The Top 10s of 2007

How about some information fun to finish out the year?


Here are some top 10 and best of 2007 lists from around the Web:

• Top 10 Quotes of 2007 from the Yale Book of Quotations.
• New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2007.
• Billboard Magazine’s 2007 Year End Charts covering all genres of music.
• How about the Top 10 Baby Names of 2007 from the BabyCenter. (You can also get previous year's names from the Social Security Administration.)
• CNET’s Top 10 Games of 2007. See all of CNET's year end lists and reviews.
• Time Magazine's 50 Top 10 Lists of 2007 - the year in news, entertainment, science, business and pop culture.
• Lifehacker’s 2007 Guide to Free Software & Webapps.
• Teens’ Top 10 ( books chosen by teens, ALA)
• The Top Internet Searches of the year courtesy of Google's year-End ZeitGeist)
  

Didn't get enough of 2007? Hungry for more?

Try ResourceShelf's Lists and Rankings Section or your can do a Google Search for "Top 10 of 2007".

New “Visual Search” Option

The research databases provided by Ebsco* now offer a “visual search” option that will let you search and have your results presented in an interactive, visual map. You can change the style of the Result List at any time by selecting either Block style or Column style from the Display Style menu. Never lose track of your search path again; you can easily navigate back and forth through your search results.

Visual Search gives you options for different ways to group, sort, or filter your search - you can select these options at any time – before you run your search, or after, when you are viewing your results.

Use the Collect Articles area to "drag-and-drop" articles that you are interested in. Items that you "collect" will remain there for the current session, unless you remove them.

A comprehensive tutorial will open automatically when you click on the Visual Search tab in any EBSCO database, to guide you through the functionality of the new Visual Search screens.

*The Visual Search option is available using the following databases: MagillOnLiteraturePlus, Psychology & Behavioral Science Collection and the Religion & Philosophy Collection.

Government Statistics - Hot Off The Press!

Several new editions of major US Government statistical handbooks have been released:

Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2008: The National Data Book

The Statistical Abstract of the United States, published since 1878, is the authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States.

Use the Abstract as a convenient volume for statistical reference, and as a guide to sources of more information both in print and on the Web

Sources of data include the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and many other Federal agencies and private organizations.

This year’s Statistical Abstract includes 64 new tables covering a variety of currently relevant topics, including:

-Components of Population Change by Race and Hispanic Origin
-Estimated Unauthorized Immigrants
-Public Schools Reporting Crime Incidents
-Selected Security Measures in Place in Public Schools
-Internet Service Providers
-Tobacco consumption by Country and Sex
-Top 20 U.S. Gateways for Nonstop International Air Travel
-Life Expectancy at Birth and at 65 Years of Age, by Sex
-Percent of Household Final consumption Expenditures Spent on food, alcohol, and Tobacco

Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH), 2008-09 Edition

For hundreds of different types of jobs—such as teacher, lawyer, and nurse—the Occupational Outlook Handbook tells you:

-the training and education needed
-earnings
-expected job prospects
-what workers do on the job
-working conditions

In addition, the Handbook gives you job search tips, links to information about the job market in each State, and more.

Ways to use the Occupational Outlook Handbook site: (1) To find out about a specific occupation or topic, use the Search box that is on every page—enter your search term in the box. (2) To find out about many occupations, browse through listings using the Occupations links that are on the right side of each page. (3) For a listing of all occupations in alphabetical order, go to the A-Z Index and select a letter.

The Occupational Outlook Handbook is a nationally recognized source of career information, designed to provide valuable assistance to individuals making decisions about their future work lives. The Handbook is revised every two years.

Career Guide to Industries (CGI), 2008-09 Edition

For dozens of different kinds of industries—such as educational services, health care, and motor vehicle and parts manufacturing —the Career Guide to Industries tells you about:

-occupations in the industry
-training and advancement
-earnings
-expected job prospects
-working conditions

In addition, the Career Guide gives you links to information about the job market in each State and more.

Ways to use the Career Guide to Industries site: (1) To find out about a specific industry or topic, use the Search box that is on every page—enter your search term in the box. (2) To find out about many industries, browse through listings using the Industries links that are on the right side of each page. (3) For a listing of all industries in alphabetical order, go to the A-Z Index and select a letter.

The Career Guide to Industries is a companion to the Occupational Outlook Handbook, which provides information on careers from an occupational perspective.

Tutor.com Holiday Closings

Tutor.com, and all Live Homework Help programs, will be closed on December 25, Christmas Day and January 1, New Years Day, so
that staff and tutors may celebrate the holidays with their family and friends.

Personalized News Delivered to You Daily!

You can create a Power Search Alert to get regular email notices or RSS delivery of recently published articles.

This is a great time saver if you want current news and research delivered directly to you.


