You are currently browsing the monthly archive for February, 2008.
Go to What Should I Read Next? and enter the title and author of a book you’ve enjoyed recently - you’ll get a list of suggested titles based on user recommendations (47,000 and growing).
This site is based in the UK, and unlike Amazon, it bases its suggestions purely on user recommendations, not purchase history. To read a description of a book, follow the link to Amazon UK or US beside the title in your results list.
Alas, you won’t find materials from the MW Library among your search results yet (I’m working on that), but by searching WorldCat, you can search public libraries in the Chesterfield, Henrico, Richmond, and Pamunkey Regional systems, as well as VCU, VUU, U of R, JSRCC, Randolph-Macon and more (phew!) simultaneously.
Enter the title you’re seeking and your zip code and presto! Now all they need to do is integrate it with the GPS in your car or mobile device to help you get there, right?
Does the interface look familiar? You may have used WorldCat before by clicking on Find this book in a library in Google Books or the Library Search in Google Scholar. If you like WorldCat, you can integrate it with your Firefox browser, Google toolbar, or Facebook account too!
Thanks to Cody for suggesting a post about this topic.
You might have used search engines that present your results visually (like KartOO) or organizes them into clusters (like Clusty), but here’s an innovative approach that combines these two features: KoolTorch.
Can you imagine paging through 100 Google results? (yawn), but what if you could see 100 results on one screen, clustered by subcategory, and then quickly hover over each numbered result to see a page preview? Here’s what it looks like to view 100 results for the search query: renaissance art medici (hovering over result #10 in the Arts subcategory). I’m not sold on the quality of the search results yet, but I like the innovative presentation!
What are your peers reading? your teachers? Share what you’re reading, see what others are reading, and talk about books and writing on a private social network created for this purpose: the Dragons Reading Room.
You’ll need an invitation before you can join, so fill out an invitation request and drop it by the library. Soon you’ll be creating your profile, setting up your personal page, adding comments and blog posts, and forming groups with peers who share your reading interests.
Are you passionate about improving the environment, erasing racism, eradicating poverty, or raising awareness about world hunger or the working poor in America? Form a group with Dragons who share your passion so you can discuss the books you’re reading to learn more about your cause.
Want to learn more? Come to the Library Lunch Bites session about the Dragons Reading Room on Feb. 22nd from 11:45-12:05 in the forum (bring your lunch).
Kudos to Mrs. Brown and her students for adding the first course resource list to the MW library research wiki: one for Pre-AP French IV.
Course resource lists are not as extensive as topic research guides (like the ones created to support Model UN research and Shakespeare research). Instead, they simply provide a shared space where students and teachers may collect and annotate course-specific resources.
These are similar to the project guides that I create for teachers in the library’s bookmark account - except these are created by students and teachers. When desired, it’s easy to link to a project guide from a course resource list (as the one for Pre-AP French IV does) or to copy and paste resources from the library’s bookmark account into a course resource list.
To contribute to a course resource list or add a new one, join the library research wiki.
Ms. Chappell has already finished the set-up required to make Destiny, the library’s new online catalog, searchable from home as well as from school.
This required a separate link, so you’ll now find TWO links for searching the library catalog on the left menu of this blog:
Make sure you click on the link appropriate for your location!
If you’re part of the secret poetry society at MW, then this post is for you. Recently, this creative, fun-loving, and reflective group touched upon the idea of practicing poetry writing by modeling master poets.
This can be a lot of fun, and a great way to try on different poetic styles/forms. Since Jane Hirshfield’s The Envoy was suggested as a candidate for modeling, I thought I’d provide a link to the poem for you. Enjoy!
The theme of the NMAAHC’s inaugural exhibition, “African American resistance across 150 years of U.S. history, was inspired by the words of Henry Highland Garnet, an abolitionist and clergyman. On August 16, 1843, Garnet spoke to a group of northern free blacks gathered to discuss the future prospects of black America. Frustrated at the lack of progress, he advocated action:
Strike for your lives and liberties….Let your motto be Resistance! Resistance! RESISTANCE!….What kind of resistance you…make you must decide by the circumstances that surround you….”
The exhibit photographs, selected from the National Portrait Gallery, “reveal and illuminate the variety of creative and courageous ways that African Americans resisted, redefined and accommodated in an America that needed but rarely accepted its black citizens.”
Excerpt from the NMAAHC exhibit site
Take some time to explore this online exhibit from the NMAAHC. You’ll find striking photographs and brief narratives of more than 30 African Americans who took up Garnet’s call, including Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, Ella Fitzgerald, Amiri Baraka, and Malcolm X.
