists of new items available from the Delaware Library Catalog in various formats:
Written on: October 5th, 2009 by: in News
The Stanton Campus Library of Delaware Technical and Community College celebrated Banned Books Week (Sept.26 – Oct. 3) in style with t-shirts and displays.
Recently, popular young adult fiction author Chris Crutcher was the subject of a challenge in Delaware’s Caesar Rodney school district- he penned a thoughtful response to the challenge, addressing the reasons why he chooses the language and dramatic situations which the challengers found offensive. You can read the response on his blog.
Written on: October 5th, 2009 by: in Blog Posts
Another selection of great reads as reviewed in this weeks’ New York Times Book Review. The books listed below as well as a number of other titles from the review are now available from libraries throughout the Delaware Library Catalog- click on the links to read more about the books or place a hold:
Written on: October 5th, 2009 by: in News
For almost 15 years, the Internet Public Library has provided online reference to visitors from around to world. IPL is a partnership, hosted by Drexel University, between a number of American library and information science programs..
IPL provides lists of reviewed and approved internet resources within a huge number of categories in the arts, social sciences, business, health and technology, among other fields- library science students and information professionals review the sites and maintain the categories, so if you need a reliable and high-quality website on a specific topic, the IPL is a good place to go.
Another good place to go is the Librarian’s Index to the Internet (LII), which has been collecting and reviewing websites for almost twenty years- first from California’s Berkeley Public Library and later as a partnership between the California and Washington state libraries.
Ten years ago it was realistic to think that a resource could be maintained which depended on human review, ranking, and categorization, and there wasn’t much difference between the LII and a leading search engine of the day such as Yahoo.com- you can see archived versions from ten years ago at these links- here for LII and here for Yahoo!
The exponential growth of the web in the last decade made the prospect of indexing the web in a controlled fashion impossible, and automated, algorithm-dependent systems like Google became dominant. Removing the human element from creating directories of internet sites has been one of the most significant contributors to information overload- to the point where new search engines like Microsoft’s Bing market themselves on the basis of providing fewer results than Google: one of the few points in Western capitalism where decreasing choice has been seen as a market strategy.
Both ILL and IPL have continued to provide their quality service- the decision was recently made to merge the two organizations in 2010 and become IPL² (their new logo is at the top of this article). We hope that the new site will continue to be the incredible resource to library staff, information seekers, students and teachers that the predecessor sites have been for so long. Congratulations on the merger!
Written on: October 2nd, 2009 by: in Blog Posts
Since 1901, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has been responsible for maintaining and creating official metrological measures for the United States
NIST also maintains an amazing library. It’s a beautiful facility with incredible resources. Web visitors can access a limited set of their online resources and digital periodicals- you can search Web of Science, Transactions of the ACM, read summaries of articles from Science, Nature and other leading science publications, and read about current projects of NIST scientists across every imaginable technical and scientific discipline, including their comprehensive and authoritative report on the fall of the Twin Towers
Their online exhibits on all manner of standards and technology-related subjects are a tremendous resource for classroom educators. It’s quite a find for museum geeks- there are all kinds of displays of different meters (the illustration at the head of this post, for instance, is one of the first official yards used in the US) kilograms, and devices for measuring time and temperature. NIST also maintains the Time.gov website.
NIST is also the agency that supports the Baldrige National Quality Program and the Baldrige Awards given annually to organizations and businesses that demonstrate outstanding quality according to a set of challenging standards. The Delaware Division of Libraries is one of several State of Delaware agencies that have participated in quality initiatives through the Delaware Quality Partnership
I was at NIST to attend a regional meeting of libraries who use SirsiDynix products to manage their libraries. There were presentations from company executives concerning development plans and new services, a tremendous presentation on marketing from the RAND Corporation’s head librarian Walter Nelson– a presentation notable a.) for the fact that the presenter was in California for the event, and b.) for the phrase “social media is word of mouth marketing on steroids!”
Written on: September 30th, 2009 by: in Q & A's
A: The earliest mention of a liturgical celebration of Easter I found (so far) is from an article in Church History by James M. O’Toole.
The article presents a glimpse of the history of American Catholicism through Reverend Anthony Kohlmann’s sermons, as he preached in New York City from 1808 to 1809. He celebrated Easter Sunday mass in 1809.
Below is the citation and you can access the full-text article by logging in to the Delaware Library Catalog with your library card number and password. Once logged in select “Magazines and More” in the green bar and then select “Arts and Humanities.”
O’ Toole, James M., “From Advent to Easter: Catholic Preaching in New York City, 1808-1809.” Church History, Sep94, Vol. 63 Issue 3, p365, 13p
Fun fact: According to Encyclopedia Britannica, in 1878 Lucy Hayes, the wife of President Rutherford B. Hayes, sponsored the first annual Easter egg roll on the White House lawn.
Thanks for using Ask a Librarian Delaware. Have a question? Ask us!
Written on: September 29th, 2009 by: in Blog Posts
Click on the links below to get lists of new items available from the Delaware Library Catalog in various formats (lists will open in a new window):
Don’t forget to check out our other blog postings. This week we’ve written about recent conferences attended by Division of Libraries staff, reviewed new books and websites, and answered your reference questions! You can read the rest of the blog by clicking here.
Delaware's Governor
State Agencies
Elected Officials
General Assembly
Delaware Courts
State Employees
Cities & Towns
Delaware State Code
State Regulations
Business First Steps
Phone Directory
Locations Directory
Public Meetings
Voting & Elections
Transparency
Delaware Marketplace
Tax Center
Personal Income Tax
Privacy Policy
Weather & Travel
Contact Us
Corporations
Franchise Tax
Gross Receipts Tax
Withholding Tax
Delaware Topics
Help Center
Mobile Apps
E-mail / Text Alerts
Social Media
Built by the Government Information Center
©MMXVIII Delaware.gov