Search Alerts
From your search results list or from the Issues page you can request notification when new content is added to the database that matches your search criteria. You may choose to have the system check for new content on a daily, weekly or monthly basis and sent you an e-mail message in html format when updates are found. Or you may subscribe to an RSS feed provided by Gale and have content delivered directly to you.

Requesting an E-mail Search Alert

Here's how to set up an e-mail alert:
1. Perform a search using any of the search types to search for the information for which you want to receive alerts; you may use any type of search criteria, including search limiters
2. On the results list, click the Create a Search Alert link
3. To receive alert e-mails, enter your e-mail address in the Mail to field (only one e-mail address allowed)
4. Use the default Alert Name or enter your own text
5. Select the Frequency in which you want the system to check for new content based on your search criteria: Daily, Weekly or Monthly
6. Click the Save button to submit your request

You will be sent an e-mail message to confirm that your request has been received. Then the system will check for new content based on the frequency you selected. The alert e-mail will contain individual links up to the first 20 new content items plus a link to the full results set.
All e-mails you receive will contain a link allowing you to opt out of the alert so that you no longer receive future alerts.

Subscribing to an RSS Search Alert Feed

Here's how to subscribe to the Gale RSS feed alerting you of new content in this database:
1. Perform a search using any of the search types to search for the information for which you want to receive alerts; you may use any type of search criteria, including search limiters
2. On the results list, click the Create a Search Alert link
3. To subscribe to the RSS feed, copy the Feed URL and paste it into the software you use as your RSS reader or news aggregator
4. Click the Close when you have finished.

Now that's a PowerSearch!

You can find the PowerSearch option at the top of every section of the Library's Databases & Websites.
Click here for more information about using RSS (courtesy of CommonCraft).

American Folklife Center: Traditional Music and Spoken Word Catalog

Traditional Music and Spoken Word Catalog

from the American Memory Project at the Library of Concress.

This searchable database provides bibliographic information on approximately 34,000 ethnographic sound recordings. Most were recorded between 1933 and 1950… The majority of these are lacquer and aluminum-based instantaneous disc recordings made between 1933 and 1950. The handful of collections that fall outside this date range is described at the end of this page.

The card catalog represented in this online database was first created by Work Projects Administration (WPA) workers in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and continued by the Archive of Folk Song (now part of the American Folklife Center) staff into the early 1960s. Its purpose was to provide the public with access to the thousands of individual songs, tunes, folk tales, sermons, monologues, and life stories in the Archive’s collections.

Included are the seminal field recordings associated with John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax’s Library of Congress collecting work (Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Jelly Roll Morton), and Alan Lomax’s less well-known field collections in Haiti in 1936 to 1937 and in the upper Midwest of the United States in 1938. There are hundreds of well-known and lesser-known treasures by other notable collectors including Herbert Halpert, Zora Neale Hurston, Henrietta Yurchenco, Vance Randolph, and Helen Creighton, among many others. The catalog also reflects exchange projects with institutions outside the United States, notably the Discoteca Pública Municipal de São Paulo Collection (1938-1943) of field recordings from Brazil; and field recordings collected in Oceania.

You can find the American Memory Project as a linked website on the Library's Databases & Websites under the Subject Guide for History.

2007 National Book Awards Announced!

The National Book Foundation has announced this year's National Book Award winners.

See a complete list of 2007 finalists.

FICTION
WINNER: Denis Johnson, Tree of Smoke (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) - Interview

NONFICTION
WINNER: Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (Doubleday) - Interview

POETRY
WINNER: Robert Hass, Time and Materials (Ecco/HarperCollins) - Interview

YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE
WINNER: Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Little, Brown & Company) - Interview

Find the complete list of National Book Award winners for previous years, and more bestsellers and award winners for children, teens and adults @ Find a Good Book on the Library's Website.

Health & Wellness Resource Center – New Search Interface

We are pleased to announce the release of a new search interface plus a range of new features that make your invaluable Health & Wellness Resource Center even better!


Available as of Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2007 - the enhancements are designed to:

*Make the database easier to use by offering more opportunities to browse through the database and by enhancing your search options

*Add new pathways to information by adding two new tabs - Videos and News now have their own "homes" in your search results
*Lead users to current and reliable health information by exposing more of the rich content and then labeling it so that it's easier to find - "Reference" is now "Books and Fact Sheets" and "Other Sites" is now "Trusted Sites"

See for yourself - look for these new features in your Health & Wellness Resource Center this week:

*A new, updated interface.
*Additional browsing opportunities, with a streamlined design that offers more graphics and highlights current news headlines.
*Video results under a new "Videos" tab.
*Newspapers, newsletters and news feeds populating a just-added "News" tab.
*Improvements to the printing, e-mailing and viewing options available at the document level.
*Access to PDFs for many periodicals, reference, and pamphlets.
*Many content updates.

Since its inception, Health & Wellness Resource Center has established itself as the “go-to” medical reference in libraries everywhere. Providing easy-to-find answers via an intuitive and customizable interface makes this an ideal resource for researchers of all ages and levels of study.

You will find the Health & Wellness Resource Center on the Library's Website under the Databases & Websites Section.

Take a Guided Tour of the new search interface now!

Dietary Supplements Database

National Library of Medicine launches “Dietary Supplements Labels Database”.

The Dietary Supplements Labels Database offers information about ingredients in more than two thousand selected brands of dietary supplements. It enables users to determine what ingredients are in specific brands and to compare ingredients in different brands. Information is also provided on the health benefits claimed by manufacturers. These claims by manufacturers have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Companies may not market as dietary supplements any products that are intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Ingredients of dietary supplements in this database are linked to other National Library of Medicine databases such as MedlinePlus® and PubMed® to allow users to understand the characteristics of ingredients and view the results of research pertaining to them, including the following characteristics:

-Uses in humans
-Adverse effects
-Mechanism of action

The Database can be searched by brand names, uses noted on product labels, specific active ingredients, and manufacturers.
Warnings and Recalls from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), related to specific ingredients and supplement brands have also been provided.

The database is designed to help both the general public and health care providers find information about ingredients in brand-name products, including name, form, active and inactive ingredients, amount of active ingredient/unit, manufacturer/distributor information, suggested dose, label claims, warnings, percentage of daily value, and further label information.

When you are looking for quality, published health & medical information, visit the "Health & Medicine" section of the library's Databases & Websites.

For more information about dietary supplements and herbal treatments, take a look at the Drug & Herb Finder and the Alternative Health Encyclopedia that are part of the Health & Wellness Information Center.

Newsbank Hot Topics for November

Looking for a research topic for school...
Just want to keep up with current events...

Newsbank has provided the following hot news topics for November, 2007. These topics can be searched by visiting the America's Newspapers or Access World News databases.

Here's a few sample topics (you can get the full list below):

HEALTH - Superbug MRSA
TOPIC: A superbug found in over 1600 Australian hospital beds and causing scores of deaths as well as showing up heavily in the US is identified as Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). What is the major obstacle to patient recovery presented by superbugs? How do staph infections transmit?
SEARCH TERMS: staphylococcal infections

ENVIRONMENT - California Wildfires
TOPIC: A rash of terrible wildfires have caused about a half of million people to flee their homes in southern California. What have been some of the obstacles faced by firefighters when trying to contain and extinguish these fires? What are some of the causes of the fires?
SEARCH TERMS: California AND fires

Civics, Government and Politics - Primary and Caucus Schedules
TOPIC: The Democratic Iowa caucus has been rescheduled to January 3, 2008. This change aligns to what other political schedule? What are some of the overall changes in this primary season for schedules of presidential primaries and caucuses?
SEARCH TERMS: caucuses OR primaries AND presidential election AND 2008

ENVIRONMENT - Georgia Drought
TOPIC: A severe drought is limiting the water supply in Georgia, especially in the metro Atlanta area. What has been an environmental concern that has prevented Atlanta from some water that could ease its drought? What are some other contributing factors to the drought?
SEARCH TERMS: Georgia AND drought

SPORTS - Joe Torre
TOPIC: Manager of the New York Yankees, Joe Torre, has resigned his position after rejecting a controversial offer. What were the specifics in the contract that Torre found objectionable? What are the outstanding contributions made by Torre to baseball that will constitute his legacy? Will he be part of baseball next season?
SEARCH TERMS: Joe Torre

Want to see more? Get the full list of Hot Topics (PDF format).

NoveList Notes - November, 2007

New and Revised Explore Fiction Lists in NoveList

NoveList and NoveList K-8's ready-made book lists are great sources for eager readers and busy librarians. NoveList is now pleased to announce that all of our genre-based Explore Fiction lists have been completely revamped and updated. In addition to the updated lists, we have added several new genre lists, including Historical Fiction and Graphic Novels at the Adult level, based on requests from our users.
All of the popular genres, including Mysteries, Romance, Science Fiction, Fantasy and Historical Fiction, are covered in the Explore Fiction lists. Each genre contains a number of lists covering popular sub-genres, for example "Contemporary Romances" and "Romantic Suspense" under the Romance genre. Each list contains 15 to 20 titles, carefully selected by experienced librarians.

Run out of book discussion group ideas? Looking for an easy way to find a good book to read? Use Explore Fiction lists as a quick source for a book display on Classic Science Fiction titles. Create bookmarks with our new Adult Historical Fiction Explore lists to pass out to your readers or place in the historical fiction titles on your new books shelf. This will not only pull your patrons into your collection, it will keep them coming back for more.

Here's how to access NoveList's Explore Fiction lists:
1. Select the Browse Lists tab.
2. Under the Explore Fiction heading, select the appropriate reading level link. To find the new Adult Historical Fiction list, select the "Adult" link.
3. You will see a list of genres to choose from. Select the "Historical Fiction" link.
4. A listing of sub-genres will display. Choose a topic of interest, for example "Immigrant Experience," to see the full list of titles.

At the end of each Explore Fiction list, you will find a description that will give you more information about the books on the list or how you can find more books like those listed. Please note that at each list, you can select a title to link directly to the book record for an annotation, reviews, and links to other resources.

When you are all out of book display ideas, looking for a new way to promote the use of your library, or just in need of a ready-made book list to keep your speedy readers satisfied for awhile, turn to NoveList's Explore Fiction lists for help.

NoveList can be found on the Find a Good Book section of the library's Databases & Websites page.

PC Magazine's Top 100 Web Sites of 2007

Here is PC Magazine's list of the Top 100 Classic Web Sites in 2007. You'll see a lot of familiar URLs on this list, and we hope there are also quite a few that you haven't heard of before. These sites are established and generally best-of-breed in their respective categories.

Also get their picks for the top new or under-the-radar sites of 2007. You may not know many of the sites on this list, but you should! See the full list of Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites of 2007.

Check out some of the top Info & Reference sites.

Auto Repair Reference Center

Auto Repair at your fingertips!

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a reference library with information about recalls, maintenance intervals, repair procedures, and service tips for your automobile? The Auto Repair Reference Center (ARRC) provides this information for most models of automobiles and light trucks from 1945 to the present. It is useful for both do-it yourselfers and professionals. This premium resource is available free to members of our library system.

To access this database, click on the Databases & Websites link, then on the Home and Auto link. Next, choose the Auto Repair Reference Center. If you are using a computer from home, you will then need to type in your library card number. The database is easy to use - simply choose the year of your vehicle, then the manufacturer, then the model. You can view service bulletins or repair procedures. There are additional features, including general videos about brakes, fuel management, heating and air conditioning, etc. These videos are located in the “Auto IQ” tab on the top of each page in the database.


Quick Fact Sheet
ARRC Tutorial video

Price It! Antiques & Collectibles

It’s like “Antique Home Show!”

Price It! Antiques & Collectibles — powered by GoAntiques.com — is the most comprehensive antique and collectible pricing tool in the world.

The antiques and collectibles market is one of the fastest growing markets in the U.S., with an estimated 25% of the population collecting something — and that figure is expected to increase in the coming years. To support this rapidly growing trend, Thomson Gale offers Price It! Antiques & Collectibles — a ‘value maximizer’ for anyone who purchases, sells or collects art, antiques and collectibles. This indispensable online tool helps you ascertain an item’s current realistic market value by aggregating data from its own GoAntiques.com database as well as established, reliable sources like ebay, TIAS and dozens of auction houses. Now your patrons will always have the latest information on the collectibles they seek. And Price It! Antiques & Collectibles can be used from wherever its users have remote access to your library’s holdings…at home, on the road, even from a live auction!

Get a Quick Fact sheet (PDF).

See some Sample Searches.

You can find the Price It! Antiques & Collectibles database with the library's Databases & Websites under "Consumer Information" and "Home & Auto".

Illinois Civil War Muster and Descriptive Rolls Database

The Illinois Civil War Muster and Descriptive Rolls database is a transcription of each soldier's entry in the record series, Muster and Descriptive Rolls. The database contains information about over 285,000 soldiers from Illinois who served in the Union Army during the War of the Rebellion. Each entry includes all of the information that was recorded by the Illinois Adjutant General in the original Muster and Descriptive Rolls. Entries for each roll include soldier's name; rank; age; height; colors of eyes, hair, and complexion; occupation; marital status; birthplace; residence; date, place, and term of enrollment; name

Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.) Civil War Veterans' Memorial at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield of individual who enrolled soldier; date and place of muster into service; name of mustering officer; date and place of muster out; name of mustering-out officer; and remarks concerning transfers, promotions, injuries, or special duty.

You can find this website - and other Illinois Civil War information - at the Illinois State Archives website.

NewsBank Hot Topics, April 2007

If you are interested in Intenational Relations, check out this month's Hot Topics search hints from NewsBank. Find news articles from around the US and around the world for environmental, health, education, crime and politics.

Hot Topics makes a great starting point for your reseach into our contemporary world. NewsBank is the provider of the Access World News and America's Newspapers databases. These can be found with the library's Databases & Websites under "Magazines & Newspapers".